Road haulage of 21st century is no longer a romantic adventure as it used to be even 25 years ago. The market is dominated by big companies, trucks in Europe are channeled mostly to motorways and human touch is less and less needed. Today this business is often less about transporting goods, more about feeding […]
Scotland
I’m dreaming of a Polish Christmas, not those from Coca-Cola ads.
In the last days of November, I switch my British radio off for good after hearing the voice of George Michael for the first time. The fact that a heartbreak song became a Christmas anthem says a lot about how shallow Christmas became in Anglo-American culture. In Britain you want it all, and you want […]
Losing a friend helped me find my roots in Scotland
Western customs and traditions usually settle well in Poland. Especially fresh after the fall of the Iron Curtain, we were thirsty for all that we could so far only see in American movies. But while Valentine’s Day and other commercial holidays took root almost instantly, there is one tradition that is having a rough path […]
Scotland is one of the best countries to be Polish nowadays
In recent months we have witnessed a significant rise in hate crime against foreigners in England. Many of the victims were Polish. What has escaped the attention of England-centric media (both in Poland and in the UK) is the fact that Poles in Scotland still feel welcome and safe and such acts are almost unheard […]
How anti-Muslim hysteria is being spinned up in Poland
It turns out that you don’t have to do much. It’s enough just to place a suggestion, slight reticence, perhaps even without any wrongdoing in mind, and the shit surfaces immediately. Let’s see how it works on the case study of a news story on the Polish portal onet.pl regarding an event that has happened […]
Is Brexit yet another outgrowth of British throwaway culture?
The dust after Brexit is slowly settling down. Of course, though, everyone still discusses it. My pro-Brexit friends still use every opportunity to point out the flaws in the European Union. It’s usually just a few things — mostly about migration and limiting sovereignty. Some, when pushed, admit that “actually the European Union is not […]
Brexit: Are Poles in the UK really the ones who should worry?
With Brexit becoming a reality, there is a lot of talk about Poles needing to worry about their future. But are we really the ones who should be afraid of things to come? The first thing that came to my mind on Friday morning was that frame from an old French comic book in which […]
If I am British, good soldier Švejk has to be as well.
Today while casually browsing the internet, I popped onto a small video clip in which a comedian Joe Lycett tells a story of how he got off the parking fine by using British Humour: Several comments claimed, that “Only Briton could avoid paying parking ticket by being perfectly polite and at the same time ridicule […]
Poles at the polls: Voting on two passports
Scotland is preparing for new elections to the Holyrood parliament. You might think that just a while ago, we voted for Westminster MPs and that was just after the dust had settled on the independence referendum. That seems a tight election calendar. But if you are a Pole living in the UK, this is only […]
Invisible Poles: How the Polish community in Scotland is changing
After the first huge wave of arrivals from Poland in 2004, Eastern Europeans never really stopped coming to the UK. The Polish language nowadays can be heard everywhere from the Isles of Scilly to the Outer Hebrides. It makes Nigel Farage very uncomfortable during his daily commute. I have to say I do understand […]