Birthday dinner at Daquise

 

On Sunday another walk along the canalside to Hanwell, then I catch the bus back. It is 3 miles of lonely pleasure that is true "me time", as I observe human and animal life in the serene surrounding of the canal. Spotted a strange black bird with a white beak. A friend at work checked with his ornithologist grandfather. It turned out be a cormorant. Not something I had seen before. I even put my discovery on Facebook and got a bit of a reaction.

Albina decided to celebrate my birthday, which was on Tuesday, by ordering a meal this Sunday with traditional Polish cusine at the Daquise restaurant in South Kensington with four friends, Stefan and Ewa Przedzrymirski, Maria Young and Wanda Gerzon. Two bottles of Barolo and some lemon vodka shots with some great foods put us in the best of moods. Daquise is a leftover from the days when post war Polish exiles saw Kensington as their second capital, with numerous posh Polish clubs and restaurants dotting the area. The sides of the restaurant walls were covered with pictures of Polish war time leaders, often with their British or American counterparts, such as Sikorski with Roosevelt. Stefan and Ewa presented me with a nifty little telescope for our cruise next year. Albina volunteered earlier to foot the bill as this was all her idea, but I secretly transferred £200 to her current account to ease the financial pain. Then home and deep sleep in time for work next morning.

Iga Świątek wins U S Open

Iga Świątek won the US Open at Flushing Meadows last night. She beat the Tunisian Ons Jabeur in straight sets. I didn't watch the match as it did appear on any of my TV channels. Why does this victory fill me with such joy? So far, I have admired her aggression, her athleticism, her psychological strength, and loved her for her modesty and lack of self-regard and for her impressive performances at press conferences. She admits she takes toilet breaks not to cry and give vent to her emotions but to coolly plan her next tactics and change the nature of her game. She has a psychologist in her team with whom she exercises as often as with her physical trainer. Perhaps she lacks the mishievous charm of Agnieszka Radwanska who was my previous tennis idol, but she has a sense of humoir. Above all, I love Iga for being Polish and making me proud of being Polish. I have few opportunities to feel that kind of pride these days. 

I am not a great sports fan and interested largely wth football only when we get to international matches. I used to support Ipswich Town in the 1970s, when I lived there, and when they won the FA Cup. More recently I supported Arsenal when it was managed by Arsene Wenger, and Liverpool now with Jurgen Klopp. Last year the local Brentford FC joined the Premier League and has had an impressive first season, so my loyalties are stretched again. But I have cared so much as to watch a match on TV from beginning to end, let alone go to a match. I once attended a match between Ipswich and Barcelona with Kruyff playing for the Spanish team. Ipswich won 3 nil. And that is my total sporting experience. Politics, history, the arts, that is why my real interests lie. 

New face for a cheaper pound

 A quick visit to the hosptal this morning for a second blood test. The nurses filled five test-tubes with her blood. Something is making them nervous and so making us nervous gtoo. We asked a nurse as she was leaving and she said that Albina's creatinine is rising steadily but is not yet at a seriously high level. That suggests problems with her one single remaining working kidney. We shall wait to hear further bulletins from the hospital. I am very concerned that things do not deteriorate to the extent of affecting out great trip next year.

I bought a copy of "i" (for me) and the "Daily Mail" (for Albina) in the hospital shop. The assistant was handling a 10 pound note. Mischievously I asked whether she would be ready to accept new notes with King Charles' picture, instead of the Queen's. She was shocked. "Oh, no," she cried, "I never thought of that. It would be terrible!" "We'll have his pictures on our stamps as well," I goaded her. "Oh, no. Please no," she moaned, visibly distressed.

Later that morning we drove to Ealing Broadway for Albina to sort out a new PIN number for her Santander account, which she keeps for her cousin Hania. In the meantime I bought some sourdough bread at the bakery and we met at Costa's. I still heard a little devil whisper in my ear as I returned to the fray over new currency. I heard the female customer, who was in front of me in the queue, speak in Polish to the Barista girl, so I asked them both in Polish, whether they were ready for pound notes with Charles' head. The Polish customer just scoffed. "They'll have to show him with an L plate," she blurted. 

So, like Diana once said, the jury is still out on Charles' fitness to fill his mother's shoes. He has prepared all his life, he is well informed (too well informed) on a number of issues, especially on climate change, traditional architecture, homeopathy and gardening. But will he know when to shut up?  

Luckily the changes of the royal features will only be introduced gradually. At least then that will not be a contributory factor to the fall in the value of sterling.  

I mentioned this anecdote about his face on our currency in my appearance on TVP at 1 o'clock on Friday, when I was interviewed about my assessment of King Charles III. I wanted to sound positive and I suggested that his balance of tradition (classical architecture, pompous ceremony, history, his readiness to serve to his dying breath) and progressive modernity (organic farming, vegetarianism, pioneer commitment to tackling climate change for many many years, when it was still considered quirky) reflects the current attitudes in Britain. I also ventured the opinion that if he keps a control of his public utterances, and channels his energies and opinions more carefully, then he could earn himself a popular reputation as a seer. Not sure though how he would put up with the negativity of climate change sceptics like Jacob Rees Mogg and Suella Braverman. But the UK is starting a new Carolean Age wth a new king and a new government.

The Queen is dead

 

                                        P R E S S          R E L E A S E from Federation of Poles in GB

The Polish community in the United Kingdom has learned with great sadness of the passing of Britain’s monarch, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for whom it felt great affection and respect, as well as admiration for a long reign which gave this country a stability that Poland for many years could only envy. We express our deepest condolences to the Queen’s family and to the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, who have all lost a mother.

Long live the King.

Contact: Federation spokesman Wiktor Moszczynski

Truss package unwrapped

 

Of course Liz Truss won, though not with as big a margin as some believed. 

She has completely ditched her earlier statement about no handouts and is proposing a cap for average energy price at £2500 a year, still a horrendous increase, but for a possible 2 year period, and paid for, initially by borrowing, and later of course by the taxpayer, when Labour take over in 2024.

It is an interesting counterbalance to the earlier Labour suggestion of a freeze at £1971 lasting, initially, for only 6 months, and paid for by a windfall tax from the profits of the large energy companies. The Tories say no to the windfall tax, as it is likely to discourage investment in the UK and could prevent growth of the economy. As for inflation, the very act of freezing, should reduce the level quite quickly. 

Truss is starting from a very low level of public support and while her  programme will win many over, currently the public still want that £100bln loss to the Treasury to be covered from the windfall tax and not later taxation.

The rest of the Truss mythical programme remains. The national insurance rise to pay for NHS support will be withdrawan, green taxes will be suspended for a year, no new taxes of any kind to be imposed, more illegal immigrants to go to Rwanda, and we must face a full confrontation with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol. She still holds back from confronting the DUP, who are angry now that they are losing the demographic battle, as well as the European one. She defies Scotland's independence lobby. The government will only be paying lip service to the green agenda as they encourage fracking and encourage more investment in North Sea Oil, while more green belt could be opened up for housebuilding. In the meantime rents remain high, industrial action is likely to increase and the relentless war in Ukraine will go on, while the UK suffers from possible increased sanctions from Russia and the EU. The "bonfire" of EU regulations on health, safety, the environment and consumer protection is still scheduled to continue. 

Will Truss manage to wrap her free market blanket of optimism around a sizeable section of the still very sceptical electorate, while paying an adequate lip service to "levelling up"? She will need to be effective in that strategy over the first few weeks. If she fails to change public opinion by Christmas, the disgruntled Tories left out of the new ministries will sharpen their knives and their rhetoric against her. Currently, her cabinet consists almost exclusively of proven loyalists and the lack of a broader base in the Party could eventually tell against her. On the other hand, she may hold back possible rebels by planning a spring reshuffle which would be more inclusive to party rivals in future. This would give her a second wind to take her up to the next election. What wonderful times!

In the meantime ROL Cruise contacted us to ask if we want to upgrade to a more exclusive level than junior balcony. Cost? £750 per head. For someone with plenty of funds that would be a bargain, but we have to remain careful and keep to our little balconies, in which we can individually sunbathe in private. A bit of nude sun bathing perhaps? In the meantime, a pharmacist is working out for us what inoculations we may need for the 12 or so countries we visit and will contact us nearer the date for an appointment. I imagine India, China and Egypt will be the major concerns.    

Dystopia rules - I am changing planets

 I get up in the morning still with the nightmares of Ukraine. In my latest dream I was the London link of a Ukrainian patrol captured by the Russians. They had a link to my phone while they were being interrogated and tortured, one by one. Those with Russian accents from the east were particularly targeted as traitors to Russia and the Donetsk republic. I felt frustrated and impotent. As usual, ultimately, it made no more sense than Alice in Wonderland's game of cards. It was a product of my anxiety and despair about the current state of my life and of the world around me. 

God knows the world is bad enough. The uncertainty over the future of the Zaporozhe power station continues depsite the latest UN visit. Could an enterprising Russian officer still mange to distinguish himself by causing a nuclear malfunction that would poison more than half of Ukraine and many of its neighbours. That would be a true "victory" for Putin, amid a sea of his preplanned denials and with no need to press any nuclear button himslef. 

And he can continue his war against the West as Nordstream 1 is closed indefinetely. It's a total collapse of Angela Merkel's well-meaning but naive belief that Russian imperialism can be tamed by trade and the prospect of prosperity. Only a hungry, angry, deprived population would sustain the dreams of empire. Putin knows that; Merkel did not.

The nightmare continues in Pakistan, as at least a thousand perish under the waves, four thousand are injured and several million lose their homes, their livelihood and their hopes. Pakistan becomes the next safety valve for the world's climatic self-destruction. The worst flooding has subsided in the north but the waters are still rising and the rains are still falling further south in Sind. Waterborne diseases are increasing and the miserable aftermath can be seen throughout the whole country. The scale of the disaster can be measured by the size of the initial 33 million dollars of the US aid package. Liz Truss as Foreign Scretary oferred a miserable £1.5 million from an existing aid package, but that is utterly shameful.

Not that the people of Jackson, Mississippi, are that much better off as they are told to keep their mouths shut while taking a shower to prevent the ingestion of contaminated water. This has gone on for months as the National Guard distribute free bottles of water in a city with 75% black population. There is a sense, in parts of America, that the social infrastructure is collapsing as Republicans fight for a "small state" economy, and the whole country is splitting in two, divided by wealth, by education and by ideology. The two sides not only differ fundamentally over the future of their country, but have no proper common dialogue with each other. Trump considers Biden an illegal aberration as President and Biden has called Trump and his supporters a threat to democracy in America. Nearly 50% of Amercians believe there will be a civil war in the next 10 years. China and Russia have but to wait and the world will be theirs'. The EU will be too divided to withstand those pressures as well, especially as Italy is about to join the illiberal anti-EU alliance with Poland and Hungary.

The idiocy continues in Poland which has now, in the middle of a confrontation between Putin and the West, chosen to present Germany with a 1.3trn euro claim for war reparations. The task of war reparations for the horrors of German Nazi occupation of Poland is a massive subject and, in terms of natural justice, quite justifiable, and it is also true that the earlier settlement made through the Soviet Union in the 1950s, when Poland was not a sovereign state, was totally unsatisfactory. However the post 1990 Polish government chose not to pursue further claims, leaving the moral onus on Germany of investing in the Polish economy and Polish democracy. It was still a somewhat naive if well-meaning decision, as Poles thought they would be more effective if they were not a revisionist state, seeking to undermine the world order. That decision in 1990 by the semi independent Mazowiecki government required correction, but not in the ridiculous way that Poland has chosen to do it against an ally in the Ukraine war. What is the Polish government's response to the possibility that 1/ this claim could cause so much resentment that some Germans may wish to seek recompensation for property they lost in 1945, when they were expelled with their families from Silesia and Pomerania, 2/ what proportion of whatever they lay out in their claim would go to Jewish families, who were the main victims of German war crimes, albeit with many of them already compensated, and 3/ why this moment could not have been utilized better by staking a claim for war crimes and loss of property to Russia? Had they consulted other possibly interested countries, such as Serbia, the Czech Republic, Israel or Ukraine? Sadly, it is an ideologically driven claim aimed at prolonging Polish-German emnity and keeping alive the electoral prospect of a corrupt PiS victory at the next parliamentary election. The Oder-Neisse border was partly created by Stalin in order to foster this historical emnity, and Kaczynski is doing everything possible to let it fester on. Even the current pollution on the Oder River is automaticaly blamed on Germany, even though Polish industrial users in the upper reaches of the river have been unbridled pollutants in the past.

Tydzien Polski has again failed to publish my latest article on the Sikorski Institute, its underfunded museum and its conflict with the Polish Undeground Study Centre. I understood perfectly why they refused to publish my earlier article about the SPK building in Kirkcaldy, because of their dependence on the possible generosity of the SPK in setting up the website for the newspaper. But why this coyness over an article about the Sikorski Museum? 

And then, on top of all this, Albina refused to get up this morning for an important blood test for glucose at 9.30 in the morning. I was due to drive her to the clinic but she decided that, like a spoilt immature child, she was too lazy to get up. Those are her words by the way, not mine. I was furious, but speechless. 

The world is going to the dogs. I am waiting for the Artemis programme to get under way, and I will be changing planets.

 

Radio interview on Sami Swoi.

I started the day with allocating a new printer, a Japanese Brother, recommended by Sandro, to my laptop. It took me four hours to learn how to connect the printer to the wifi, and then the laptop to the printer. But ultimately - success! Sandro will be proud of me.

Turned up at the Sami Swoi studio in Ealing to record my comments on the Tory leadership race. They asked how it would help Poland and the Polish communty in the UK. Not a lot of difference, as Polish-UK relations were good, because of mutual hostility, first to Russia, and (the second agenda) to a united Europe, the first hostility being pivotal, and the second futile and self-defeating. However I talked about Liz Truss having spent some time in Poland and hoping to raise with her the issue of speeding up pre-settled status upgrading for Polish citizens in the UK. I pointed out that unless Truss came up with a massive rescue plan in the first 2 weeks after taking office, then whatever her optimism and energy, she and her fellow Tories will not regain public trust and go crashing down in the next election. The interviewer seemed very pleased with the 15 minute interview and said it would be broadcast in the next few days, and also used in allocated snippets for later comments. No fear. I'm not going to listen to my own voice on radio.

He suggested that perhaps I could record progress bulletins on my world trip next year. Maybe.

Also booked up an appointment for Albina and me at Specsavers for a hearing test. I think we both feel our hearing has deteriorated recently. We shall see.

Roof top tales

 Travelled on Wednesday afternoon to the London Chamber Head Office for a rooftop party. Gorgeous day and a vivid 360 degree view of London city landmarks including St Pauls, the Shard, the Walkie Talkie and the Cheese Grater. Unfortunately, my favourite, The Gherkin, was obscured by other high towers. These exciting shapes restore my faith in modern architecture, aided no doubt by the more fexible planning authorities in the City. 

Most of these people work in the Head Office so I only see them two or three times a year, and on the odd occasions, it's normally a very stilted meeting. However, yesterday, stoked by a decent pizza and prosecco, the conversation flowed as wantonly as the alcohol, as I could chat and flirt with all these young people. Tatoos and travel were on the menu, and then male-female interaction. The majority present were ambitious young women of foreign origin, so the conversation turned into a souffle of anti-male put downs. I notice that when European women complain about their husbands they talk of possibly leaving them; Latin American women talk about killing them. They don't believe in divorce.

However, they were all fascinated by the fact that I had managed to celebrate a 50th anniversary. How did I manage it? How did my wife manage it, would have been a more pertinent question. Did I know her long before we got married? Yes, for three years, the bulk of which time we had no communication, as she was in Poland and I was pursuing my career and love life in England. In 1969 we had an intense relationship lasting one month, then nothing. In 1972 we had an intense relationship lasting one month, then marriage, and then again nothing. Only in January next year did I finally ask her to return to London, as I decided I couldn't live without her. I explained how I "only" got married to avoid UK immigration interrogation, but that "only", unromantic as it sounded, still lasted, despite arguments and sulking silence, for 50 years.  So how did we celebrate 50 years? they asked. Very quietly. But of course the round the world cruise is our real celebration and culmination of our joint life together.