Do I Not Like That (Polish Pet Hates)

Yes, “Do I no like that”, to borrow a mysterious phrase (mysterious in that I’m still not sure whether it’s a question or not) coined by the former England football manager Graham Taylor. Dared by an assistant to do a Yoda impression whilst out on a drunken binge? In a word, no. Drunken binges may not have been unknown to the England ‘stars’ at the time- though I believe Carlton Palmer was not a big one for the booze (comfortingly,I notice he is included in the category ‘living people’ on Wikipedia), but I digress. In fact, the Taylor quotation was used here to introduce the topic of dislike, just as it was originally used by Taylor to show his dislike at seeing his team handed another embarassing defeat. That’s right, I’ve been in Poland long enough that I feel entitled to have a bit of a rant about some the less pleasant aspects of life here.

Polish language

It has long been an ambition of mine to become fluent in a second language. At school I was pretty decent at languages generally, getting high grades in French and German, but classroom prowess without practical experience is very easily found out. The biggest use of my French ‘abilities’ nowadays is to get a chuckle out of those who are miles better than me (unless they are actually French, in which case substitute ‘punch’ for ‘chuckle’).