20 east

Poland’s best known purveyor of hot-dogs (and other fine foods, like klopsiki with chips and brown sauce), Ikea, are to stop development because of a government restriction on the size of hot-dog stands!!!

Apparently, these things cost from €100 million upwards to construct and employ more than 1,000 people! Wow! They must have one hell of a shift system because the maximum I ever see serving hot-dogs is 2 people! Perhaps the others are in the back filling up the ketchup and mustard dispensers?

Zosia and I got back to our usual Sunday morning routine today while mummy slept a little. It normally follows this agenda after leaving the apartment – tunnel car wash, diesel, somewhere for breakfast, Łazienki park. Today, we skipped the first two as the car’s clean enough and fill-ups of diesel are few and far between these days, so we just did breakfast and the park.

It was a beautiful day, sunshine and over 20C but still with a slight chilly edge to the wind. Exactly the sort of weather you get caught out by and as Zosia already has a slight catarrh I erred on the side of caution with the dress code. For most Polish mothers this was still about half as many clothes as would be recommended!

The park was in great shape, full of colour and blooms;

Even the tree fungus was busting out all over;

Then there was the wildlife to contend with. A red squirrel, a nuthatch and a nutter!

Now they have reopened the cafe we were able to take a break for drinks..

..and to join the long queue for the not terribly good ice-cream;

The place was pretty busy with a few coach loads of tourists wandering around. Mind you, I think most of the coaches were full of Poles who had obviously signed up for the “Sunday in Warsaw” outing organised by the local vicar. A lot of them took the boat rides round the lake as they are also back in business;

All in all, a good Sunday morning!

As is the life of a man surrounded by women, the afternoon consisted of shoe buying in Galleria Mokotow. I was too depressed to take any pictures of that!

It’s so simple that even Krysztof Ibis can do it. Here are the ingredients:

1. A super-annoying presenter who is able to roll out the same lines millions of times with a smile on his/her face. Someone genetically engineered to to be a slime-ball, in your face, shouting, git! Someone who seems to have had too many Duracell batteries fitted. Someone able to make watching paint dry sound like something you should be doing, now!! Role model – KI.
2. A bunch of “judges”. This group must include; a) the supercilious miserable expert who always says nasty things and gives low scores, b) the ‘C’ list celeb who might have at some point done something similar to what the contestants are doing. Preferably one with bit tits a silly giggle and few brain cells who scores based on all sorts of stupid factors like the colour of their shirts, finally c) a slightly younger and hipper version of the expert who mostly slags people off but is sometimes nice.
3. A deal with a mobile phone company where you’ll make billions from all the SMSs that you’ll be expecting the population of Poland to be sending for their votes.
4. A lot of deals with companies who want to place adverts.
5. Someone to compose some “Jaws-like” dramatic music, ideally something like – DER DER DER DER DER – (with rising urgency). You’ll also need some slower, quieter music for those ooooooo so tense moments when someone is about to get bounced off the programme.
6. Either – a bunch of ‘B’ list celebs to do stupid things with people who they don’t know but might be good at whatever is the theme of the programme. Something like singing, dancing, circus acts, ice-skating. I always thought leaping from tall buildings would be a good, but blessedly short, series.
7. Or – a lot of lunatics from amongst the general populace and lock them up somewhere for months on end and see what happens. Somewhere like a specially built prefab house, or a bar, or something. I always fancied burying them in a large pit about 3 km underground but forgetting to install the cameras, and the air supply.
8. Or – more general public to take part in any ridiculous game show that involves people winning money.
9. Or – more general public who think they’re good at something, ideally singing or dancing.

When you’ve got all those things you need to do the following;

1. Have lots of humiliating qualification rounds where the less good are made to look like utter morons unless they are SO bad that they’re funny in which case they come back later as special guests.
2. Make everyone who qualified do whatever it is you’ve chosen as the theme of your show. Ensure that one or two are kind of okay at it, take the piss out of the rest.
3. Ensure that people are rejected every week. Rejection is GOOD.
4. Make the public feel involved (far better than feeling patronised or ripped-off) by having them send SMSs every week for weeks on end. Make sure, and this is important, that the contestants who are actually quite good, are not really very popular. You know, ugly people, no sex appeal, silly jokes, no charisma. That way you’ll have the public voting for the blondy sex-babes instead of the ones who are good and you can have the “added drama” of rejecting some good people and get shots of all the presenters and judges looking like ‘life is brutal and full of traps’!
5. Make sure you have 30 minute long advert breaks every 10 minutes.
6. Make sure the dramatic music is played in a really loud and annoying way.
7. When it gets down to a shortlist of who’s going to be rejected, make sure your presenters do clever things like saying “You were utter crap this week, Tomek. So <pause for dramatic effect> unfortunately <pause for dramatic effect> Tomek <pause for dramatic effect> this <pause for dramatic effect> week <pause for dramatic effect> it <pause for dramatic effect> is <pause for dramatic effect> you <pause for dramatic effect> who <pause for dramatic effect> is <pause for dramatic effect> THROUGH TO THE NEXT ROUND!!!!!”
8. Get lots of close-ups of the people who get rejected. Tears are good. You need to make it look like their life is at an end and they may just go off and commit suicide when they leave the stage.
9. Find yourself a winner. Slap them on the back. Give them a free Seat Torreador family hatch and move on to the next programme.

I tell you now. If anyone comes up with another idea for another of these series, I’m leaving the country.

I don’t drink too much of the stuff but I do drink Coca-Cola fairly regularly and I do enjoy it, especially with lots of ice and lots of lemon. I therefore get pretty annoyed when I order a Coke and pay Coke prices but get that brown stuff they squirt of out garden hoses!

Having worked in the fast-food industry I know a fair bit about post-mix soft drinks and whilst there is nothing inherently bad about them it is notoriously difficult, read impossible, to get the things set up properly. They remind me of my second car, a six cylinder twin carb Triumph 2000 that was great when tuned properly but required almost daily tweaking to keep it so! Even if the post-mix is set up properly, it’s still not the same as Coke from a tin or bottle.

I think we should start a grass roots revolutionary movement to make post-mix soft drinks illegal! The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that they have got away with this scam for so long. I mean, it is not what you paid for is it. Coke, the real thing, is what comes out of the bottle/tin and that is simply nothing like what you’re served approximately 80% of the time. As a minimum this stuff should be renamed. Something along the lines of “Crap Coke” would be about right. How would you feel if you ordered a rump steak and got horse meat, or bought a Boss suit and got a Royal Collection one, or clicked on “20 east” and got some other guy’s blog? You’d feel cheated, right?

Don’t even get me started on about Bon Aqua “water”. Water? As far as I can tell, Bon Aqua (was there ever a more unsuitable name for a product?) is a very slightly less bubbly version of the “water” that comes out of the post-mix but without the syrup. Completely disgusting stuff with a ‘mechanical’ aftertaste and yet the power of Coca-Cola marketing and distribution means we have to keep bumping into it in more places ever year. This stuff should just be tipped in the Wisła.

Okay, while I’m here. After all these years in Poland I am still amused and taken slightly aback, when I ask for a “Cola” and am told that they only have Pepsi! Pepsi is a cola, that’s why it’s called Pepsi-Cola! Same as Coke is a cola, as in Coca-Cola and Hoop is a cola (just about), as in Hoop-Cola. Cola is the generic name for all brown drinks that rot your teeth and kill all stomach bugs, not only the name for Coca-Cola.

This is the problem with cultural diversity. Sometimes it’s just stupid!

A few things that struck me during my morning browse.

McDonald’s enjoyed a big rise in profits in 2007. This thanks to “menu additions” and the fact that “Polish customers also welcomed the possibility to pay by credit card.”. How depressing. How much does a McD lunch cost? If I we’re an optimist I’d say I’m witnessing the birth of the world’s first truly cashless society, as it is I just see more being piled onto the Polish debt mountain. There truly is no lower limit now on when to get out the plastic, I see it used for absolutely everything. Do people really not carry enough cash for a McDonalds or a newspaper?

More encouragingly, in the same article I see that Sfinks, who operate the places called “Sphinx” but which I shall forever call “Skunks”, saw their profits drop. These places (I shan’t call them restaurants) annoy me because they have some good locations and are always busy so they look like you should be able to get a decent meal. The prices are low so you might even get a decent and well priced meal. However, on the three occasions we’ve been stupid enough to give in to this urge, we’ve left saying “never again”. It must just be the quality of the food because as I recall the service was okay, the location good, the seating is a little cramped but we can live with that if the food’s good. They just have very below average, boring even, food and so dropping profits seems about right.

Talking about McDonalds. I notice that a chap called “Rympałek” was arrested, again, whilst enjoying a burger at McD’s in Wilanów. It doesn’t actually say McD’s but I know of no other fast food joint down there. Say’s he was “completely surprised” when arrested, I’m sure I would be too, he’s only been out of prison for a year or so after his last 10 year sentence. Perhaps he’s trying to be so bad that he gets sent to prison in the UK where prisons are “so cushy, nobody wants to escape”!

Over in Hollywoodland my ghast is flabbered by the news that Wesley Snipes, Mr Blade himself, is to spend three years in jail for tax evasion! How stupid is this? The guy’s got what seems like at least $25 mill stashed in the pockets of his long black coat and yet he can’t be arsed to have someone fill out a tax form for him? He’s not even living in a place where the tax is burdensome, I mean, 20% maximum on earnings in the millions sounds like one hell of a deal to me. I’d be in there filling out forms, kissing the tax ladies, buying them flowers and everything but for some reason he’s decided to go to jail instead. Is the word “idiot” appropriate here?

I thought the tag-line was most appropriate: IRS – the ultimate collection! Tee Hee.

Talking about movies. The Torygraph have looked at the upcoming blockbuster releases.

• IRON MAN – Latest in a long, and slightly tedious, line of films from comic books. The “return” of Robert Downey Jnr from his “sex, drugs & rock and roll” years is something I’m interested in seeing though.
• INDIANA JONES – THE SEARCH FOR A ZIMMER FRAME – Not sure what to think about this. I would very warmly welcome a state-of-the-art Indiana Jones movie but methinks Harrison is past his sell-by date.
• SEX & THE CITY – Will certainly be a big hit with erindoors and be full of those ibook moments such as “So, does a sex in the city movie mean that we have to endure more plugs for Manolo Blahnik??”
• THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA – PRINCE CASPIAN – Well now, this one should actually be a good movie. Only gripe here is that Zosia is slightly too young for it and will find some scenes a bit scary. Also that it will be dubbed and not napisy. We’ll probably go anyway though.
• WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS – Never heard of it. But I’m looking forward to seeing the other Vegas movie being advertised right now – 21.