I heard myself on Radio Pik recently and for anyone who has been folowing my blog, you will know that I was worried about the outcome. Well, it was great. They changed nothing, cut out only what was necessary to cut out, and their translation was unambiguous. It was weird listening to my voice on radio; but I should know by now, having done a dictation over the radio, and having listened to myself in my own films in the past, that I do come across as rather posh and rather authoritative. Fine, that's cool by me, so where's the BBC?

Well, you can guarantee they won't be listening to my comments unless they have a special relationship with Radio Pik. The thing is, I have nothing particularly original to say about Poland, which is a very original country, and therefore you only need to report what goes on here to sound original, but in fact you're being quite unoriginal. Take the story of Zlotow town hall trying to decide what sex their emblematic deer is. It has antlers, so surely at present it's a stag. So, what do they do if they decide to give it a sex-change? They have to remove the antlers if they decide its female. Then everything, the coat of arms, the town flag, the statue of a deer at the entrance to the town, will all have to change. Then you have the priest-tycoon from Torun, Fr. Rydzyk, a media mogul who runs Radio Marija, drives a swish car, and lives off old religious ladies who ask his radio for clever homespun advice. He is not known for his liking of the Semites. I am not a fan of his; apart from being anti-semitic, he represents the religious right which has a lot of influence with the present government, which also has xenophobic and fundamentalist elements. Then you have inter-schools drama competitions in English judged by a motley bunch of Methodologists, TEFL teachers like me, and a local celebrity who can't speak a word of English, wheeled in for the occasion to give it kudos.
Poland, like Greece, is endlessly surprising, and I am a great fan of the place.