The Brexit referendum happened 8 years ago. I remember that I didn’t believe right to the end that Britain can be stupid enough to do it to itself. What else do I remember about that? I remember the next morning we were driving our car to work (we worked together in one office back then). […]
Great Britain
Review of “The King of Bullshit News?” by Michael Leidig
Some of my long-time readers might be familiar with the campaign, which involved Gazetae.com, a portal I used to be a deputy editor of, in which we were trying to tackle misinformation and deliberate slandering of Eastern Europe by the British media. One of the most famous cases was a story published by Daily Mail, […]
Butterfly Effect
by Martyna Sokołowska Translated, edited and additional commentary by Tomasz Oryński Every day army of young wannabe journalists fill the space in the Daily Mail and other British tabloids with bits and pieces they find on the Internet or from news agencies. They wade through oceans of data in search of the stories that they […]
Courts are for real Britons. For brown girls – life as stateless person in a refugee camp.
Shamima Begum is a London-born girl, who some years ago, aged 15, ran away from her parents to join ISIS. She wanted to be a mother to the children of martyrs. Today, the British court decided that striping her of British citizenship is a rightful decision. I believe this is a day of great shame […]
You are not so great, Britain. Chapter 10: So long, and thanks for the fish (and chips)
It’s time to bring the project to a close. In this chapter, we touch on some subjects we haven’t covered and check if Elisa’s British boyfriend still wants to talk to us. Thank you for being with us through those 10 episodes, and let’s hope we’ll meet one day in our new podcast entitled “You’re […]
You are not so great, Britain. Chapter 9: Hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to work we go.
People from all over the EU until recently were coming to the UK in their thousands to look for work. People from other parts of the world still find Britain an attractive destination. But is the British work market a good place to be an employee? Was it ever? Are salaries really good and workers’ […]
You are not so great, Britain. Chapter 8: Trains, buses and everything.
One of Elisa’s English language students said that “Britain is the country where everything is organized and buses are always on time”. Oh, how wrong she was. With the bus and rail strikers, the government accuses trade union leaders for “making the public transport unreliable”. But perhaps they should go on strike, because it can […]
You are not so great Britain. Chapter 7: British Universities. Are they really so good?
We invited professor Jan Čulík, lecturer in Czech from the school of modern languages and cultures at Glasgow University today. We decided to ask him if the British universities, so famous around the world for their teaching quality, are really as good as their places in the rankings show. Turns out, not everything is […]
You are not so great, Britain. Chapter 6: Trucking hell!
Our guest today is Mat Ireland, driver, podcaster, and writer. We discuss the topic of the infrastructure for truckers in Britain. You can find Mat: – on youtube – on Facebook – the Truck and Driver podcast is here and you can find his book here Related posts: You are not so great Britain. Chapter […]
You are not so great Britain. Chapter 5: British bureaocracy.
This week Elisa and Tomasz discuss why British bureaucracy is so dysfunctional and what can be done to improve users’ experience in contact with the government, banks, and other institutions. To illustrate problems when talking to automatic voice recognition systems, we used a fragment of a clip from a TV show Burnistoun: https://youtu.be/HbDnxzrbxn4 Related posts: […]