English as the EU’s only official language

I honestly hope that what the title says will never come true.

 

This is just for fun (I know it’s old, but there’s a big chance not everyone’s seen it).

 

 

European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as re plasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Christmas

 

Christmas season which began months ago is reaching its peak. Main streets and shopping centres are besieged with rushing people. I took part in this act of madness when I went to get presents for my friends (and one for myself!) and supplies to survive these few days of holidays. Credit crunch still remains almost invisible.

This is the third consecutive Christmas that I’m not spending with my family and only now am I beginning to miss being with them at this time. The Christmas Eve supper I’m making is going to be nothing like the supper I would be having now in Poland. After all, how can cod with roast potatoes compare to, traditionally, twelve dishes which include my favourite pierogi and barszcz? I’ve already promised myself to spend the next Christmas with my family. Just to think I had never particularly liked this time of year.

 

I would like to wish all my friends and everyone who reads this blog a very Happy Christmas.

Not again! :(

 

I can't stand this anymore! I'm jobless, homeless and they will probably kick me out of uni...

Help!

Christmas Lights

 

Today Glasgow has officially begun the festive season with a, as it said in the letter from the City Council, spectacular fireworks display. Our landlord got us tickets, so we decided to see what this so much talked about event would look like and we weren’t disappointed. There were thousands of people in George Square (I didn’t hear well if they said seventy or seventeen thousand but it doesn’t matter). The fireworks show lasted for almost ten minutes (if I remember correctly) and it was truly spectacular. The clip below doesn’t convey the atmosphere there, but you get an idea.

 

Botanic Gardens

 

I went to the Botanic Gardens (again!)

Nothing interesting really, nature is dying cos of the weather (and I feel like I’m doing the same). I recorded a short clip of fish swimming in the pond. Let’s see if it works.

 

Polish euro coins

 

Here are some pictures showing what the future Polish euro coins might look like. They were designed by an Italian guy and inspired by my ideas :)

As some of you may already know, the Polish government is aiming to adopt the common currency in 2012.

I hope that, at least, the stork and the wisent can be found on the actual coins.

 

 

1 cent - the pike

 

2 cents - the stork

 

5 cents - the wisent

 

10 cents - Frédéric Chopin

 

20 cents - Nicolaus Copernicus

 

50 cents - Marie Skłodowska–Curie

 

€1 - Coat of Arms

 

€2 - Coat of Arms

Words of wisdom

No, not mine, but I agree with them.

 

It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their accents.

Oscar Wild

 

America is a country that doesn't know where it is going, but is determined to set a speed record getting there.

Peter Lawrence

 

America is one long expectoration.

Oscar Wild

 

I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.

Dr Johnson

 

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Mark Twain

 

Sir, they are a race of convicts and ought to be grateful for anything we allow them short of hanging

Of the Americans: Boswell, Life of Johnson

 

America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

Georges Clemenceau

 

Of course, America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

Oscar Wild

 

And my favourite:

Nothing good comes from America

J. Brooks

 

Novella

 

novella [nə'vɛlə]

■ noun a short novel or long short story.

 

Found in my dictionary. Who knows what they meant by "long short story"?

Who doesn't like Brown?

 

It appears that not only Icelanders think Brown stinks.

 

I'm still alive

Yeh, I know, I haven't written anything in a long time and many things have changed since then.
First of all, I am still studying Italian at an Honours level, without doing the Honours degree. What does it mean for me? Basically, that I attend classes with people who have recently come back from Italy and are all so good at Italian. So, the level is high and I find it difficult to follow. My other subjects are Philosophy (!) and Exploring the Cosmos. Can't really say much about these as I have only been to a few philosophy classes and none of Exploring the Cosmos.
I have also moved to a new, very nice flat in the City Centre. This means I need to walk to the Uni for around 30 minutes at a fast pace. Good for my health, I suppose. And because this is a non smoking flat, if I want to smoke I need to go outside and am forced to enjoy the weather.
I had to take the underground to go to the uni the other day, cause I was running late for a class, but the train seemed to be taking too long to leave. After about a minute or so, we heard a bang after which some woman came and told us to get off the train. There was lots of smoke and the station had to be evacuated. The firefighters arrived followed by the police. That was supposed to be my first class of Exploring the Cosmos I was going to go to. Well, maybe next time.

 

Photos (click to enlarge)

:((((((

 

I haven't been admitted into honours and am not going to Italy. The good (?) news is I will be graduating next year.

Bye, bye Poland

 

I'm leaving my town in a few hours. I would love to stay here for a few weeks more, but my heart wants to go back and there are things I need to do in Glasgow.

I am really looking forward to the day when we get a nice and cheap train connection with the UK. So far, it looks as if this will remain a dream for a long time.

Flying doesn't belong to the nicest means of transport and I certainly don't feel like getting on a plane after what happened in Spain...

Anyway, let's hope for the best and see you in rainy Scotland!

Śmieszny czeski

 

 

Mio, you twat, thanks for an interesting day.

Do you know where Ostrołęka is?

Well, you probably don’t. And neither did I until I found it on a map. It’s an, I would say, average sized town in the north-east of Poland, about a hundred kilometres from Warsaw. That’s where I was going to in the morning when everything went wrong. My brother’s-in-law brother had to go there just to pick up some stupid documents and he asked me and his other brother to keep him company. We set off at 5:30 in the morning and headed for, at least that’s what we thought, Ostrołęka. Mio, the sat nav with a pretty voice and still imperfect grammar was showing us the way. She had been programmed the night before and was supposed to take the shortest way. I had a traditional map as well, just to see how well she was doing. And she was indeed. Until we realised that instead of going north, she was taking us straight into Warsaw. We had our doubts and decided to call my sister’s husband to ask if she knew (Mio) what she was doing. He managed to convince us to trust her no matter what. And so we drove into Warsaw, which of course was the wrong direction, had a ride along the ring and stopped on the opposite site of the city. The screen was showing that there were just a few kilometres left, but it didn’t look so on the map. Despite this, we followed her directions and went into an uncharted territory. What we found, were tiny villages connected by strings of even tinier roads and it certainly didn’t look like a place where the Municipal Council could be found. When Mio, who by then had been cursed and shouted at by us, announced that we had arrived at our destination, all we could see was an old village, with the village leader’s house, a church and a monument. We decided we had to get out of there and go to the ‘proper’ Ostrołęka as quickly as possible, cause we were running out of time. This wasn’t so easy though, as there were more than just two places with this name. So, it seemed like a good idea to choose a village near our Ostrołęka and just go there. It worked quite well, we were going northwards, in the right direction, until we stopped in another village quite far from our destination. This was tiny and there was no way you could find it on a map. I ask myself why the sat nav had this hole in its memory and not the other one, which was much bigger. We nicely refused to continue making use of her services and went on according to the map. After several minutes of almost carefree driving, we got stuck in a traffic jam. Having stood there almost motionlessly, all of us agreed to turn back and go another way. To make this already long story short, I will just say that we spent about one hour driving through the many villages and along dirt roads. We didn’t make it on time to the office, but eventually found another person who could go there and get things done in a few days.

Throughout the way, I was taking pictures, which you can see below, from the car. All told, there are 225 of them, but I only selected a few. Thankfully, our journey back home was devoid of any surprises and Mio did a first-class job. I was home after 18 hours.

 

 

 

   

  

  

  

  

  

  Full sized gallery here.

 

Oh, and we miraculously avoided getting a ticket for speeding (48km/h over the limit :)

New vehicles

New day, new experiences.

 

My whole family went to have a barbeque and since there was a scooter and a car I took the opportunity and drove them both for the first time in my life. I did 60km/h on the scooter and 100k/h with the car. I can't wait to get my driving licence :)

Only next time I'm driving I need to be sober.

Back in Poland

How nice it is to be back.

 

After a year long break, I am finally back in my home town. Poland in summer can look really nice, with the blue sky, green trees and meadows, yellow fields and shiny surface of the many lakes we have up here in the north. The trip from the airport near Gdańsk was a very pleasant one and breathing the warm air and experiencing all these vivid colours contributed to it.

 

  

Not far from my town there was a welcoming sign written in both Polish and the local language called Kashubian. It's also a sing that the country is changing and so is people's mentality:

 

I visited my Granny in the hospital and she was extremely happy to see me. The fact that I was coming had been kept in absolute secret from her so she was very surprised as well. Soon after leaving the hospital we headed for a quiet spot by a lake to... well, swim of course! The water wasn't cold so we really had a good time and some good laughs while messing around. Then, in the evening I met a good friend of mine whom I hadn't seen for two years, so we had loads to catch up. We met near the castle and went straight to the pub where we had used to go to when we were still at school.

At night, another friend of mine drove me several kilometres outside the town to another lake. Living in a big city, I had completely forgotten that there is such an enormous number of stars in the sky. We were far from civilisation so no artificial lights were dimming them. I couldn't help keeping my head high up and gazing; it was spectacular. Once so used to this view, this time I must have behaved like a blind who had just recovered his sight. I also spotted two shooting stars but made no wishes.

Funny Czech

 

Tomorrow flying to Poland, but before that, waiting for the aeroplane all night in the airport. How I hate flying.

Here's something funny for those who know Polish :)

 

Violence

 

Although summer’s in its full, the weather leaves a lot to be desired. It’s difficult to believe but there has been just a handful of days (2, maybe 3) this month when I didn’t have to wear a jacket. And of course, a day without rain is a lost day. The BBC has promised us a few sunny and warm days this week and let’s hope they keep their word. Anyway, this won’t be about the lovely Glaswegian climate. What I wanted to share with you this time is some description of the violence in the streets of the murder capital of Europe.

One day, my colleagues and I talked about it during breaks at work and I heard some terrifying stories of events they had witnessed or been involved in. No later than when I was coming back home did I witness one of them myself. I had just got on the bridge going across the river when I heard a cry for help coming from the bank below followed by a sound of a bottle being smashed. I crossed the street and saw a three or four-strong group of teenagers kicking and punching another guy who was trying to break free. He fell on the ground, got another bottle smashed on his head, whereupon they started kicking him again. Despite the fact that this was all happening almost in the city centre, next to a busy crossroad, no one ran to help him. Some just watched the incident from their cars or from a safe distance on the pavement. Without thinking too much I dialled 112 and got quickly connected with the Police (I wanted to help that poor guy somehow but I knew I had no chance against a group of neds). The operator on the other side of the line asked me a few questions but unfortunately I was not able to remember many details. Eventually, the guy managed to run away without anyone else’s help.

When I visited the scene a few days later, I noticed that all this had taken place right in front of a CCTV camera, so hopefully the Police have found those bastards and punished them accordingly.

There was another fight outside a pub under my friends’ flat window a few days ago. This one wasn’t so appalling as only some drunkards were involved in it.

And here’s a piece of the recording of the fight:

 

 

Last Sunday, on my way back home from work, I found myself in the middle of a fight between a Scottish man and a woman and load of dark-skinned guys. This happened in the very city centre and again, I don’t think that they were fighting fair (maybe I’m wrong but kicking a lying guy on his head doesn’t seem right).

Such things (and much worse) happen here every day, when you listen to the news you just want to curl up and die.

 

And finally, an article about Glasgow from The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/apr/11/ukcrime.lornamartin

Ktokolwiek widział, ktokolwiek wie

Nie ma mnie dla świata, a przynajmniej tego internetowego. Jak miło dni mijają, kiedy nie jest się przywiązany do wirtualnej sieci nicią uzależnienia.

Dni wydają się dłuższe, mam więcej czasu na drobne przyjemności, takie jak czytanie książek, rozmowy z przyjaciółmi, przechadzki po mieście, a co wieczór na obejrzemie jakiegoś filmu. Żyć nie umierać.

Wakacyjne plany uległym znaczącym zmianom. Do Polski się na razie nie wybieram, zostaję w Glasgow i pracuję, potem poprawka z literatury włoskiej i może parę dni gdzieś nad morzem śródziemnym. Zobaczymy.

 

Сто љат, сто љат, бља бља бљааааа...

Чыљи 23 љата на карку (о йа пиердољѧ!)

Вчорай обходьилем свойе 23. уродзины, аље йакось (выйѫтково) ње прьеймовалем сьѧ тым, же в тьѫгу йеднего дња постарьалем сьѧ о рок. Потьешам сьѧ, же двадьесьтьа киљка љат то ње йест (йешче) дужо.

Обљалем влоски... 26. сьерпња поправка. З ческиего Д1, чыљи теж до дупы. Ње оддалем пройекту и остатњего есейу а те два былы найважњейше. Аж дьив, же заљичылем прьедмиот. Йешче чекам на выники з португаљскиего.

Прьеде мнѫ остатња ноц на Мурано. Бѧдѧ тѧскнил за тым миейсцем. Тыље вспомњењ, так виеље сьѧ в моим жытьу змиенило миешкайѫц ту.

Мóй рок академицки йуж правие добиегл коњца а Иза враца до Пољски. Повољи замыкамы кољейне роздьалы нашего жытьа. Обы даљей было  рóвње тьекавие.

Но, а дьисиай Ирљандиа глосуйе. Њех нас ње завиодѫ.

Die Person aus Deutschland

Wer bist du? :)

Eurovision 2008

An event which once used to unite Europe now seems to divide it.
 

A few days ago we could all see another spectacular final of the Eurovision Song Contest and as it usually happens after the show, there were voices of disappointment, outrage and complaint. There are some who say the winning song didn’t deserve to win and that it happened only because of the, so called, ‘neighbourly voting’. It must be true to a certain extent as most of the highest points were given to Russia by its neighbour countries which long ago created the USSR. But giving points to neighbouring countries has been part of Eurovision for a very long time: Cyprus and Greece almost always exchanging douze points, the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland) voting for one another and Ireland and the UK doing the same. It can be said, that this kind of behaviour has been almost an icon of the contest and people treated it indulgently. The situation has, however, changed as more and more Eastern European countries started joining. Last year’s winner, Serbia, won the contest because of, as many claim, votes from countries of former Yugoslavia which had voted for the song. And again, this is only partly true, for even if only Western Europeans had been allowed to cast their vote, Serbia would have still won. This year’s winner, Dima Bilan from Russia, came first due to the high number of votes from Russia’s neighbours but also from other countries without a big Russian diaspora.
Maybe Eurovision has become too much about politics and too little about music, but on the other hand, the example of Finland shows that when there is a strong favourite in Europe, even politics won’t stop it from winning. And I’m afraid this year there was none and political voting might have determined the winner.
What saddens me most is that there were many good songs which weren’t lucky enough to go through the semi finals or which finished up outside the top ten.
My favourites included (in no particular order):
Portugal – Senhora do Mar
Romania - Pe-o Margine De Lume
Serbia - Oro
Israel – Ke'ilo kan
San Marino – Complice
Switzerland – Era Stupendo
The last two (both sung in Italian) were never to appear in the final.
In my opinion, the two entries which shared the last place (Poland and the UK) didn't deserve it at all. Those positions should have been taken by France and Spain as songs from these two 'great' contestants were an utter disgrace.
 
Let’s hope that the EBU will come up with a solution to the supposed problem of political/block voting before other countries start fallowing Austria’s steps and withdraw from the contest.
For now, all what’s left is to congratulate Russia their victory and to hope that next year we will see another wonderful show which the rest of the world can only envy us :-)

Злодьейе йебане

Њевиеље йест рьечы бардьей вкурвиайѫцых, њиж бытье офиарѫ крадьежы. Йа падлем йей офиарѫ остатњей ноцы. Допиеро дьисьай по полóдњу йак забиералем сьѧ до зробиења чегось до йедзења, зориентовалем сиѧ, же зњикнѧлу двие пицце з замражаљњика. Таљерье умыте, пиекарњик розгрьаны, а пицц ње ма. Втеды прьыпомњало ми сьѧ, же попрьедњей ноцы ктось вшедл до миешкања, потем до кухњи и вышедл. Мойе вкурьење сьѧ ње было споводоване вартосьтьѫ утрацоных дóбр (бо обие пицце коштовалу йедыње два фунты), аље самым фактем, же ктось мóгл безчељње прьыйсьть и взьѫть цось, цо до њего ње наљежало. Сьвиње и тыље. Гдыбы ње то выдарьење, то миалбым спокойны, звыклы дьењ. Аље ње ма тего злего, цо бы на добре ње вышло, и Томми зробил пышне тьасто зе шпинакием, шункѫ, саљами и цебуљѫ: 

А на закоњчењѧ, здйѧтьа з мѧскиего кибља в глóвней бибљиотеце универсытецкией: