Season's Greetings......and Sayonara

So here we are, in this Christmas Season 2019, after a fairly momentous years of terrorism, political turmoil everywhere (not least in Brexit Britain and Trumpian USA), sporting achievements (well played the England cricket team and Lewis Hamilton), surprise Nobel Laureates (well done Olga, bad luck Greta - but your day will surely come) and much else besides.  Farewell to the wonderful Clive James and Jonathon Miller, who were not only very clever individuals but very funny as well.  And Ginger Baker, horrible man but wonderful drummer.  And Martin Peters, 1966 and all that.

Climate change continues to bite and politicians continue to wring their hands about it and do fuck all, or deny it exists and do fuck all, while huge swathes of Brazil and Australia and Siberia burn out of control, global average temperatures continue to rise, glaciers and polar ice caps continue to melt and sea levels to rise.  The clock is ticking toward irreversible climate change in a little under 11 years and as ever the UN seems powerless to do anything about it.  Schoolkids and their elders and alleged betters take to the streets to protest the situation and are widely praised or roundly condemned depending on which side of the argument you're on.  For my part - long may they continue to make their voices heard, and next time there is a demo here in Warsaw I will be there marching too.

As well as a crook in the White House, we have one in 10 Downing Street now, elected despite lying throughout the election campaign, being an unapologetic known racist bigot and serial philanderer, and mocked by the electorate every time he incompetently participated in serious debate.  But his posturing and sloganeering and love of a photo op with Joe Public went down a storm, and with the help of pitiful Opposition from Labour and LibDem, managed a landslide victory that will deliver a No Deal Brexit this time next year.  Britain deserved better but didn't seem to want it after all.  Such is life.

But enough of this malarkey.  Let me wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and may your dreams for 2020 all come true, for what will probably the last time - at least on this particular vehicle.  It's time for another re-think.

I started blogging in 2010, under the title Around the World in 80 Expense Claims.  The title reflected the facts that most of the content was, in one way or another, travel related, and was funded out of my working life (both in providing new destinations to write about and the means, via expenses, to enjoy them).  When I retired earlier this year, I re-jigged it a bit to cater for a wider range of content and re-named it The World According to Travellin' Bob.  The results have been to say the least underwhelming.  The stats show that in over 9 years of sometimes irregular productivity, much of that being down to sheer pressure from my day job, I have published in total 164 pieces, that have garnered a grand total of 17,891 page views.  The re-branding has been even less successful than the original project, in that post-change the 19 published essays have collected just 390 page views.  Indeed, the last 4 posts have collected less than 40 views between them.  In terms of Comments (and each blog entry has a Comment facility for feedback, criticism, argument or whatever) there have been only 19, the last in July 2013.  Followers: just 4.

It all seems pretty poor, really, and I can't put my finger on why the reactions have been getting steadily worse, throughout this year, at least.  Maybe the posting irregularity has been the problem, especially last year (2018) when there was frankly a lot going on in my life that I eventually got around to writing about and that stopped me from doing much writing at all.  Perhaps the change in content, adding political stuff to the travel pieces, trying a bit of free-form poetry and a short story as well, hasn't worked well.  Perhaps the format of the blog, essentially unchanged apart from the title throughout that time, has become stale.  Or maybe, no matter what my opinion may be, my writing just isn't very good.  Perhaps a combination of all of that.....but in the complete absence of feedback from anyone I don't have any way of knowing.  Not a clue.

So I think it's time for a rest.  As things stand now, I think this will be the last piece I publish on this platform.  As my mum used to say, a change is as good as a rest, so I expect sometime in the New Year the blog will re-surface, under a new name (I'm toying with "This World, This Life" ) and on a new platform (research is pointing me in the direction of Wix).  I'm still thinking it through.  But I will keep writing - it's something I enjoy doing, even if no-one wants to read it.  My long finished novel The Match is in its final preparation stages and I plan to publish via Amazon - Kindle Direct in January or February next year, and I'm working on a couple of other projects to follow it up.  It all keeps me occupied in this happy retirement.  Perhaps the new, hopefully improved, blog will hit the web to coincide with the book launch - maybe even precede it.  We'll see.

But in the meantime, as well as offering the Season's Greetings, I thank you all for reading these personal thoughts and stories all these years, wish you every success and happiness in your lives, and as Dave Allen used to say, may your god go with you.

Election Day

I can’t vote this Thursday in the most important General Election in my lifetime, because Sevenoaks, in its Tory wisdom, has decided not to give me the postal vote it did three years ago for the Brexit Referendum. I have sent a number of emails appealing this, but all have been ignored. It is no surprise, but extremely disappointing. Who would I have voted for? I’m still not sure, but these are my thoughts at the moment:

Conservative (a.k.a. Tory, a.k.a The Nasty Party): The incumbents, in the bluest-of-blue seats, and I have voted that way before. Now? Absolutely not. The party has been in power for nearly 10 years, in one way or another, and has somehow dragged Britain into its worst state in my 66 year lifetime. From Cameron’s shoddy Coalition, through his cowardly sole Premiership that bequeathed the entire Brexit shitshow and divided still further an already divided country, before walking away and handing May the poisoned chalice, the Party has earned its Nasty Party soubriquet. It now has comfortably the worst leader in my lifetime, one Boris Johnson, thanks to the votes of forty odd thousand Tory faithful out of a population on 60million. A strange kind of Democracy.... The man is a charlatan and a buffoon. This legendary orator is nothing of the kind: his campaign speeches are usually an incoherent mess of crummy campaign slogans - “Get Brexit done!” (what does that really mean exactly?), or “Britain deserves better!” (yes, after 10 years of Tory mismanagement) – or outright lies: “The NHS is not for sale” (so why did you not correct Trump when the Orange One stated it should be on the table for the US trade negotiators?), “No tax rises” (then how will you meet your billions and billions of pounds of campaign promises, Boris?), and “No border checks in the Irish Sea or at the present border” (you might want to check with Barclay, your Brexit Secretary, about that, Boris – and in any case why trumpet a deal you said (when proposed two years ago by the EU27) should never be signed by any PM?). Dead in a ditch? Leave on 31 October? The lies just come pouring out unchecked. He and his party are morally bereft and simply unfit for office.

Labour Party (a.k.a The Red Menace, a.k.a. The Corbynistas): Back in the day, I voted for them, when Tony Blair genuinely offered something different, and I have no regrets about doing so. A lot has changed in the party and the nation since then, but I think some of Jezza’s ideas this time are worth consideration. Taking the railways back into state control could make a huge improvement after 30 years of decreasing standards and spiralling prices as a hotch-potch of franchises. A Bill to safeguard the NHS from any future trade negotiation ever, as long as spending and recruitment and organization are not cut further, very much needed. Another Referendum on Britain’s EU relationship is clearly needed, provided it comes with a proper choice and sensible, reasoned discussion rather than a tissue of lies and misrepresentations from both sides of the argument, and may go some way towards healing some of the divisions. Here Corbyn’s idea of an “honest broker” in the referendum campaign seems to be a good one – the doubt is whether he is the right person for the job. My view is someone from outside the country (indeed outside Europe generally) would be ideal – a Kofi Annan figure perhaps? Corbyn has been a great back-bencher, with a lifelong record of supporting vulnerable minorities who are rarely recognised by senior politicians of either main party (until their vote is needed), but as a leader he has not been particularly good – indecisive and seemingly incapable of striking a clear position on many issues (especially Brexit). He may rise to the importance of a premiership, but I doubt it.

The Liberal Democrats (a.k.a. LibDems, a.k.a. Who?): I have voted for these guys too, long ago, when they and the SDP seemed to offer a very real alternative to Tory or Labour government, and would be very tempted to do so again now. They are the only party (apart from the Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru) standing on a clear Stop Brexit ticket, but still carry some excess baggage from their recent Coalition adventure with Cameron. Jo Swinson was a brave choice as leader, but lacks experience at the top level (and also carries baggage from that Coalition – God, what a mess it was, with the benefit of hindsight!) but is at least young and enthusiastic. The party is also the only one that has consistently, for many years, been a proponent of the electoral reform that in my view is so desperately needed to fix a broken system that is rigged against the smaller parties and their followers ever having any meaningful say in the governance of this country, and ensures a Tory or Labour government even when neither party is, as now, fit for office.

The Brexit Party (a.k.a. Tory Lite, a.k.a. The Farage Pension Fund): No. Just – NO. Led by a serial loser (7 elections fought, 7 times rejected) with a big mouth, shady mates (Trump and Johnson for instance) and no coherent policies apart from leaving the EU at ANY price (the clue is in the name), and with a much shrunken list of candidates no-one has ever heard of (apart from Farridge’s best mate and fellow foghorn Tice) the party is a One Trick Pony that would be laughable in any other circumstance. It seems their support is withering as its Brexit zealot camp followers realise the Tories have much the same aims under Johnson, and with benefits of scale more likely to deliver if they obtain a working majority. I suspect the Brexit Party will go the same way as Farage’s other project, UKIP (remember them?) - wiped out in the election, never to be heard of again. Which will be good.

The really small parties (basically the Greens and The Independent Group for Change, numbering three MPs between them), plus a handful of independents not affiliated to any party or group, are worthy attempts at doing things differently, and share with the LibDems an appetite for stopping Brexit, electoral reform and environmental issues that are potentially far more important to the planet as a whole than Brexit will ever be, but seem to be hamstrung by a lack of resources (human and otherwise), a lack of candidates or organizational structures. I’m not sure any of them are standing in Sevenoaks, so couldn’t vote for them in any case.

I’ve watched most (but not all) of the televised debates, and very depressing the experience has been. It says a lot for the state of the political landscape in Britain that the stand-out performers (at least to this viewer) have been the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and, to a lesser extent. Plaid Cymru’s leader Adam Price, neither of whose parties are eligible to stand in English constituencies. Both have spoken passionately and coherently about the issues dominating this election (especially with respect to their own nations), raising concerns that are relevant to all of us. Both have also been able to score points off the other parties - they have been willing and able to call out messrs Johnson and Farage, in particular about their various and many excesses and untruths. I expect both parties to gain seats this time around, which should enable them to hold more sway in the new Parliament.

But by and large, there is an absolute dearth of what I can only describe as statesmanship across the board. Politics today is all driven by sound-bites and slogans, by dissing the opponent rather than by cogent discussion, nnd in my view that is why we are in such a mess. Too many Honourable Members are happy to play to the gallery, and not debate properly the business they are elected to perform – namely, govern this country. No-one seems able or willing to listen to another’s point of view or concern, never mind accept it and adapt policy. Our “first past the post” electoral system guarantees that minority views that in my view deserve due consideration (as they are given in most other democracies) are consigned to the dustbin before their elected representatives in the small parties have even taken their hard won seats. In one of the debates, Farage stated (to paraphrase) that we are living with a 19^th century electoral system that is not fit for our 21^st century world. It’s possibly the most sensible thing the man has said in his entire life, but nobody in either panel or audience seemed to pick up on it.

But he is absolutely right – something has to change, and introducing some form of proportional representation to guarantee a say for the smaller parties would be a start. With that comes coalition government and consensus politics – in other words, our Members would be working together, cross-party, on behalf of all us, not just their particular constituents. People would have to discuss matters properly and in detail, sensibly and without playing to the gallery (so let’s make a start by dumping the television cameras and reducing the Press corps). They would need to accept COMPROMISE – it should never be considered a dirty word, as has too often been the case this past decade or more. It might even get things done in a manner that the entire country can accept and welcome, to everybody’s benefit, and result in a fairer and better and more wealthy society eventually. But that is for the next generation, not mine, or even the one after that, for these changes will take years to achieve.

You lucky voters have an opportunity to start the changes that is denied to me. Use it wisely. Reject the confrontational politics espoused by the major parties – in this day and age there is no place for it, when so much important work needs to be done. Forget Brexit, compared to climate change, widespread industrial pollution, the need to move away from a carbon economy, a properly funded and managed NHS and so many more things are way more important.

A vote for Conservative or Labour seems to me a vote to perpetuate the status quo, when that is the last thing our country needs. A vote for the Brexit party is, very simply, a completely wasted vote, for the party has no viable future. A vote for any other candidate, whether the Liberal Democrats, the Greens or an unaffiliated independent, is a vote for change. I may well be wearing my rose-tinted spectacles again (most football fans and all optimists own several pairs), but in my view change has to come, sooner rather than later.

Start the ball rolling on Thursday.

A struggle.....

So I sit here, staring at a blank screen.
For hours.
Days even.
The words don't come.

They used to - not exactly easily (at least some days).
But they come
Eventually.
And when that happens, they flow, unbidden.  

I wrote a book, years ago.
In a month,
It came pouring out - 
A brain dump - complete:

Characters, locations,
Actions and dialogue.
No idea how or where from.
But they came.

Stories too, sometimes long and sometimes short,
Scribbled in notebooks,
Scraps of paper…..
All lost now.

None published, none in the light of day.
The book in my hard drive, typed clean
And edited many times.
But no mainstream interest - 

So Kindle it is, when I can raise my enthusiasm again -
Upload it, write the tags, the synopsis, the bio
and design (somehow…)  a cover,
Price it…..and release. Voila!

Then what? Follow up somehow, two projects
On the go....but stalled.
The visions are blurred
And I can't see my way forward.

So I sit here, staring at a blank screen.

For hours.

Days even…..

The words don't come.

Browsing the Browsers - A layman's view

Everyone who uses a device - whether it be a desktop or a laptop, a mobile phone or a tablet - to get at the internet uses a browser.  Forget about a standalone word processing program, or a spreadsheet tool or presentation software for productivity. Never mind separate files to download and store all your pictures and music and documents (of whatever shape or form) that you can happily use without going onto the internet.  Nowadays, all of it and much more besides, is handled by any web browser, both to create (I’m typing this on such a tool) and store or publish (as I will soon, hence your being able to read it). Cloud technology, it’s called, because all the data is held on a server - more correctly, hundreds of the things - in a location totally unknown to the user.  Along with crypto currencies and blockchain, it’s the Next Big Thing in the IT industry and has been growing quickly over the last few years now. But that’s all subject matter to write about another day.

This is not news, of course.  Even the least tech savvy user knows that, and I consider myself in this number.  I know how to use all this stuff, and set things up to my liking, but how it all works is frankly beyond me.  I don’t need to know any of it. My mind doesn’t work that way. Even the most simple and basic programming is out of my reach, despite spending nearly 20 years working for a leading banking software company where my job was to help banks, who had invested perhaps a couple of million bucks buying our system, to understand how to set it up and make it work.  But if any programming was needed all I could do was write down what was needed and how it was supposed to work and what it should look like then hand it over to some proper techies to write the code.  

Browsers, in my early experience, were simply tools to get onto the internet to read the day’s news (thus saving the cost of a newspaper which was often difficult to obtain in English in my usual work locations across the Middle East, Eastern Europe etc), check facts and information that I might need for work, and check flight information before travel.  In those days, round about the turn of the Millennium, your choices were very limited indeed. The choice was basically the browser that came with your ubiquitous Microsoft Windows package (that most people used) or for the more adventurous the one offered by Apple and that locked you firmly into their universe with no easy way out if you didn’t like something.  A disclaimer here: I have never in my life used an Apple computer, laptop or tablet. I had a second generation iPhone for a few years and liked it very much, but never used it for the internet - I used my Windows laptop (work supplied) for that. Eventually I dumped Apple and since then have used Android devices (a Sony Xperia and latterly a succession of Samsung Galaxy’s) but still use their built-in browsers relatively lightly.

When I left the software company and set up my own consultancy six years ago, I had to invest in my own laptop (a Lenovo W530 that I’m still using, perfectly happily) and that prompted me to have a look at what alternative browsers were out there.  So what follows is a summary, in no particular order, of the ones I’ve tried and used, some for extended periods, and some very lightly. I’ll describe the things I like about them, things that were less favourable, and the odd problem. And this is done on the basis of a purely basic user, someone who doesn’t want to do anything complex, simply surf and store or play stuff.

First up - the daddy of them all, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE).  When I first started using PCs and laptops (rather than mainframe computers) IE was the absolute standard and probably every user in the world (apart from the super-cool Apple fanboys) was locked into it.  I used probably three or four iterations as they were introduced and my firm updated the laptop operating systems through to Windows 7 Professional. They were all much of a muchness, and did what it said on the box - namely providing a reliable gateway to the World Wide Web.  The page load could be a bit slow, especially where I had two or three tabs open, but that may have been more down to memory issues with the various hardware I was using, or slow connection speeds through sometimes poor routers in office, airport lounge or home that found handling content heavy web pages just hard work.   There were, presumably, improvements with each browser release, but I was never really aware of them, and for what I wanted to do it was perfectly adequate.

IE was replaced in the Windows 10 release, which came in with Microsoft’s all singing and all dancing Edge browser.  So when I upgraded from 7 to 10 (the free upgrade that Microsoft offered to launch both the operating system and Edge) I got it, with IE still available as an alternative.  I moved over to Edge as I was able to move across all my Favourite sites and passwords and so on very easily. From memory new versions of IE, as they came in, didn’t need this so it came as news to me that you could automatically transfer it all without having to copy them over manually.  I’ve always found Edge to be very good - it’s clean to look at it, easy to use and has some nice functions allowing you to save articles in a file to read later, annotate and share items and so on that I have never found a need to use. Adding Favourites lists to categorise your frequent sites is again simple and efficient.  The main issue I’ve had (and continue to have) is the adverts that are always there, flashing away constantly on every page you go to, and automatically opening while I’m trying to read the football report or something, forcing me to scroll back up or down to get back to where I was. Ad Blocking tools, whether the browser’s own or third party software, never seem to work properly and I can never completely get rid of them.  It’s an irritant rather than a major problem, and you get used to it eventually (or at least I did).  

But for some reason I’ve never really understood, Edge has never really taken off and I’ve read more critical articles about it than ones praising it.  It always seems to lag close to or at the bottom of any Best Browser list in the tech magazines and surveys (usually in a race with IE for the wooden spoon).  Maybe people just don’t like Microsoft products any more. For me, however, Edge is a perfectly good browser, and I keep my one up-to-date as and when I add or change a Favourite or password.  Is it the best out there? Probably not, but it’s still perfectly adequate for the average non-technical user like me. Maybe when it’s rebuilt from the ground up and based on Google’s Chromium operating system (as many other browsers are) it will improve and feature many more knobs and whistles that today’s users seem to want and pick up market share.  It’s due in I think early 2020, so we’ll soon see.

Recently I tried Opera.  I had read about it some time ago, but it didn’t seem to offer much that other browsers don’t, but I stumbled across a Best of… survey last week that gave it a much higher rating, and amongst the new functionality baked in the latest release is its own VPN.   Now given that most people, including me, are a lot more security conscious, after the way personal data was harvested and used to influence the 2016 EU Referendum in Britain and the US Presidential Election in the same year, anything that makes it harder to be tracked and harvested seems worthwhile, so I gave it a go.  

It’s a nice enough browser, and offered a lot of customisation possibilities - a couple of nice looking Pink Floyd skins were offered for instance.  It also had a side-bar to the left that held various icons (for instance the Settings shortcut) to different functions, including short cuts to both WhatsApp and Messenger.  Since they are both part of FACEBOOK (what is the point of this re-branding, Zuck?) these days, I can’t really see the need for both, either on a computer or a mobile device - I’d be very surprised if both were in existence this time next year.  There were so many set up options it took a while to get the thing how I wanted, what with importing Favourites, choosing backgrounds and so on, but it was ok. I used WhatsApp quite happily, and the multiple tab searching and normal stuff worked just fine.  

But that VPN wasn’t what I had expected - for a start, it drastically slowed down page load times, much more than I had expected.  It was also not possible to set a server location - for instance Asia, Europe etc - for the VPN to use, and most of the time it seemed to me to be automatically selecting a server somewhere in Russia (given the propensity for cookie acceptance requests to be in Cyrillic script even if the site was a UK retailer).  Now since Russia and China are proven to be highly sophisticated fake news exponents (the troll farms Russia used in their 2016 influencing campaigns seem to be very effective) it seemed to me that a VPN that apparently favoured Russia is not one I wanted to use - and apologies if that remark insults anyone. I uninstalled Opera after less than two days.  It’s not for me.

In terms of complex set up, it reminded me very much of Mozilla’s Firefox, the go-to browser if you don’t want to be locked into the Microsoft, Google or Apple ecosystems and value privacy and flexibility.  I’ve tried it a few times over the years, and found it decent. The set up offers incredible flexibility using a whole catalogue of add-ons to do different things, including a huge range of skins, a variety of ad-blockers, and tool-kits to manipulate searches and other functions.  I’ve loaded it, set it up and used it for a while and been happy enough - it no doubt looks good and has fast page loads, and you can use many tabs simultaneously with no appreciable drag. But sometimes for reasons I can’t figure out at all, it all seems to get a bit confused and you get passwords lost or overwritten.  I’ve scrapped a couple of iterations and gone elsewhere, and each time, when I’ve decided to give it another go, when I’ve re-installed, it’s picked up the last lot of settings and automatically applied them, password errors and all. But it only adds another 30 minutes or so updating those and you’re good to go - at least until the next time. 

I did that earlier this year, and worked with it happily enough as my default, with Edge as the alternative.  But this week I found that, for some reason, the browser’s Sync functionality had stopped and I tried to kick it off through the Settings menu.  It sent a message with an activation code to my e-mail address - but I found I had defined that incorrectly in my Firefox account set up so the mail was not reaching me.  I tried to correct it, but the directions given merely took me into a loop that resulted in the mails being sent to the bad address again. I sent a mail to the Help team, and got a standard mail back telling me what options I could try (basically what I had already done).  So it’s stuck. I can use it, but with Sync not working I’m probably not getting the regular updates and any password changes will equally be lost.  

So I’ve now gone back to everyone’s favourite, the world’s Most Popular Browser, Google Chrome.  I’ve used it on and off for years, and I can quite understand why that is the case.  It’s quick and clean, like Opera, like Firefox and everything else, with loads of extensions and customisation options.  It’s fast and secure, and once you’ve set it up initially, after an Uninstall it restores everything when you re-load (as I’ve done two or three times).  It comes with all the Google tools and services as standard, and since I have a couple of gmail accounts, and my photos and music library are in the related apps it has everything I need.  Talking of my Google Photos and Music, I have the content also saved in competing Microsoft services that came with Windows 10 and I can say with absolutely no doubt that Google’s are so much better.  I understand the data concerns, but it seems to me that after many years of use, before those concerns were recognised by anybody, there is not much about me that Google - and for that matter Facebook or Amazon or whoever - don’t already know, and even less that I can do about it.  So there is no point worrying about it, in my view.

The only problem I’ve come across is that if you have a lot of tabs open, there can be a performance lag.  At one point I had Chrome set up to launch with about 6 tabs defined, all bar one of which had passwords to apply.  The system did it all flawlessly if a little slowly (but still much much quicker than launching and signing in each one manually).  Thereafter leaving them all open and signed in all the time made the working day a lot easier, but I found that there was sometimes an appreciable lag opening a document, or a mail, or another tab - the browser configured in that way was clearly resource heavy.  I haven’t done that this time, and it seems appreciably quicker.

So there you go.  This is not a comprehensive review because there are browsers, some new and some older, that I just haven’t tried and don’t really see a need to do so in my retirement.  It’s also not including in CPU use statistics or technical information because the average Joe Public user (like me) isn’t really interested in all that stuff - it’s for geeks.  This post is simply not aimed at techies (who no doubt have all that information and much else in any case).   

I expect I’ll continue using Chrome, with Edge as my fallback, for the foreseeable future.  I still have Firefox installed and may need to dip into it now and again - and at some point I’ll probably do an Uninstall on it. .  

I’d be interested to see what you think - are you a Chrome man or a dyed-in-the-wool Firefox advocate?  Was my Opera experience unique? Why is Edge still so unpopular and will it ever improve its fortunes? Are there any Apple users who can tell me why it remains so popular?

Comment is free - I’d love to hear from you in the space provided.

Today's News: Wonky Weather and Political Crises

I have to say the weather has been unseasonably warm the last few days here.  Temperatures in Poland aren't usually in the mid teens, with sunshine and blue skies, at this time in November.  The lovely red sunsets and golden sunrises streaming through my apartment windows are more what you expect in May or September.  There has been a fairly gusty wind the last 2 days which have kept the temperature down a bit, but it's still been excellent walking and biking weather.  Of course, I've taken advantage of it with a 16km bike ride on Saturday, a similar distance hike through Kabaty Forest to Piaseczno and the surrounding area on Sunday, and a 25km bike ride out to Wilanów via Kabaty yesterday (you can look at where they are on Google Maps - suffice to say they are suburbs at the southern extremities on the city).  All very pleasant, and helping the dodgy hips no end.

But it hasn't always been like this.  I can remember back in I think 2004 coming back from a late holiday (this was before marriage and a family) in Egypt and landing from 30C heat in Hurghada, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, at the end of October, to find Warsaw shivering in -5C temperatures and snow.  Going further back, my first winter here (2000-1) there was a heavy snowfall at the end of October that dumped well over a metre of snow on the city that lasted right through to the following April.  A steady easterly kept temperatures to minus double figures for most of that time (there is little to stop such winds this side of the Urals).  I had to buy a new wardrobe as my rainy day English winter clothes were hopelessly inadequate.  The following winter was little better.

Since then, the temperatures have moderated and bitter cold weather like that is much less common.  As indeed are the long hot summers that I enjoyed in my first few years here.  They are much more British now - that is to say, with more rain than previously - but still overall better and longer.  I'm happy with that.

Global warning?  Climate change?  Probably, especially when you take into account the extreme weather events that are clearly more frequent and more severe across the entire continent (including the British Isles).  There is certainly general agreement among climate scientists (and yes, I accept there remain dissenting voices - though increasingly muted) that we are in a developing climate crisis, with the latest prognosis being that in about 11 years it will all be irreversible.  God only knows what kind of a world my kids and grandkids will live in after that - I intend to stick around to see at least some of it. 


                                                           *     *     *     *

The political landscape is also undergoing a major shift, and there is as much turmoil and uncertainty there as in the climate crisis.  And just as many arguments about a cause and uncertain effect.

A few years ago, when the odious Donald Trump swept into the White House on a wave of personal abuse, mass voter appeal (that I still cannot understand) and it seems like the assistance - whether financial or otherwise - from the equally grim ex-KGB officer Putin, many judges thought this was the start of a tide of populism that was set to sweep away the old political establishment.   Within months a similar populist movement (short on facts but long on rhetoric) persuaded the British people to vote in favour of leaving the EU causing fractures in society that are if anything more deep seated and unsolvable now than at the time of Referendum.  Elsewhere, there were genuine fears that in Italy, France, the Netherlands and Germany forthcoming elections would result in populist governments that would by definition threaten the existence of the EU itself.

The fears were largely unfounded. The "populist revolution" did not take root and apart from in Italy the Establishment (for want of a better term) retained power, even if with in most cases diluted majorities.  The exception was in Italy, where a populist government was elected but didn't last long: after it fell mid term, new elections went back to something like normality (whatever that is: elections seem to be second only to football as a national sport there), though the populist parties still retain a big say in the country's affairs.

The EU itself has appointed a new Commission team that has, after this year's elections to the EU Parliament, a clear mandate for change, and it will be interesting to see what will come about over the next few years.  There is a recognition, in my view, that the Union needs to change and move away from a fully integrated Federal Europe to a more workable group of member states who work closely together whilst retaining their sovereignty.  Which is precisely what that idiot Cameron wanted from his last EU Summit as British Prime Minister - but when he didn't get everything he demanded (which was never likely to happen anyway), instead of negotiating his toys were thrown out of the pram, the Referendum called, and the country damaged for a generation.  It's a huge regret to me that instead of being in a position to influence, perhaps lead, this evolution of the EU we are instead walking away from it, amid a constitutional crisis of our own making, and facing up to a diminished future.

                                                        *     *     *     *

Amid this uncertainty, the election season is open in both Britain and the USA.  Next year was always going to be an election year across the pond, and it's in full swing already.  Trump, as expected, is demanding a second term (God help us all!) and has already begun tramping round the country addressing "his people" in mass rallies similar to those he held during his first election campaign.  The ingredients are the same: railing against The Establishment (which he pledged last time to clean up - "Drain The Swamp!" but has failed to do so - not that his supporters seem to have noticed), personally abusing his potential Democrat challengers, and bigging up his own achievements that in many cases are clearly illusory or exaggerated.  And despite being under the threat if impeachment, for a long list of un-Presidential behaviour culminating in an attempt to coerce the Ukrainian government to "dig the dirt" on Democrat former Vice President and potential challenger Joe Biden and his son to use to his (Trump's) personal gain, the crowds are lapping it up.

The Democrats remain in an apparent disarray.  At last count, they had 18 candidates hoping to get the nomination, with a couple more expected to throw their hats in shortly.  Despite the fact that most of them continue to perform poorly on the stump, and hence have not a chance of getting nominated (let alone elected) none of them are prepared to walk away.  Worse, there seem to be no stand out candidates - leading at the moment are Bernie Sanders, aged 78 and recovering from a heart attack (failed last time) and Joe Biden, aged 76 and clearly slowing up (also failed last term).  Both fell to Hillary Clinton (aged 72) who lost to Trump last time out and is (possibly) going to have another go.  With Trump himself aged 73, suggestions that politics is a young man's game are clearly wide of the mark, at least in the States.

Meanwhile in Britain, the Tory government has called another election, the second since the 2016 Referendum (overriding again the Fixed Term Parliament Act introduced to much fanfare by Cameron in the process) because they have been incapable of delivering Brexit.  This is probably because, having won the argument, no-one actually had a clue what "Brexit" really means.   Months of tedious negotiation and political argument under Theresa May produced a deal with the EU that was not accepted by Parliament - which is riven with as much division as the country as a whole - despite three votes (and three record defeats).  She duly stepped down and was replaced the Brexiteer's cheerleader-in-chief and Daily Telegraph columnist, lately masquerading as Foreign Secretary (before being sacked for incompetence) Boris Johnson.  He promptly lost his first half a dozen votes in the Commons, kicked out 21 of his own MPs who voted against him, thus losing his slim majority, but managed to agree another deal.  A-ha!  No - this one was offered by the EU nearly two years ago, but refused by May at which time Johnson (then still heading the Foreign Office) said "No British Prime Minister could ever sign off on this".  What changed in the meantime?  Nothing, except the man is desperate to take us out - never mind what's Best for Britain, it's what's Best for Boris.

That deal too was rejected, at which point Johnson demanded an election as the only way of breaking a deadlocked parliament.  After a bit of umm-ing and ah-ing, the Opposition accepted - so here we are, preparing to vote on 5 December.  I will miss out this time - the Electoral Commission, in its infinite wisdom, has refused to grant me a postal vote because I have "not been on the Electoral Roll" for 15 years.  The postal vote I was given a mere three years ago is not counted (or was granted in error, no-one seems to know), even though on both applications I confirmed leaving the UK in 2008 (I make that only 11 years now....).  And that idiot Farage and his mate Boris have the cheek to go on about "failing to deliver Brexit (being) a betrayal of democracy!".

I hope they are well and truly spanked at the Ballot box.  Who will win?  I have no idea, and expect another hung Parliament, but who will be the major party tasked with forming a government, and who will hold the balance of power within it, is anyone's guess.   Clearly, we have a broken political system and some form of electoral reform and proportional representation must come.

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Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, there is rioting in the streets as people protest the lack of democracy in the territory.  It's been going on for five months now, and shows little sign of being resolved.  If anything, it's getting worse.

Essentially, when Britain caved in to diplomatic pressure (and rising costs) and returned Hong Kong to China when its 99 year lease (leasing a country?!?!) ended in 1997, the basis of the agreement was that while Hong Kong would be absorbed into greater China it would retain its own government and political system.  The mantra has since then been "One Country, Two political systems".  Given the squabbles that have been rumbling on over Taiwan and its relationship with China since pretty much the end of World War II (when the state declared its independence from mainland China), the hope that China would accept Hong Kong's status seems remarkably optimistic.

The problem has been that although Hong Kong is able to "elect" its government and its Chief Executive, all the nominees are approved by the Chinese government BEFORE an election takes place.  They are really appointees.  Democracy it ain't, election or no election.  The people have by and large accepted this and continued to prosper, but a new generation of young people has decided to push for a true democratic process.  Their demands are simple enough: applicants (to use a probably inaccurate term) should not be Beijing approved appointees, but drawn from the Hong Kong population-at-large.  Any citizen of Hong Kong should be eligible for election.  The election should be free and fair with multiple candidates for each position.  The electorate should be able to make its own decision at the ballot box.  In other words, give us real democracy please (even if all the candidates are still drawn from the Communist Party that continues to run China)

The Chinese government has refused point blank - they see this as a loss of control, and opening the potential for other political parties to participate (and obstruct them) in Hong Kong's affairs: which to be fair would probably happen sooner rather than later.  But that is democracy.

There have been street protests, mainly peaceful initially.  The leaders have been arrested and imprisoned.  This has only exacerbated the dispute and increased the numbers of protesters on the streets, while widening support across (by now) all walks of life and age groups.  The police, instructed by Beijing, have started using greater force to break up the demonstrations - tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon have become a fact of life.  The protesters respond by throwing bricks and latterly home made petrol bombs and bows and arrows.  There have been casualties on both sides, and also a handful of deaths amongst the protesters.  Despite this, the demonstrations continue without any let up or reduction in support.  And it's all happening, every day now (it was at the outset only on weekends) on a tv screen near you - global news networks are covering it extensively.

Neither side is prepared to compromise.  The Chinese have now suggested that the "use of live ammunition" may be required.  The protest leaders have admitted they are frightened but are adamant they will not stop protesting until all their demands have been met.

This will turn into a bloodbath.

                                                                    *     *     *     *

What a world we are living in.

Ex pats? Who cares?

Well, that was interesting. An evening spent in the plush conference room at the British Embassy in Warsaw, where a team led by the Deputy Ambassador and including staff from the Embassy and relevant Polish authorities presented what we ex-pats need to do in the event of a No Deal Brexit.

There were I guess getting on for 100 of us in the audience, and the conversation was at times quite lively. We were a mixed bag too. As well as the professionals working here for both UK and Polish companies, there were a several people, like myself, who for a variety of reasons (and not all of them related to romance) had made their lives and retired in Poland, and Polish people with spouses or partners who were British.

There were many different stories, but the overwhelming take away was the sense of confusion and frustration we all shared. No-one I spoke to thought that Brexit was a good idea – reading between the lines (and judging by some instances of rolled eyes and forced smiles) I got the impression that the Deputy Ambassador himself was not in favour: “We are simply here to execute our Government’s instructions” was his best soundbite, in answer to someone about what the “benefits of Brexit actually are” (the question was not answered).

Most people were aggrieved at being disenfranchised for the Referendum in 2016, because they had been in Poland for more than 7 years, and were less than happy about the lack of information and support they had been given at the time. I told them that I had been given a postal vote after contacting my old constituency in England, despite having been in Poland myself for (at that time) 15 years and urged them to do the same now, so that at least our feelings could be expressed at the ballot box in the next General Election or People’s Vote on any Brexit deal (whichever comes first). It may be, of course, that my postal vote had been awarded as a result of a clerical error – and equally other people being excluded could have been clerical errors. There seems to be a distinct lack of clarity around this point – as with many things Brexit.

Other stories were interesting. A lady was representing her mother, 99 years old and too frail to travel, who had been living in Poland for more than 50 years and granted permanent residency more than 45 years ago. She had received a letter from the NHS in England advising her that in the event of No Deal, her health care, both in England and reciprocally in Poland, was no longer valid, and that she needed to purchase expensive private health care. The lady was seeking confirmation that was indeed the true and what her mother should do. No-one was able to give her a definitive answer.

A young Polish lady was there on behalf of herself and her English partner, who had been for work purposes relocated to Jersey. The couple wanted to split their time between homes in both countries, but her partner had been told that with a No Deal he would only be able to spend 30 days a year in Poland and the lady only allowed the same amount of time in Britain. Again, no-one was able to confirm the truth or otherwise in this, as “details are still being worked out”.

There was also a young British lady, accompanied by her daughter (no more than 4 years old I would guess) who lived and worked permanently in Poland. The child’s father was for personal reasons still in the UK. This meant he was not able to spend as much time with his daughter as either party wanted (largely on understandable cost grounds) and this would now become even worse because of these possible time limits. Again, there was no solution offered.

Finally, a guy about my age was asking practical questions about which line he should join when arriving at Heathrow, returning to Warsaw or visiting another EU country. No-one was sure, but the general impression was that arrival at Heathrow on a UK passport would mean the UK line, arrival at Warsaw would be the Third Country line, but elsewhere in Europe (specifically a non-Schengen EU member state) no-one was completely sure but assumed the Third Country line.

The takeway: despite over 3 ½ years working on this, Britain still has many decisions to make. And there is not much more than a week to do so and notify the world.

By contrast, Poland is well prepared. A new Law has been introduced that enshrines the rights and requirements for British people living in Poland in both a Deal and No Deal scenario. Essentially, the Law defines what documents are needed in both cases, and the application forms are ready for use, and decisions taken as to the supporting documents required. Applications can also be fast tracked. In cases where somebody has an existing residency permit, paper based, this can be exchanged for a credit-card type permit containing biometric data that can be used as a travel document (within Schengen) at no cost. Contrast this with the scheme Britain has introduced for resident EU citizens that is being slated as too complex and too costly and has already given rise to many complaints from people who, despite living in Britain for many years already, have been refused a new permit, apparently arbitrarily.

Few people in the room expressed much confidence in the present Johnson Government to deliver a deal without an extension beyond the end of the month, despite all the bluster coming from people like the Prime Minister and his closest ministers like Raab, Gove, Javid and Rees-Mogg. Even fewer people had a good word to say about the British Government.

I assume similar evenings are being held across the EU, and I would be very surprised if they were any different in tone – and I suspect the Government is well aware of this and doing everything it can to hold ex-pats at arms length and disenfranchise them to ensure that their objections and concerns do not influence any subsequent votes. I have said all along that the majority of ex-pats are against Brexit and had we been able to vote in 2016, the result would have been very different. Nothing I saw and heard last night has changed that opinion. Simply put, the Government, despite all its statements to the contrary, really does not care a jot about the ex-pat community.

Movin' Out?

I'm a country boy.  Born in what was then a small village on the border between Kent and Sussex but is now a sizeable town.  Lived there for the first 25 years of my life before, on marrying, moving to a somewhat bigger border town 20 odd miles away, where I stayed for maybe four years.  Then back to another north Kentish village, about the same size as my home town (and it hasn't grown much since).  So green fields, narrow roads and woodland have always been if not within sight at least within a short walk or, at worst, drive away.  Likewise the smells of horseshit and crop spray and newly mown hay are as well known to me as roast beef and Yorkshire pud or a decent curry.

So living, as I have done for close to 20 years now, in one of Europe's more polluted cities, is not really "me".  Don't get me wrong: I love the place, despite the maniac drivers on the over-crowded city roads, or the frequent blues-and-twos waking me up at six most mornings (I'm sure it's some numpty copper having fun driving around the neighbourhood waking everyone up for a laugh) or the jet noise from nearby Warsaw airport (thankfully we're not directly under the flight path but we can hear the traffic when the wind is in the right direction).  Warsaw has everything I need to be happy - first and foremost my wife and kids and a comfortable home; then decent shopping within walking distance; close to entertainment (a cinema complex half a kilometre away, and two more in malls within ten minutes' drive, plus a massive network of cycle and footpaths and parkland for exercise); and within a 15 minute Metro ride - free on my OAP pass - of the city centre for more shops, museums and art galleries than you can shake a stick at.  Plus I have my books and my music and good friends around.  It's all good.

But it simply isn't the countryside.  I need to do something about that.



Moving out is the only way I can get back to what I'm used to (for despite my extended Warsaw residence it still doesn't feel completely right).  And of course this presents problems to be solved.  Two in particular - my kids and money.

My kids are still well in school age - my son is 13 going on 14 (and teenage angst is setting in) and my daughter 11 going on 21.  I love 'em deeply, and they are my Number One concern.  Because of their age, they are well settled into education and have networks of close friends, built up in the local (very good) middle school a kilometre up the road.  The lad has also just moved up to senior school and started on his equivalent to English GCSE studies with college or university on the horizon.  Milady has a couple of years to go before she follows him......and the time is passing way too quickly. The last thing we can do is disrupt their education.

So the alternative to leaving Warsaw completely is to buy a smaller place out of town where we can weekend or holiday - and that of course leads us into the second issue - dosh (or the comparative lack of the stuff).   Retirement and Brexit between them have, naturally enough, blown a sizeable hole in the Good Ship Spending Power.  Like most blokes, I suppose, growing old(er) was never on my radar, and the needs of my first family (all grown men thankfully, and doing well in life with their own family responsibilities), to mention nothing of Doing the Decent Thing when I divorced some years ago mean that I have a quite small savings pot.  Then of course a devaluing pound has reduced the value of what pension income I have, since I'm paid in sterling and have to convert to Polish zloty.  At Referendum time I could buy over 5 to the pound, now it's closer to 4.5 and sliding.  Thank you, Parliament!

There's not much I can do about either.  I can't slow down time so that my kids grow older more slowly, nor can I turn back the clock to before they started school, when leaving Warsaw would have been no upheaval for them.   I can do nothing either about the folly of the Brexit decision that has affected the currency markets and economies of both Britain and Europe, Poland's included, and will continue to do so for many years.  My pensions are fixed for the duration (State excluded - you never know, a future Government of some kind may see their way to being more generous, but I'm not holding my breath) and the chances of winning the Euromillions lottery are not worth thinking about so I don't bother playing it.  So all I can do is  manage the best I can, and that will be the story of my life, I think.

But looking on the bright side, I'm still healthy so I can at least enjoy my kids and bike rides and hiking for many years to come.  And there is actually one possibility that could help me realise my move out.



When I claimed my pensions I had a couple of lump sum payments (as you do), and even with a sliding exchange rate they come to a reasonable sum.  I'm not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but there's enough there to give me some options.  I also have a savings policy maturing this time next year that will swell the coffers a bit as well.  In theory at least, I could invest in a small out of town place now.  This would complicate things a little because it would probably mean my splitting my time between Warsaw and wherever, at least until the kids finish school (perhaps 10 years?) enabling my wife and I to relocate properly.  But it's a consideration that we're taking seriously.

A big question is location.  It will be in Poland somewhere I think, if for no other reason than property prices are very cheap here in comparison with other European countries, especially Britain.  That may change, of course.....  So then the choice is where do we go?

We could probably find something a couple of hours or so's drive out of town that would be pretty rural and fit the bill.  A little plot of land with a small cottage on it in a village somewhere is appealing, but I'm not convinced - I don't know the locality well enough.  The price, while reasonable, would be higher due to the proximity to Warsaw, so less value for money - a bit like buying a place in the Home Counties within commuting range of London.  I'm not sure.....

Then there is the south of Poland, beyond the major cities like Krakow and Wroclaw and Katowice.  Here you are coming into ski country, with the Biesczady and Tatra mountain ranges, offshoots of the Carpathian range, that form Poland's only real natural barrier.  I've been to the Biesczadies several times as we usually take a winter break in a small ski resort called Szczyrk that I've praised on here a couple of times.  It's lovely countryside and I've often thought I'd like to visit in high summer and explore a bit without tramping through a metre of snow wrapped in thermals and gloves.  The cold frankly doesn't agree with me these days, especially with the dodgy hips and knees and increasingly rheumy hands that all ache constantly.  But it is nice there, and is not impossible.

To the north, of course, is the Baltic coast, and this is my favoured destination at the moment.  I've visited several resorts there - I wrote about the pleasures on offer a few weeks ago in a piece called Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside and there are a number of other essays scattered about (check the Archives most years for July or August and you're likely to find something)  - and I can safely say it's my favourite part of the country.  There is no question I would move there tomorrow if someone offered me a place.  A small villa, an apartment somewhere (especially with a sea view) or a place a few kilometres inland - I'd settle for any one of them. And there is still excellent value to be had, and a lot of new developments springing up to offer a wide choice.  Hmmmm.......

The drive to the coast this year took us on a different route since our resort was new to us - well, to me anyway: it was a return to childhood for my beloved.  Two thirds of it followed the familiar and excellent A2 and A1 highways towards Gdansk that we have driven many times, but around the historic battleground of Grudziadz we swung onto the cross country route north westerly through the beautiful Pomeranian countryside, past Chojnice and the coastal resort of Koszalin.  It's a lovely road, winding through rolling, forested hills and small villages with their distinctive Kaszubian wooden cottages that gave way the further west we traveled to the more Germanic buildings representative of the area's Prussian past.  Regularly we would swing around a bend and through the trees see lakes large and small glimmering in the hot summer sunshine.  On our return, reversing the route, we stopped off a couple of hundred metres off the main road along a deserted forest track where there was a small picnic area and rested for an hour.  It was deserted, and despite the hum of traffic from a busy (for the area: a car or truck every four or five minutes) main road, very quiet and peaceful.  We loved it.

A lot of the small lakeside villages had property for sale, and many seemed to be small wooden bungalows set back from the road, often with the lake lapping quietly at the boundaries of the small and neat gardens.  It was idyllic......and immediately gave us another option.  The area is beautiful and quiet, with few large towns and not a shopping mall or McDonald's in sight.  It's probably a couple of hours from the coast and about four to five from Warsaw, and at summer's end the traffic was, as I've suggested above, quite light.  I'm sure it's heavier in the peak period from the end of June to the end of August and I'm sure winters bring difficult conditions (as is common throughout the country) but for all that I think it would be a delightful place to live.  More research is needed, maybe a trip or two more at different times of the year to get a clearer picture, but it's a region I'm now thinking seriously about.



So there we go.  Much as we would like a place in the sun, on some sandy coast in the south of Spain, the Algarve in Portugal or a Greek island, it ain't likely to happen.  I should have started saving many years earlier to get anywhere close to that.  In the same way, a return to my homeland to settle in a Cornish or Norfolk coastal cottage is unlikely - liquidating all our property here will only raise a decent deposit for such a place, and no-one is likely to provide me with a mortgage (my pension would nowhere near cover it, not even close!).  Besides, sad as it is to write this, I'm not sure I could live in England now - it's not the place I grew up in and the changes that inevitably come anywhere to anyone have not been kind.  And I've changed too.  I'm simply not the man who jumped on an A320 at Heathrow back in 2000 to start a long-term project in this strange and dreary country called Poland (and how wrong that impression turned out to be!)

So movin' out - yes, sooner rather than later, but where to?   And a small apartment rather than a house would be better too - less work to maintain (gardening and DIY have never been my strengths, although I do enjoy a potter at my plot).   Time to stop thinking and start doing something about it, perhaps.





 

Well done the weather walkers!

It's good to see so many people on the streets today, protesting climate change.  I have to say had I known about the event I would have joined in the march here in Warsaw - assuming there is one (I've seen nothing ov tv about one yet).  But from what I've seen so far on my main news source, the BBC World News channel and website, the marches across the world have attracted not just school and college kids but tens of thousands of concerned individuals of all ages.  And not a hint of trouble (as I write, early afternoon in a cool cloudy Polish capital).  This is all good.

Forget Brexit.  Discount Trump's and Democratic candidates' posturing. Ignore the US - China trade war that threatens the entire global economy.  It seems to me the Number One threat to this planet, and all of us who live on it is Climate Change.  Global Warming if you prefer.  If it isn't addressed by all of us, and soon, the place will be changed so much international trade, global economics, capitalism, Islamic terrorism, the whole lot, will be unsupportable in any case.  A good proportion of the planet will be places where, conservatively, it will be difficult to live and prosper, never mind indulge in petty squabbles about my God's better than your God, or whose food is best, or whether US cars are better than German (hint: it's not the American).  Whole countries will have disappeared under rising seas (the Maldives and Polynesia, for instance) and others changed forever and reduced in size by the same catastrophe (the Netherlands, parts of the eastern United Kingdom and eastern coast of the USA, many others).  It's happening already.

The threat, no matter what nay sayers may claim, is real.  The science shows time after time, that both polar ice caps are melting, and faster than anticipated even five years ago.  This alone is enough to concern us all, since it will directly cause the sea level rises.  Study after study shows increasing levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere that are clearly affecting our weather patterns.  There are more tornadoes every year in the US.  Hurricanes and typhoons are more frequent and more powerful.  The frequency of severe weather - whether extraordinarily high rainfall and exceptional flooding, more sustained periods of drought, a greater incidence of uncontrolled forest fires (as far apart as California and Siberia and Australia) or greater snowfall in areas where such events were previously rare - increases year on year.

A friend of mine (well, an old colleague at any rate) insists that there is no such thing as climate change or global warming.  This is all a cyclical variation in normal weather patterns, he says.  But then what does he know?  He's also a rampant Brexit zealot and thus incapable of reasoned discussion.  The Orange Occupant of the White House, President of the biggest polluter of them all, is an even bigger, and hence more dangerous due his position, sceptic.  To him, climate change is all a hoax dreamed up and organised by the Chinese to damage American industry, trade and its economy.  To combat which he increases coal production, grants more fracking licences in the first year in office than in the entire Obama presidency (according to some reports), rolls back environmental protection laws that have been in place for many years, and overrules states like California that take the problem seriously and introduce their own measures to mitigate damage.  Oh, and unilaterally withdraws from the Paris Climate Accords because "they're a bad deal that damages America".  Fuck the planet - America First!

When there are people like this in positions of power, whether politically or in business, then it will remain difficult to change the bleak future that has been predicted.  A period of a mere 11 years (that is the same as my daughter's age - a very short time!) before irreversible climate change tips us over the edge into a difficult and uncertain future is the current estimate.  But some reports suggest that things are happening even quicker and that 11 years projection may in fact be generous.  To be clear: Climate Change cannot now be stopped, the most we can hope to do is slow it and mitigate its effects. 

There are business leaders who have made commitments that will help to do this - in particular the major tech companies like Apple, Google and Amazon, all with commitments to become carbon neutral within a relatively short time span (up to ten years), and all of whom are investing billions of dollars in measures to do so.  There are also a lot of governments who have made grand sounding pledges for their entire countries to become carbon neutral (clearly a much harder thing to achieve) but their time frames are typically in the range of 30 years - so by 2050 - which will of course be far too late.

The problem is the world is still too reliant on carbon fuels - gas guzzling cars and buses and trucks and (worst of all) airplanes, coal and oil burning power plants to provide our electricity to homes and industry.  There are many movements and activists trying to make us all more aware of our carbon footprint and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, take fewer flights and make less car and bus journeys, but in many rural areas and Third World countries these measures are often impractical or at worst impossible to attain.  But the efforts must continue - indeed increase.  There are many sloar farms abd wind turbine farms scattered around the world, and more are needed.  Governments world wide must do their part to move us all away from fossil fuels, the big polluters, towards more sustainable and renewable energy sources.  Whether wind power, solar power, the still untrusted but vital atomic power, and others still theoretical like nuclear fusion, is immaterial.  A mix of all them is needed. 

The issue of course is cost.  All of these changes will cost trillions of dollars to deliver in the time frame available (or close to it) and governments world wide are reluctant to commit these vast sums of money when there are more immediate local problems for them to confront - policing, health care, aging populations, unemployment, border security and terrorism.....to name just a few.  This is quite understandable, but at some point - and some point VERY soon - governments are going to have to bite the bullet and address the climate change catastrophe properly.  The Paris Accords - no mater what Trump may insist - were a decent starting point and one that needs to be built upon, whether or not the US are involved.

And if that means that we, as individuals, have to pay more taxes to fund the investments that will be required then so be it.  If services like power and heating (from whatever source) increase in price then fine.  If we have to drive less and take fewer holiday or business flights (and pay premium prices when we do so) then bring it on.  It seems to me that is a price worth paying to allow life to continue - and hopefully flourish - on this planet of ours.

I hope today's demonstrators, whether in Australia, across Asia, in wealthy Europe and poor Africa and India, and especially in gas guzzling wealthy America, make their local politicians sit up and take notice.  And if they don't I hope they do it again.  And again.  As many times as necessary.

And next time - for there WILL be a next time! - I fully intend to walk with them.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside.....

One of the delights of Poland, one that never gets the recognition it deserves in my view, is the quality of its Baltic Sea coastal resorts. Personally, I love them. Here is why.

First and foremost, the beaches are superb along the entire length of the coast from the German border to that of the Russian enclave at Kaliningrad. They have a character like no other I have come across elsewhere – kilometre after kilometre of golden sands, with hardly any pebbles or stones anywhere, backed up by forests that vary in width between a hundred metres to perhaps a kilometre before you come to a road. Between the trees, that give a welcome shade from what can be a surprisingly hot summer sun, there are sandy dunes criss-crossed by networks of foot- and cycle-paths winding in and out of the trees making for a pleasant walk before and after your beach lounging. There is plenty of grass and heathers and forest flowers as well. Lovely.

Where the beaches are close to a town or resort village, every 50 metres or so in the sand there are blue refuse sacks, which people use to keep the beach pristine (unlike other places I’ve been to where you have to pick your way through the trash on your way to and from the beach). It’s rare to find junk just dumped and left in the sand, buried cigarette butts notwithstanding, and even they seem to be less common these days. In these areas too there are usually two or three beach bars scattered around the beach entrances, serving a variety of hot and cold food and the local beers, always cold and cheap in comparison with the price you would pay elsewhere. There are also squads of vendors traipsing along the sands selling bags of popcorn and nachos and corn-on-the-cob, and usually soft drinks. They do good business, but I don’t envy them – it must be hard work, especially on the hotter summer days, slogging along acres of sand for little reward.

The beaches all have steps or paths leading in from the adjoining woods every half kilometre or so, so access is safe and easy. For town beaches there are generally plenty of free parking spaces in the streets, as well as secure and paid car parks. The beaches here tend to be quite crowded, with acres of colourful windbreaks marking your section of precious sand, and as the tide line never seems to vary by more than a couple of feet per tide, you can park yourself right on the surf line. Out of town beaches tend to be emptier, though rarely deserted, and lack the beach bars and hawkers (though often there are still trash bags). I’m not a fan of crowded beaches, so we tend to drive perhaps three or four kilometres (say half a dozen beach entrances – most are numbered and all clearly signed), park at the side of the road and just under the shade of the forest, then walk to find a bit more elbow room. Well worth the effort.

The Baltic has a deserved reputation as one of the coldest seas in the world, but in the summer, especially the hotter and sunnier ones that we are blessed with in these days of global warming (and I know that in itself is a curse) it’s still fine for bathing. I would suggest it is no colder than the English Channel or North Sea that I was used to for most of my life, and I’m happy to go in for a dip. It can be quite rough, with big waves and strong currents, so care has to be taken, but for all that, great fun. The busier or more dangerous beaches are well known and well patrolled by lifeguards, but that still does not prevent regular drowning tragedies. But I don’t think any more than elsewhere.

Second, the resorts themselves, whether the stolid Germanic and well paved towns and villages in the far west of the coast, in what was once part of Prussia, or the shabbier places to the east where a Communist influence and poorer roads and footpaths prevail, are full of cheap and cheerful restaurants offering a huge variety of fresh fish dishes and traditional, filling Polish fare like pierogi, zapikanki, chicken and pork cutlets with potatoes in various styles (chips, of course, boiled, or ground up and fried as pancakes), fresh vegetables and salads alongside the ubiquitous pizzas, burgers (but not McDonalds) and kebabs.

And then there are the ice-creams. Forget the good old Walls’ 99s with their Cadbury’s chocolate flakes stuffed into the ice cream, or the Magnum lollies and other British favourites, and enjoy delicious cornets stuffed full of spiralled ice cream three or four inches high, maybe more if you’re a regular customer at a particular stall, in vanilla, chocolate or a mix of both, or lovely soft Italian style cornets in the same flavour mixes. Then there are Polish family brands like Grycan offering a huge range of flavoured ice-creams and sorbets. Every one delicious – and that’s without adding a selection of toppings like ground nuts, chocolate chips, and coloured chips (in England, hundreds-and-thousands) or sauces (strawberry and chocolate are favourites).

Let’s not forget the Polish speciality – gofry (it’s pronounced go-free), which is a sweet waffle topped with powdered sugar, or Nutella chocolate sauce, or whipped squirty cream smothered in fresh fruits (finely chopped strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, blueberries, pineapples and peaches) with again a dousing in fruit sauces. With food of this quality and value it’s no wonder I regularly put on a few kilos each trip!

Finally, there is the shopping.   Again common to any resort is the huge numbers of gift shops and jewellery stalls, and clothing stalls typically run or sponsored by major Polish brands like 4F, or internationals like cropp, house and adidas. The goods in these are the same as you would find in one of their city mall locations but cheaper – they have kept me in shorts and tee-shirts for years. In the gift shops there are the usual fridge magnets, invariably tailored for the resort you’re in, and coffee mugs, similarly decorated, a variety of ornaments made from glass, seashells and stuff, all with a distinctly nautical flavour as you would expect. There are also earrings and necklaces made from locally sourced amber (the Baltic coast is world famous for it) and again small seashells, plus a huge range of bracelets and hippy beads. There are even stalls selling proper gold and silver stuff. All sensibly priced and decent quality.

Much as I have enjoyed (and will hopefully continue to enjoy) my overseas trips to places like Croatia and Spain, Portugal and the Greek islands, where I can usually rely on a couple of weeks’ decent weather and a sea as warm as bathwater, I find something comforting in coming back to the coast here. Whether westerly Mrzeżyno (where we have stayed this last couple of weeks), centrally located Rowy, Ustka and our old favourite Jastrębia Góra, or easterly Sztutowo and Krynica Morska, within a few kilometres of the border with Russian Kaliningrad, they are lovely places well worth a visit – and visit them I will!