the POLSKI blog

You probably are if you live in Scotland. It’s called St Andrew’s Day. But in Poland it’s not so much about the saint, it’s more about predictions and parties. Andrzejki, how the day is referred to (from Andrzej, which is the Polish equivalent of Andrew), is when everybody predicts their future by observing some fun [...]

I wrote about the newly-introduced smoking ban a few days ago and a couple of my readers commented saying they remained sceptical about the effectiveness of the ban.  (Being sceptical is prerequisite to being Polish Turns out, they were right. A cafe owner in Katowice in the south of Poland bypassed the ban by turning [...]

The Polish Tourist Board should be proud. Their campaign to promote Poland is certainly working. Well, kind of. The Philippines have launched a new tourism campaign, Kay Ganda (‘so beautiful’), which, it would seem, borrowed a thing or two from the logo of the above mentioned Polish Tourist Board: Thoughts?

Another Polish city is about to pump some serious money into an international TV campaign to promote itself. Poznan, one of the oldest Polish cities, for decades recognised as an important trade centre favoured by many Polish entrepreneurs, will be showing a series of ads across a number of TV channels in Britain and elsewhere. [...]

Here’s a new Polish phrase for you: “zakaz palenia”. Or “smoking prohibited”. From today, most public spaces in Poland become smoke-free zones. Smoking is now banned in bars, clubs, restaurants, schools, hospitals, bus stops and many other public places. Roughly a quarter of all Poles smoke regularly and probably won’t be happy with the ban, [...]

Sad news this morning – Polish composer, Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, best known for his “Third Symphony”, died in Poland at the age of 76. Born in Silesia, he spent most of his life working and teaching in Katowice, the heart of the most industrialised region in Poland. Until early 1990s he remained largerly unknown, even [...]

Don’t know why Poland wants to have the biggest this and the biggest that, but of all things they could have gone for, they’ve chosen… the biggest Jesus. Poland is a Catholic country, religion still plays a huge role in most people’s lives and building gigantic religious edifices of questionable beauty (ever seen one of [...]

The weather in London has been really mild over the past few weeks, but don’t let it fool you. It’ll get cold and miserable soon.  Already everyone on the tube is sneezing and it made me realise that I never really told you how to express your dissatisfaction with lower temperatures, did I ? If [...]