IWD's blog

The wisdom of the Drivel List (2)*

2006-10-18T06:56:00.000Z

It has been widely reported that during a recent riot at Lincoln prison Blunkett was in favour of sending in the army to end the problem with machine guns. Has the man been reading the Drivel List? After publication of the learned article "God is on our side (4)" Andy Osborne, the List's crime correspondent, suggested filling our prisons with muslims. If they managed to kill 100 of themselves and other vermin each day, as they are doing in Iraq, we soon wouldn't have a prison over-crowding crisis, there would be fewer criminals, because the muslims would have killed them, and society would be a much nicer place.
Good point well made, I reckon. When the prisons are full, especially, they could do far worse than execute everyone who is locked up and then start all over again. Next time the prisons started getting nearly full the criminal classes might begin to wonder whether they wanted to be in clink the next time they were full. Could work wonders for the crime figures.
*See, Percy, "The wisdom of the Drivel List (1)" was not 1 in a series of 1. The Drivel List - Intellect in Depth.

Respect

2006-10-08T21:27:00.000Z

More wonderful stuff on the Sunday programme this morning. Apparently the church of england is encouraging its schools to accept 25% of pupils who are not members of the church, and as a result of this the government is considering making it compulsory for all 'faith' schools to do likewise. Good news indeed - I am sure there must be thousands of parents queueing up to send their kids to a muslim school where, sharia law being what it is, they are likely to get stoned to death for forgetting their nine-times table.
The principal of a muslim school was interviewed. During the course of the interview she stressed islam was all about respect. I wondered how they square respect for women with being happy to have them walking around with bin-liners over their heads. To be fair, respect for women is not the strong point of many religions. The c of e has only just got around to agreeing to the ordination of women and the pope's lot still seem several centuries away. During a visit to Poland I was taken to a pub in the Jewish quarter of Krakow and was bought a 'kosher' beer. "What makes it kosher?" I enquired, in my innocence thinking it was something to do with the ingredients. "It is made in a brewery where no women are employed," was the answer. Presumably this is because women, like some animals, are 'unclean'. How bloody daft can you get? As my missus says, who, in general, is cleaner, men or women? How often do you hear of women in dirty macks flashing at fellas? Hardly ever. Unfortunately.

God is on our side (4)

2006-10-05T07:55:00.000Z

According to the news this morning approximately one hundred people are being tortured then killed every day in Iraq for being the wrong sort of muslim. Not long ago the same sort of thing was happening to folk in Northern Ireland, but for being the wrong sort of christian. There, however, the daily body count rarely reached double figures and not all of them were tortured. Clearly christianity still has much to learn from islam.
Not that I'm suggesting for one minute, of course, that islam is a violent religion.

More vermin

2006-10-04T06:30:00.000Z

Today's news - a major breakthrough in DNA analysis which will enable identification of the sources of DNA present in mixed samples. This will, apparently, enable 'thousands' of crimes to be solved. Magic. We identify countless rapists, murderers, muggers, paedophiles, and unexploded muslims and lock them up (if we can find a gaol which is not already full). Then, after a couple of weeks, we let them out so they are free to go raping, murdering, mugging, paedophiling, and exploding at will. And that's progress.
There have been quite a few stories recently of criminals being released and being able to carry on where they left off because of 'lack of communication among the prison service, the social services, the probation service, and the police'. But hang on a minute. If there had been perfect communication what would have happened? Would PC plod have been positioned outside the residence of vermin no. 1 ready to follow him to the scene of his next crime and arrest him just before he did anything naughty? Yeah. Right.
Sometimes I wonder whether the rapists, murderers, muggers, paedophiles, and unexploded muslims are any more of a threat to the country than the prison service, social services, probation service, and police.

The wisdom of the Drivel List (1)

2006-09-28T08:24:00.000Z

Many thanks to Andy Osborne for this gem.

Just caught the 8 o'clock news as I was parking the car. There was a report that a Home Office Inspection has determined that Pentonville Prison is full of vermin. Isn't that the idea of a prison? Lock all the scum up to keep them off the streets and away from us law-abiding citizens?

Getting your own back

2006-09-28T06:45:00.000Z

As part of his web stats Percy (the nice chap who set up this blog for me) can see what people have searched for on google, and other search engines, before ending up at this blog. So far people have arrived here after searching for:

kevin hazelwood
maltase cross
fun with potassium
how are mobile phones are being misused nowadays
fun with chemistry sets explosive
.iwd viewer
admiral poindexter children
blowjob etymology
football programme collector blog
god is on our side
gypsies: scum of the earth
iwd nation
job well done in french
mohamed ben said - autobiography - abu dhabi
blowjob etymology
do muslims perform blowjobs
wayne rooney abu dhabi
fun with chemistry (four times)
god is on our side
polish mates
polenotes
suspended ceiling tiles
telephone number for iwd airport
weird customs
sharapova brat scream

I wonder - did they name an airport after me before or after I started the blog?

Is it not amazing what people are looking for? 'Blowjobs' seem pretty popular but, amazingly, nothing like as popular as 'fun with chemistry'. 'Polenotes'? Now why is anyone searching for that? I thought I invented the word. And 'sharapova brat scream'?

It seems to me that in support of my vast enquiring public I should try to ensure no one searching the web for these popular topics is ever disappointed. I shall, therefore, try to generate a few learned articles. I've little idea yet what I'm going to say about mohamed ben said - autobiography - abu dhabi, but we shall see.

First off, an easy one - 'suspended ceiling tiles'. Some months ago an unpleasant odour was detected in one of the classrooms at our local comprehensive school. It gradually became worse, and worse, until the kids were sitting in class with the windows wide open, freezing to death. It was initially suspected an animal had died under the floor and much disruption was expected when parts of the floor were lifted to investigate. Luckily, however, before this happened someone had the bright idea of checking the suspended ceiling. When they did they discovered someone, presumably a kid with a grudge, had lifted a tile and inserted a dead fish. This strikes me as an excellent way of having a bit of fun - the fish can be inserted and the miscreant can be well away before the problem becomes apparent. If you decide to try it, why not leave a comment telling your story?

Let's hear it for the rotts

2006-09-25T06:39:00.000Z

A "delightful" five-month old baby (who was, no doubt, also an effing genius about to get seventy five A-stars in her GCSEs) gets torn to pieces by a couple of "vicious" rottweilers, presumably because her parents weren't looking after her properly, and all of a sudden a pile of flowers and teddy bears appears outside the pub where it happened. But what about the poor rottweilers? They've been bred to protect, attack, kill, and eat babies, and when they do just that they are savagely put to death, even though they were house trained, always ate up all their dinner, walked to heel, fetched balls and begged when they were told to, never chased sheep, and were about to win hundreds of prizes at Crufts. And has anyone left any flowers for them? Of course they haven't. Have the local pooches been round to weep and wail, or howl, or pee at the scene, or leave a few tins of Chum, or the odd bone or two, or even a smelly ragged slipper? Of course they haven't. They probably haven't even been told what has happened. I'm tempted to pop along myself with a bag of Winalot.
According to the BBC web site, one of the locals has said the dogs were "known to be vicious" and that "whenever you walk past [them] you get the feeling they could jump down and attack you". Bet it never stopped the buggers popping in for a drink.

Chauffeur me to heaven

2006-09-24T07:22:00.000Z

Although the religious programme 'Sunday' on radio 4 can make me scream at people's stupidity, it does occasionally throw up some interesting snippets. An example this morning is that the bishop of London claims £24000 expenses a year for a chauffeur and £15000 for fuel. Does he ever travel on the Underground, I wonder? This same chappie wrote, somewhere, something along the lines that people should stop flying away on holiday and give the energy to some chap in Africa that needs it more.
Anyone know how much in travel expenses Jesus used to claim?

Help the Aged

2006-09-20T06:58:00.000Z

The Today programme this morning reported the staggering news that more and more old gits are having to sell their house to pay for residential care, which costs an average of £21000 a year. I wonder how many can afford this without selling up. I also wonder what makes folk pay £21000 a year for physical and verbal abuse they can get at home for free.

For the love of god, smite the infidels (and, indeed, anyone else you care to have a go at)

2006-09-17T07:16:00.000Z

It doesn't take a lot to start a holy war nowadays. Perhaps it never has. The dear old Hitlerjugend Pope ("My mates call me 'Eggs'.") Benedict is the latest chap to put his foot in the ordure that is islam by having the nerve to quote part of a conversation which occurred something over 600 years ago: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
As a consequence of an entirely predictable bout of typical islamic unpleasantness the pope has since been blessed with dazzling enlightenment and, equally predictably, announced that the words "do not in any way express my personal thought". So much for papal infallibility. Perhaps he can also tell us how he feels about the words' being uttered by a follower of a religion that had, for hundreds of years, been doing a fair bit of smiting of its own, and with the blessing of a whole string of popes.
And, hey, "... there you will find things only evil and inhuman ... " is a bit rich. If Eggs did, before his divine awakening, believe this to be true of islam, and I must say I've a fair bit of sympathy with the view, I wonder how he feels about the burning of witches and the Spanish Inquisition. Was that merely a bit of friendly persuasion? It seems to me that the followers of the many lunatic cults spawned by the god of Abraham, in his various guises, have always been pretty damn keen to indulge in a bit of persecution and bloodletting whenever and wherever they can. I blame all the violence on tele, personally.
And is it not unbelievable how folk can insist their religion is not even the teensiest weensiest bit violent, and then proceed to demonstrate this by burning an effigy of the pope, attacking churches, calling for days of anger, telling worshippers to hunt down and kill whoever offends the prophet mohammed, and, possibly, bravely shooting a nun in the back? I wonder what the international response of islam would have been if after 9/11 or the London bombings hundreds of thousands of christians had taken to the streets, burnt effigies of Sahibzada Mirza Masroor Ahmad Sahib Abdul the Bulbul, Khalifatul Masih V, or whatever, and destroyed a few mosques. Whatever the response, as sure as Eggs is Eggs (geddit!) it would not have been unreserved apology. But they need not worry - the behaviour of christians is, usually, no longer quite that primitive. Neither are they as mentally unbalanced or as pitifully childish.

Everyone's innocent nowadays

2006-09-12T07:16:00.000Z

Amazing, is it not? Whenever a kid gets squashed by a bus or a police car, tops himself after being bullied at school or buggered by a perv vicar, is eviscerated by a sword-wielding thurman, or is blown up by a religious nutter, it is always the nicest, kindest, most intelligent, most sweet-smelling, most clean-living, most innocent kid in the world who went to church three times on Sunday, always made his bed, fed the birds, stroked the neighbouring strays, found plenty of time to visit his granny and do her washing up, never dropped litter or trod on the cracks in the pavement, and was about to get seventy five A-stars in his GCSEs?
We've been told a load of crap of this sort about the fifteen-year-old Mancunian lad who was shot three times solely because he "happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time". According to the police there is no evidence that Jessie James (if you're going to shoot someone, go for the big names, I say) was a member of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang, or indeed any gang at all, or had anything to do with drugs. From what you hear he was the sort of lad who felt guilty if he bit the head off a jelly baby.
So would someone like to tell me what a fifteen-year-old lad was doing at two in the morning in a Moss Side park which, apparently, anyone with any sense avoided during the hours of darkness? I'll bet my arse he wasn't picking f#cking buttercups.

Play up, play up, and play the game

2006-08-21T08:25:00.000Z

So we win the series against Pakistan by three-and-a-half to a half. Seems fair enough - cricketers who get in a huff when they're accused of ball tampering and are not given a chance to defend themselves deserve all they get, if you ask me. But the matter isn't over yet, of course. The ICC still have to witter a bit. They can't witter today, of course, because they're based in Dubai (the spiritual home of cricket since the crusades, of course) and wittering about cricket on the Monday of a fourth test at the Oval with four wickets down when there isn't an 'r' in the month is, of course, one of Allah's abominations. Another of Allah's abominations is finding in favour of a non-muslim cricket-playing nation, so I fully expect a five-test penalty to be awarded against England, so the final result will be five and a half to two and a half. I've no objection to religion, if you like that sort of thing, but a line must be drawn when it starts to interfere with cricket.

Orgasmic

2006-07-14T22:20:00.000Z

I love Wimbledon. My favourite two weeks TV of the year. Never been though, so this year decided to visit on the Monday of week 2. We thought we'd just turn up and see if we could get one of those £17 tickets which let you go everywhere apart from the show courts. We arrived at approximately 11:30 and there was no obvious queue to join. It was a bit hot, so we weren't well pleased when, having walked to the far end of the site we were told we'd have to walk most of the way back again, and then cross over the road, or perhaps not, depending on whom you asked, to pass through security. Having walked backwards and forwards a few times, and having been given no help or useless help from the scores of stewards and other officials hanging about, we finally found someone who knew what they were talking about and we were able to achieve entrance. When we moaned about the absence of signs the stewards just looked at us in amazement - how dare the great unwashed complain about the arrangements at Wimbledon. Most seemed to have their heads so far up their arses ...
The number of staff must far outnumber the ordinary punters. They had so many flunkies hanging around they could afford to put two Securicor gents on a staircase four or so metres wide to force a minute number of pedestrians to "keep to the right, please". Don't they know that Brits tend to keep to the left? They didn't half get ratty when folk ignored them. If it had been in America they'd probably have pulled guns.
We occasionally found somewhere to sit in the shade where we could see the play, but usually there were too many punters with exactly the same idea. And even in the shade it was a bit too warm. We moved about quite a bit to see what was going on, and to try to keep out of the sun. I tell you one thing - most of the courts are a lot smaller than the ones they show you on the TV. No that it seemed to affect the players. Anyway, we saw Ancic (losing a second set) and Sugiyama (getting knocked out) and Li putting up a good show against an east European who screamed something which sounded very much like "shitski" when she lost a point. We saw a whole load of really entertaining doubles matches. We also saw the scoreboard informing everyone Murray was being knocked out.
We didn't see Sharapova but we heard her grunting from a couple of courts away. Most blokes seem to go weak at the knees at the mention of her name. OK, she's moderately attractive, but would you really want to go out with her? There you'd be in this posh restaurant and as she lifted her pint she grunt "Ahhhrrreeaaahhhhh!" When she was cutting her steak, or slicing a radish, she'd scream Heeerrrrreeeeaaarrrrhhhh!" So embarrassing. And assuming you could bear it long enough to get her into bed, can you imagine the racket? It would bring down the plaster. And the joists and roof slates. And the trees in the garden next door. Thank you, but no thank you.

God is definitely not on our side - he supports the s#dd#ng French

2006-06-24T14:09:00.000Z

In the World cup Group G matches last night France, who had not previously won, had to beat Togo by a margin of two goals to be sure of qualifying if South Korea (won one, drawn one) held Switzerland (won one, drawn one) to a draw. Both France and Switzerland won 2-0. So much for the power of prayer.

Travels to Poland II

2006-06-24T12:42:00.000Z

In the last ten years or so I have visited Poland five times, flying three times and taking the coach and train once each. On a sixth occasion I tried to let the train take the strain, again, but Eurostar and signalling failures combined to ensure I missed my connection at Brussels, and had I caught the next train to Poland I would have arrived in Katowice well after everyone else had left for Szczyrk. So I gave up and came home. Did Eurostar give a damn? I'll let you guess.
The fares I paid, in the order I paid them, were: plane, £300; train, £200; coach, £90; plane, £180; plane, £80. Can anyone make any sense of that? Sensible advice, however, is never travel to Poland via Eurostar - you'll pay twice as much as the air fare and may be left stranded in Brussels.
My latest visit was in June this year (2006). My Polish hosts had previously suggested I bring my wife, or a daughter, but these have been unable to accompany me because the symposium is held during school term. It has also been suggested I bring a friend. Two years ago I went alone and, because I was mostly left alone, this year I invited a mate - a local bellringer. I checked this would be OK, and my Polish friends were most enthusiastic. They said they would arrange some sightseeing. I mentioned my mate had expressed an interest in seeing Auschwitz and Krakow, and I would be very happy to see either again. Before I booked the plane tickets I checked to ensure I would arrive in Katowice at a convenient time, we decided on June 9th. I was told we would be met at the airport and given a lift to the university hotel. On the Tuesday we were due to leave they would arrange for a car to take us from Szczyrk to the airport.
Three days before our departure I received an email asking if I was arriving on the 8th, as we had arranged, and informing me everyone was very busy organizing the symposium and could we make use of "a convenient bus service from the airport to the centre of Katowice" and come to their Institute of Chemistry unassisted, otherwise they would "have to send someone from our team to collect you from the airport". I reminded them our arrival date was the 9th, not the 8th, and their story changed. Now it was very difficult to meet us because they were holding PhD examinations. They would arrange for a taxi to take us to the university hotel.
I was somewhat pissed off and expressed this somewhat forcefully, reminding them they had said our arrival time was convenient. I also requested, if we were to be taken straight to the university hotel, that they suggest a place we could eat on the Friday evening, somewhere we were likely to find staff who could speak English; a map showing how to get there would also be very useful. I made a point that on the previous occasion I had been dropped at the hotel I could not find anywhere suitable to eat - most places had been closed and I had ended up buying bread and cheese in a supermarket and eating in my room for two days. They sensed my displeasure and agreed one of their staff would pick us up and take us to the Institute.
This duly happened as planned. At the Institute we attended brief meetings to (i) discuss the future of the journal I worked for, (ii) to discuss plans for the next few days, and (iii) to make fun of the English language. The main instigator of the last was a retired German professor who had been invited to be an external PhD examiner at the Institute, had subsequently been found to be unsuitable, but who had turned up anyway. I had met this chap before. He is the type of guy who is a legend in his own mind - whatever anyone else has done he has done it first, more often, and better. This man could bore for Europe. At the end of the meeting the bore s#dd#d off and we were taken for a most enjoyable meal by our hosts (result?) to soften us up before informing us they would be unable to take us sightseeing because they were taking the German bore instead. Did they invite us along as well? Did they f##k. Not that I could have tolerated a whole day with him.
So we spent Saturday wandering around Katowice. After having failed miserably to find an English newspaper at the railway station, something I had achieved successfully several times during previous visits, we searched for a decent bar and, after an hour or so, found one selling 300-millilitre bottles of beer, 5.6% alcohol, for something under £1.50 each. Result. After a few of these, and a snack lunch at the same place, and a few more beers, we returned to our hotel to sleep it off before heading out for dinner at the place we had eaten the previous evening (and where we had noticed English on the menu - if you see what I mean). The place is called Tatiana. Highly recommended if you are ever in Katowice. A huge menu and superb food. It's in the pedestrian precinct.
Next day we packed and set off for the Institute of Chemistry and the coach to Szczyrk. We saw another guest of the Institute being picked up and given a lift by a member of Institute's staff. Did she have spare seats in the car? She certainly did. Had anyone offered us a lift? Had they f##k. I was beginning to wonder what I had done to upset them.
While we were being driven from the airport to the Institute I had asked what time the coach to the symposium would depart from Katowice. Eleven a.m., I was informed. When we had reached the institute one of the symposium organizers advised arriving at 10:30 a.m. Yet another subsequently suggested 10 a.m. We calculated the average and arrived just before 10:30. The bus was waiting. Empty. When others started to climb on, so did we. We waited. Gone 11 we were still waiting. The professor organizing the symposium came to tell us the bus would be leaving at 11:30 "on the dot". That was at 11:10. The coach left ten minutes later.
On arrival at the hotel in Szczyrk we dumped our rucksacks and headed for the bar. It was closed, despite a notice on the door saying it opened at 9 a.m. We decided instead to drink some whisky we had bought 'duty-free' at Luton. My mate went off to get a glass (there being only one per room). He arrived at my room a couple of minutes later with no glass. "I've got the bar open," he said proudly. He had telephoned reception, ascertained English was spoken, and asked when the bar was opening. On being told it was open, he had informed them it was not. It would be open in a few minutes, said the receptionist. We returned to the bar. It was still closed. We waited a few minutes. It remained closed. My mate was becoming a trifle impatient. We were both very thirsty. We headed for reception. "The bar is still not open," said my mate. A telephone call was made. It would open in a few minutes, we were informed. We returned to the bar. It was still closed but opened almost immediately. They were selling draught beer, 5.6% alcohol, at £1 for 500 millilitres. Result. After a few of these we had lunch and then a few more. After a nap to sleep it off we had dinner, and then a few more beers. That was more or less how we filled our time on Monday also - with the addition of a small walk in the mountains before it got too hot and a barbecue in the evening. At one of the meals on the Monday we were asked why we had not been at the disco on the Sunday night. "I don't do discos," I said. "And we weren't told about it anyway," said my mate, not quite sotto voce.
Tuesday, and time to leave, and the arrangements had changed yet again. No longer was a car to take us directly to the airport. The head of the Institute was taking us back to Katowice in his car and would show us where to catch the bus to the airport. No one was 100% sure where the bus stop was but, hey, it had to be somewhere. I was beginning to have doubts we'd get to the airport at all - let alone on time. To be fair, the head of the Institute did find the bus stop, but decided instead to ask his son to give us a lift to the airport. For that we were very grateful. While we waited for him we drank 300-millilitre bottles of beer, 5.6% alcohol, in the Novotel bar for something under £3.00 each. These prices seem as sensible as fares to Poland.
Despite a few more beers at the airport, and yet another very fine meal, I don't think I'll be travelling to Poland again.

Travels to Poland I (Part 4)

2006-06-24T10:04:00.000Z

My hosts also took me to Krakow, a beautiful city, much of it built by Italian architects during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, fortunately, completely unspoiled by the war. I have been lucky enough to visit twice. The huge market square, market stalls with unbelieveable amounts of inexpensive amber for sale, the university, the Jewish quarter, and an atmosphere I have encountered nowhere other than Vienna will for ever remain in my memory. If you ever have the opportunity to visit, take it.
I was hugely sorry when, on Friday 8th, the time came for my return to the UK. I was accompanied to the (correct) bus station and found my coach without trauma. The return journey was, as might be expected, similar to the outward trip, but with a few, memorable, differences.
The best was the double seat I had to myself - the bus was less than half full.
The second was a very pleasant stewardess and a supply of Polish beer. I only had enough Polish cash left for one bottle. I was distressed when I discovered this, but very soon had reason to be grateful. After quite a slow journey through traffic jams the coach stopped on the outskirts of Katowice and picked up two passengers - a slim and very attractive young lady and her very fat and very repulsive wailing child. They had clearly been visiting the lady's parents, who had accompanied them to the bus stop and then accompanied them to their seats at the front of the coach, despite protestations from the driver who was, by then, presumably very late because of the jams. The brat seemed to be wailing because he was leaving his grandparents, who had clearly been spoiling him something rotten - they were stuffing him full of chocolate as I watched and, before finally being persuaded to leave the bus, gave him a whole load more with which to stuff himself on the journey. This he must have done with some enthusiasm because the slim lady suddenly rushed, fat brat in arms, from the front of the bus, heading for the bog. She did not make it. Just as she reached the the top of the stairs which led down to the bog the kid erupted like a chocolate volcano, covering himself, the stairs, the walls of the staircase, the bog door, and much of the slim young lady with runny yellow-brown goo. If the mouth had been pointing in my direction I also would have been well within range. I was very lucky indeed.
To be fair to the lady, she braved the dripping walls and the slimey stairs to take the slimey, dripping kid into the loo, and remained there with him for some time. When they re-appeared she had clearly removed most of the goo which could be scraped away, and given them both a wash, but their clothes were still very soiled. They made their way sheepishly back to their seats. The slim young lady made no attempt to devomit the staircase. Neither did anyone else - presumably because there was no high-pressure hose available. Which is why I was glad I had not been drinking loads of beer. When the time came for the lady and brat to alight they were wearing completely different outfits. I still can't decide whether I wished I had been sitting somewhere near the front of the bus. Would the undoubted excitement of watching the lady change her outfit have compensated for the urge to throw up whenever I saw the child? Would it all have been worthwhile had I been able to throw up over the kid?
To add insult to injury, one of the videos on the way home was about an American kid that fell through a hole in his back garden into an underground cave, and about wailing mums, anguished dads, and heroic rescuers who finally retrieved the bastard. Yeuk.
For obvious reasons the journey home was broken by toilet stops at occasional cafes. To save time the ladies queued for the loos and the gents p#ss#d up against the nearest wall. Must have been quite a sight. I was glad I had not poured vast amounts of beer down my throat and had to request p#ss-stops every ten minutes.
To add to the delays, on the journey back it took four hours to pass through customs on the Polish/German border, mostly, it seemed, because we had to take our turn in a huge queue of heavy lorries. We arrived at Victoria on time, however, so clearly this delay was expected.

Travels to Poland I (Part 3 - the serious stuff)

2006-06-24T09:47:00.000Z

On Thursday 7th my hosts "played truant" from the their own symposium and organized a trip to Auschwitz for me and two other non-Polish speakers - German and Japanese professors. This was some experience. You almost expect to turn up and find the place under a black cloud, with no flowers growing, and no birds singing, but from the outside the place looked just like an ordinary barracks, which, indeed, it once had been. The only indications of its history were remnants of once electrified barbed wire (with signs saying 'stop' in German and Polish in front of it) and the sign 'Arbeit macht Frei' over the main gate, which was beyond the main car park (which contained booths selling photo films, ice creams, etc. - the usual tourist stuff). Inside, what a difference. Many of the 28 barrack buildings contained exhibitions devoted to different aspects of camp life, or to the nations whose subjects had been incarcerated. The walls on both sides of the corridors of almost all these buildings were lined with photographs, three deep, 50 or more to a row, taken by the Nazis, of the camp prisoners accommodated in the first few years. It was chilling to wonder how many, if any, of these had survived. In later years there had been too many prisoners to photograph and they were identified solely by means of tattoos. In the final months many were transferred directly from the trains to the gas chambers.
When the Russians liberated the camp they found sacks of human hair in a warehouse ready for shipping to the German textile industry. This hair (much of which has been shown to contain traces of cyanide) had been unpacked, and was exhibited in one of the buildings. It filled a case approximately 50 m long by 2 m wide by 1.5 m deep. And this was only the stuff that hadn't been sent away from the camp.
It is difficult to describe the atmosphere around these and other horrors. Here and there were notices saying that " ... at least twenty thousand prisoners died in this room ... " or " ... an unknown number of prisoners died in this area ... " and requesting visitors show respect by maintaining silence. Needless to say, these notices were ignored by many. The Japanese guy in our party, clearly a keen photographer, had to take a snap of every gory detail - gas chamber, crematorium, gallows, etc., etc - perhaps he was studying technique. He must have taken well over 100 photos, and often the 'silence' of the most sombre areas was broken by the whine of his camera rewinding. Some tourists were wondering around with camcorders going full time, others couldn't be bothered to turn off their mobile 'phones, and in one courtyard in which an unknown number of Polish prisoners had been shot or hung I even saw one pair sitting on an outside window sill eating their lunch.
The visit ended with a 30-minute film. For me this did not have the same impact as walking through the buildings - it was the sort of thing seen many times on newsreels and TV programmes about the war. Clearly, though, it had a very traumatic effect on the two Poles in our party - and they had seen it many times. On my two visits to Poland it has seemed to me there is barely anyone alive in Poland whose family has not been affected by some Nazi atrocity or other. For example, one member of the family of the symposium organizer had been sent to a concentration camp and not seen again; she had, incidentally, also lost a relative on the American liner sunk by a U-boat early in the war. Another member of the staff of the department had lost all members of her family but one.

Travels to Poland I (Part 2)

2006-06-24T08:44:00.000Z

Two aspects of the coach trip I almost overlooked - the in-flight entertainment and weird customs.
Most of the time the radio was playing (mostly English) pop music with the DJs' language changing seamlessly from English to French to Belgian to Dutch to German and, finally, to Polish as the journey progressed. The volume was low and did not interfere with reading or low-level mental activity. Suddenly, however, shortly after crossing the Channel, the volume increased sharply. After a while I noticed this and, wondering what the Frogs were up to now, looked up to determine whether anyone else was as irritated as I. Thus it dawned on me the music had given way to a video show. This comprised three videos in rapid succession, on screens smaller than that on my PC. One was at the front of the bus. As I was sitting approximately two thirds of the way back it was about as useful as my trying to read a book at arms' length with no specs. The other screen was just behind me and on my right and I'd have been able to see it quite conveniently had my neck been a couple of feet longer and contained several universal joints. None of this was a problem, however, because all the videos were dubbed - you could hear the first few English words of any sentence and this was then drowned by Polish, spoken by the same male voice, irrespective of whether or not a male, female, or child was speaking, and at the same loud volume, irrespective of whether a gunfight or tender love scene was in progress. (Quite a lot of Polish TV is like this.) One of the videos was Seven Eternities of Brad Pitt. I remember no details of the others. This delight continued for approximately six hours, but I suppose I can be grateful I was spared Polish hysterics at the antics of Mr Bean.
Weird customs.
The customs at Dover and Calais showed no interest in us, neither did those at the France/Belgium, Belgium/Holland, or Holland/Germany borders - we just sailed through. EC rules, OK. An announcement on the ferry had instructed those carrying any food to dump it over board, owing to the foot and mouth disease rampant in the UK at the time. It was apparent on the continuing journey that no one took any notice of this crap. The customs on the German/Polish border was something else - perhaps they still thought there was a war on. We stopped. There was a delay. The Gestapo came on, inspected passports, and pronounced everything satisfactory. Another delay. Then the Polish lot asked for all the passports to be collected. Another delay, then these were returned apart from those of three passengers, all from the same family, with which there was a problem. This family (typical slobs like you see all over the UK - thick fat skinhead bloke in a vest, dumb blonde wife in tears, kid wot thinks it's fun to run up and down the bus banging on the bog door) was escorted to an office where I was hoping, no doubt in common with everyone else on the coach, they would be summarily executed, or at least tortured a bit. It was not to be. About an hour later they were escorted back to the coach. They didn't even look as if they had been soundly beaten. Or even slapped about a bit. Perhaps the cops could bear their company no longer.
We were then all ordered to wash our hands. This was another F&M precaution, rather than a counter to contamination by slob families or gay blokes with big arses. Can you believe it? No foot-baths or showers, no bag searches for illicit nosh, no strip searches and internal examinations - just wash our hands. We trooped from the bus, sprayed our hands with antiseptic by pressing a button on a dispenser, then rubbed our hands dry - there were no towels. Then, at last, we were off again. The total delay at the border was approximately two hours.
Twenty four hours on a coach sounds like hell, but honestly it was not that bad. The return fare was only approximately £90. If it again comes to a choice of coughing up ca £300 for an air fare or £180 for the train, I know which I'd choose. OK, so deep and satisfying sleep was difficult to come by, but a two-hour nap after the car drive from hell resulted incomplete rejuvenation.
Next day, I guess I must have been picked up from the hotel and taken to the Institute of Chemistry, probably by the driver from hell, but I can't say I remember too clearly. Perhaps something horrible happened and I blanked it out completely. Anyway a coach was laid on from the Institute to the hotel in the mountains where the symposium was being held. On arrival I dumped the rucksack, found a bar for a couple of litres, then went back to the room for the French Open on Eurosport. Later that evening was the opening banquet where, as during the rest of my trip, I was treated as guest of honour. Then it was back to the bar. I was bought as much beer and vodka as I could drink and was rarely allowed to buy a single drink, let alone a round.
The symposium proper started next day, but as most of the presentations were in Polish I gave them a miss. The first two working days were pretty similar - excellent breakfast, slob about, walk in the mountains (every sodding farm house, and there were many, had a sodding big dog that barked at me in sodding Polish), couple of beers, excellent lunch, French Open, read a bit, more beer, afternoon tea, you know the sort of thing - a right drag. And things were even better in the evenings. Tuesday evening was a barbecue with what was described as 'mountain music' as entertainment. Sounds awful, especially as I couldn't understand a word, but they were excellent musicians. One guy was wearing a small cello as one would a guitar and playing it with a bow. Ever seen anything like that? Again the food - it included barbecued whole pigs - was excellent and the beer unlimited. When it got cold we did a runner to the bar and I was treated to several approximately half-pint glasses of what I was told was a mixture of apple juice and vodka. This also was excellent. From the taste it was clearly not straight apple juice but I did assume the vodka content was minimal. I later discovered it was 1:2 vodka/apple juice. This might explain the mother of all hangovers next morning.
Wednesday evening was another banquet; this time the music was provided by a local gypsy group, who again were excellent. One of the performers, clearly no older than sixteen or seventeen, had an superb voice - world class. Doubt he'll ever be well known, though. Shame.

Travels to Poland I (Part 1)

2006-06-24T08:17:00.000Z

Saturday 2nd June 2001, up with the lark, 09:30 coach to Victoria, wait a bit, then on to the 13:00 coach to Krakow via Katowice. Thick bus driver doesn't understand the system and tries to rip off the wrong ticket, but gives it back before we come to blows. Perhaps he was hoping I would be happy to remain in Poland for ever. Actually the man had a point. The coach was almost full of Poles - no more than half a dozen Brits. My seat was next to a young (twenties?) Pole who seemed to feel he'd paid for my seat as well as his. I refused to budge and thus for 24 hours was treated to his rubbing his thigh and arse against mine. When the time came for a kip he curled up and thrust his whole arse at me. Perhaps he was hoping to get laid - he was dressed completely in white, bleached gelled hair, perfume, trainers - know what I mean? Anyway I was not tempted. Toward the end of the journey I discovered I could pull a lever and thus slide my seat approximately six inches from his, into the aisle.
Despite the Brits on the bus, all official announcements were in Polish only, so I had no idea what was going on except on the few occasions I overheard parts of someone giving a translation to an English couple some way down the bus. Early on I tried asking my big-arsed mate if he knew what was going on, but at that stage of the journey he couldn't speak English (miffed perhaps?), although much later he started conversing in good English about my reason for travelling to Poland. Perhaps it was because I pulled my lever.
Otherwise the coach journey was not too bad - even got some kip. Didn't pass through anywhere interesting - the coach did not pick up or set down passengers between Victoria and Poland.
Arrived Katowice Sunday, 14:00 local time, expecting to be met. In response to a request from my Polish friends I had enquired, when booking, where the coach would drop me in Poland - so they could await my arrival. In the event I was dropped somewhere completely different (the place looked more like a bomb site than a coach station). I did not know this at the time so I waited, and waited, and asked the occasional lost-looking Pole if he was looking for an IWD. None was. Indeed none seemed to understand the meaning of 'IWD' (where have these people been?) or knew a word of English, which was a problem, because my knowledge of Polish was similar.
All of a sudden the coach station was deserted except for me. I had a telephone number for use in emergencies and so sought a 'phone box. I had no Polish dosh, of course, not thinking I would need any at this stage - and notes would not have helped anyway. Luckily the 'phone boxes I found took cards. But they did not take any of mine. They did, however, talk to me in Polish.
"Ah," thought I, "you desperately need cash," so I donned rucksack and headed into what I hoped was the direction of the centre of town. My first bit of luck was to encounter one of the non-IWD-seeking Poles from the bomb-site. He screamed Polish at me loudly and pointed. I followed his finger and ended up at a proper bus station. "Ah," thought I again, my Polish mates would be here. They were not. It was the station for local buses. I wondered around the city looking for a cash machine from which I could obtain a Zloty or two. All were broken or closed. Tried asking some Polish fuzz if they could speak English. They could not.
The railway station was next to the bus station and here, second stroke of luck, I found a currency exchange booth open on a Sunday. Handed over my earth money and received Polenotes and a few coins. The station was awash with telephone booths. Would they accept my coins? Would they f#cksky (even though the piccies implied my coins were the correct value). Went to a kiosk and bought a chockie bar with a hugezlotynote and got some hugezlotycoins in the change. Third stroke of luck, these were accepted by the 'phones. Made a call and very soon found my mates - they had, of course, been waiting at a third coach station (at the address given to me by the booking office).
Terrifying drive to my hotel. My driver (whom I had met on my last visit to Poland) liked cutting corners and driving on the left side of the road (i.e. the side which would have been right in the UK). He had previously done this one dark night in Poland and driven at speed under a large lorry, which had no lights on, thus killing his wife and his sister-in-law's daughter, breaking his daughter's leg in several places, and ending up in a coma himself for six weeks (ripping off his face in the process and requiring substantial plastic surgery). And, can you believe it, he still cuts corners. And with his daughter in the car. He and said (beautiful, English-speaking) daughter later took me for a pizza. Nice meal, but I was glad to get out of his car at the end of the evening. Last time he drove me all over Poland. This time I did not have that pleasure again.

Travels to Poland - the preamble

2006-06-24T07:26:00.000Z

I do some copyediting for a chromatography journal produced, in English, by the Institute of Chemistry of the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. (I took over the work from the English wife of a Polish Spitfire pilot!) To thank me for this work I have regularly been invited to a scientific symposium they organize in Szczyrk, in the Carpathian mountains. The plan is that I make my own way to Katowice, stay a night or two in a very pleasant suite in a hotel owned by the university, and then travel to Szczyrk on a coach organized to take Institute of Chemistry staff to the symposium. On the first two occasions I was entertained like royalty - driven everywhere, taken on several sightseeing trips, not allowed to buy a drink, etc., etc. The last couple of times I've been almost completely ignored - dumped in hotels, told to make my own way around, left entirely to my own devices. In Szczyrk this is not too much of a burden - the place is a tourist/skiing resort, some English is spoken, there are fine walks among beautiful, unspoiled mountain scenery, and the food, like everywhere in Poland, is superb. Katowice, on the other hand, is a typical industrial town in a mining area - the English equivalents are described as 'grim'. There I have found it almost impossible to discover a restaurant in which English is spoken or which has English on its menu. On my last trip but one I ended up buying food in a supermarket and eating in my hotel room for a couple of days.
These reports highlight my range of experiences. Apologies to members of The Drivel List (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bellringing/) who have already read most of Travels to Poland I - if they don't wish to read it all again they should jump to Part 4, where there is some new material.

God is on our side (3)

2006-05-28T09:42:00.000Z

Pope Benedict XVI has, apparently, said, during a visit to John Paul II's home town of Wadowice, Poland, that he hopes the ex-pope will shortly be elevated to sainthood.
What the f##k did JPII do to deserve sainthood? Presumably it was not his refusal to modify doctrine which encourages unsustainable overpopulation of the planet and the spread of AIDS? Gosh, the chap who organizes the Cambridge Beer Festival has done more good for mankind than all the sodding popes put together.
I know it's only a remote possibility, but if anyone reading this rubbish is a catholic with both a conscience and a direct line to PBVXI perhaps you could mention his name - it's Sean Marsh. His helpers also deserve a mention.

Fun with chemistry (5)

2006-05-23T16:21:00.000Z

Explosions in the back garden has reminded me of experiments with sodium chlorate and sugar. In the nineteen-sixties sodium chlorate weedkiller was easy to obtain over the counter in Woolies - even ten-year-olds could buy it. After some experimentation I managed to prepare a small amount of an explosive mixture and constructed a small cannon from a glass vial (capacity a couple of tablespoons) with a push-on plastic lid. I put a small amount of the mixture in the tube and fashioned a fuse by packing a small piece of glass tubing (from my chemistry set) with the same mixture. I then made a hole in the plastic lid to accommodate the fuse and buried the whole lot in the garden so only the plastic cap and fuse were visible. I lit the fuse and retired a short distance. In due course there was a small explosion and the cap was blown off the vial and landed a couple of yards away. The vial was, amazingly, undamaged. Encouraged by this minor success I refilled the fuse and put somewhat more mixture in the vial. This time the effect was spectacular. The explosion blew quite a large amount of earth a couple of feet into the air, as if a small shell had landed, the glass vial was reduced to powder, and the plastic lid was nowhere to be seen. I was hunting around for materials to make a bigger and better bomb when there was a call from the house. Inside were mum, and dad, and the chap who lived in the house at the bottom of the garden - a couple of hundred yards away. He was spitting rivets. He had been asleep in a deckchair and my explosion had woken him. To add insult to injury my plastic lid had then landed on the lawn a couple of feet from him. After he left my parents wet themselves laughing (they were not very fond of this neighbour). Similar experiments were, however, forbidden.

Fun with chemistry (4)

2006-05-23T16:03:00.000Z

This one happened to a friend of a friend, but should still be recorded for posterity. It might not be 100% accurate, but the gist is true. Maybe, some time, I'll check the facts.
The friend of a friend, a well known chemist in the drug industry, had a concrete air-raid shelter in his back garden which he wanted rid of. He tried chiselling away at it, but to little effect. Because someone had told him concrete becomes brittle and more easy to break up when it has been heated, he filled the shelter with wood with a view to starting a bonfire. It didn't catch fire easily, so he searched for an accelerant and found a can of petrol in his garden shed. He poured this on the wood in the shelter and threw in a match. It was a very hot day, however, so much of the petrol had evaporated and the vapour had formed an explosive mixture with the air in the confined space of the shelter. The match caused the whole caboodle to explode with devastating force. He blew off most of the back wall of his house. Several lumps of concrete were blown right over the roof of his house and one quite large piece of bomb shelter went through the front window of a house on the other side of the road and landed on a sofa very recently vacated by an old chap and his missus. They would have been killed outright had they still been sitting there. Amazingly, no one was killed. The chap responsible was thrown against his house but ended up with minor injuries only. He could just as easily have been blown to pieces so small no one could have found him. Apparently no one pressed charges and all the damage was covered by insurance.

Fun with chemistry (3)

2006-05-23T15:51:00.000Z

After leaving school I worked for a short while as a technician in the Chemistry Department of Birmingham University. One of the chaps in the laboratory had been awarded a first class honours degree but was a hopeless practical chemist and had been striving for seven years to accumulate enough results for a Ph.D. One day he was performing a reaction with lithium aluminium hydride, quite a reactive compound, in ether. Trouble is, he turned on the isomantle to heat his flask but forgot to pass water through his condenser, so all the ether boiled away. The reaction temperature was not, therefore, limited by the boiling point of ether (thirty-five degrees Celsius) but by the maximum temperature reached by the heater - maybe a couple of hundred degrees or so. Eventually this high temperature led to runaway reaction and then an explosion. Several small pieces of red-hot reaction mixture shot across the laboratory, missing everyone. We were lucky - because of the hemispherical shape of the heating mantle most of the explosion went upwards. He was, however, conducting his experiment directly beneath one end of a fluorescent tube suspended by two chains from a high ceiling. The explosion cut, with pin-point accuracy, through one end of the tube and the free end swung down, scything its way through a large experiment set up on the bench adjacent to danger man's patch. Although several hundred quid's worth of glass was lost that day, amazingly, although the laboratory was fully occupied, no one was even slightly hurt. Danger man was booted out of the university shortly after this incident. He didn't get his Ph.D.

God is on our side (2)

2006-05-22T06:33:00.000Z

According to Radio 4's loony religious program yesterday morning the Jews have a problem. Are water buffalo (which some Jews wish to eat) kosher or not? To be kosher, apparently, animals must be mammals with cloven feet which chew the cud. The head rabbi was unable to decide on the last of these when presented with a water buffalo skull - he had to see a freshly severed head. "Bring me the head of a water buffalo" - eat your heart out, Peckinpah. Amazing, is it not, that educated, intelligent people in the twenty-first century can still believe god created some animals as 'clean' and others as 'unclean'? Why the f##k should he bother? Yet this ridiculous idea is central to several religions. Although Christianity does not have this problem, it is not without ridiculous ideas of its own. Think of god as a 'loving father' christians are told. I am a father. If I were omniscient and omnipotent I would not allow millions of my kids to be overwhelmed by tsunamis or die of starvation. The theory does not hold water.