this is you driver speaking, please shut off all electronical devices...

So as it turns out the public transport administration MZA went completly on the dark side, with this new idea of implementing the transport regulation on the basis of a very strickt interpretation. Would you consider it a crime, to use you cellphone on a bus and catch up with some of your buddies on the long ride home? Of course not, it might not be very polite for your bench neighbour, but certainly something that should be forbidden. Just so it now happened that a reader of the "życie warszawy.pl" page, was almost thrown out of the bus by the driver, because he answered his phone. Read the whole story here
What does that mean? No other city in Poland considers such a move viable. I think its going a step too far. Almost like when they wanted to forbid mexicans in the Zurich public transportation. An act of discrimination, which was quickly corrected, as the pictogram showing the no musicians sign clearly depicted a man in poncho and sombrero.

don't do it! or maybe...

altering the the lines of Avi after his trip to london... " anything to declare? Don't try to import a car (on your own) ". I had the most frustrating weekend in ages, as i was forced to sell my car back in Switzerland and fly back after only a day at "home"... that unfortunate event made me miss an opportunity to catch tickets to one very nice concert, which will be this evening at the TR here in Warsaw. Julia Marcell will be performing her debut album, and i have to say, after listening to it on myspace I was moved by its power and eloquence. So take a look at these new Polish artists (the singer Julia lives in Berlin now). her site

Christmas ornaments!! Its huge on the other side of the ocean, but here its still not so great. As always there is a but, some are starting to appear all over the city and its high facades. Notably on the toy store SMYK in the center one quarter of the elevation was covered in a nice kitschy squiggly colorful ornament.
Let's pimp it a up a bit, and make decorations all along the Aleje Jerozolimskie or Marszalkowska (or both?) over 2 km. Something in the style of Zurichs Bahnhofstrasse, but at the scale of a big city, a mega(lomanic) enterprise of grandeur which would make that part of town a huge magnet of commerce and people. Focusing the energies of the winter sales out of the super malls into the streets and bringing the center to life. We spend way too much time inside and hardly get to feel the weather anymore, which makes us disconnected altogether from the world around us. The cold an obstacle, the dark a hindrance to come forth...

about a blog

A blog without new entries is like a a long winter without sun. I've been trying to keep up to date on what's going on in the city, which at the moment seems to lie dormant in a winter sleep. Like a big bear that settles in for an uneventful sleep till spring. Nevertheless I am preparing a rather extensive post on the topic of second hand stores. There is a plethora of possibilities and it takes rather longer than expected gather all the locations.

The green lawn and the wrong doings of the Dog ('s owner)

I hate when it happens, and it just did several times in the last week. Not only to me, but as well to my wife. Dog excrement. forgotten... dog excrement - stools droppings poop poo dirt tird or what ever you want to call it. It is mostly found on the green spaces between the boardwalk and the road. Sometimes on the boardwalk itself. It just so happens that the warsowians have absolutely not culture of cleaning up after their best friend. Its a sad fact, like going to somebody else's house and doing your business next to his toilet. The street next to the architecture school is famous for its shitty environment. It probably has the highest density of droppings in the whole city. A curious fact, I would not guess so many dog owners to live nearby. Tell me people, why don't you clean the poop away? It would be a better world for everybody, and I would not have to wash my shoes with disgust.
Answer 1) The don't give a shit
Answer 2) The ultimate dog litter removing urban furniture is missing in town. I'm talking about the "robidog" I have to comment that answer with a little of self irony. Being Swiss I grew up with this disposal system, but to be honest that is a typical helvetic way of solving a problem.

something like the famous "Sparschäler" a tool that replace the potato peeler with something that would take away less of the starchy tuber.

followup on the previous note

In this article on the gazeta page you can read about the significant drop in full facade billboards in Warsaw and the country in general. Probably due to the economic slowdown but also due to the fact that a lot of people and groups have started initiatives against such advertisements, one case notably was dragged in front of the judges with the result that the inhabitants of the house in question won. To all that, the ministry is preparing a motion to forbid such billboards and to restrict them to the windowless side wall and other not vital walls.

Facade renovations

This is a rather common sight at the moment in Warsaw. Big facade renovation and general overhaul of pre-war buildings. For several years, these buildings are completely covered with facade filling commercial. The goal of that is to earn money for the actual renovation. So the tenants of these houses usually have to live for 2 to 3 years with about 10% of their normal dayly sunlight. A torture for everybody, but in the end if they keep it up long enough the cash is right and the renovation starts. So now that several of those buidings have renovations going, I'm hoping that finally those horrid commercial banners will dissapear from the cities face.
Those adverts are not only a sign of the ever booming extreme capitalism that drives the polish economy, they are also a sign of lacking urban regulations which should prohibit such excesses in the first place.
I cities like Paris or London, there are laws which limit the total size of any roadside billboard and that is a huge benefit for the cityscape.

how doctors can't help, illegal advertisement and the problem with small road works

In polish press today a slew of interesting articles amongst which three struck me as noteworthy.

Where do the warsowian homeless go, if they have a health issue. Normally they would go to the special medical point for poor and homeless, on Wolska street near the homeless night quarters. But now the city after 19 years of funding, decided to cut costs and only pay for the persons who are registered at the NFZ the national health fund. That is a problem for most as only 20 percent of the homeless are registered. The small hospital is well equipped and ready to take on any of the 20'000 patients that they have in their database, and they do that of course for free.
Where will they go now, asks the article. read about it here

Illegal signs along Warsaw's streets, a normal view. The cities road administration can not keep up with getting rid of those unshapely panels. read about it here
The topic can be extended in many directions. What do the inventive poles do when the panels are forbidden? The buy trailers with an advert and park it legaly on the street side or do an amazin hybrid version of a car-panel. The once abundant Fiat 126 called "maluch" is transformed into a panel footing, e.i on its roof the advert is poised.

source http://www.roweryreklamowe.eu.pl/Maluch2.JPG

The renovation of the big streets was done in an absolutely perfect way. On weekends during the summer holidays, a whole block's worth of new road was laid out and painted at an extreme speed. No road problems whatsoever, orchestrated with swiss precision you could say. But now comes fall and the small road revisions are on track, for now several weeks. The article compares the progress of work to the times of the former socialist times where things were extremely slow to get done. Read about it here