Blog Archives
Japanese friend in Warsaw
Original YT playout date: 24 February 2009
Duration: 24:49
Here is a day spent in the company of Takahiro Kajiura, an intelligent and cultured gentleman from the land of the flowering cherry.
I used for the background the song Ue o muite arukō, also known as Sukiyaki, by Kyu Sakamoto. This is a song I remembered from earliest childhood, which Takahiro-san helped me to identify.
上を向いて歩こう
Ue o muite arukō
I shall walk looking up
涙がこぼれないように
namida ga kobore nai yō ni
So that my tears won’t fall
思い出す春の日
Omoidasu haru no hi
Remembering Spring days
一人ぼっちの夜
Hitori bocchi no yoru
On this lonely night.
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Huliganov’s Chicken Cretins
Original YT playout date: 7 February 2009
Duration: 1:22
If you think this is gonna be another cookery programme, then you’re in for a big disappointment. Or maybe not…
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Drive through Warsaw on a Saturday Afternoon in Winter
Original YT playout date: 3 February 2009
Duration: 19:37
From Praga Polnoc to Ochota just to see a bit of Warsaw.
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More Sledging
Original YT playout date: 23 January 2009
Duration: 4:36
This time we take Sophie and George sledging, and they crash into another kid!
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USSR War Memorial Park
Original YT playout date: 22 January 2009
Duration: 12:06
A look at the park near the Soviet War Memorial by Zwirki i Wigury in Warsaw, with the running commentary you may have come to expect. This is a sort of “blog on the hoof” style with attention to nature and history. Enjoy!
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Winter fun on the fort
Original YT playout date: 19 January 2009
Duration: 11:07
Raclawicka Fort, the former entrance to Warsaw in the time of the second world war, and now mainly used for sledging in the winter season, that’s the location for this splendid winter afternoon’s fun in the snow.
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Wintery Evening Warsaw Walk
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Original YT playout date: 18 January 2009
Duration: 49:54
Especially but not only the Old Town, with a few interesting surprises.
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Tough Times
Original YT playout date: 17 January 2009
Duration: 11:38
Times are tough, with Company presidents taking desperate measure to toughen themselves up for even tougher times to come. On the drive home I talk a bit about my own fitness plans…
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Nick Coppernickers and the Solar Systers
Original YT playout date: 13 January 2009
Duration: 8:20
Mickolas or Nickolas Coppernickers is the name of the Polish dude from Torun who spoke Latin and German and maybe Polish too, and who discovered the solar system and got told off by the Catholic church for getting above himself. His monument is round the corner from where George went to hospital for his rotovirus, and we went to visit him.
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Windows on Warsaw #2
Original YT playout date: 10 January 2009
Duration: 1:59
The view from the Elektrim building and then later from the Luxmed building, accompanied by a cacaphonous collage of music underscoring the discordant mix of styles of architecture in Warsaw…
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Warsaw Night Ride
Original YT playout date: 9 January 2009
Duration: 34:59
Taking in Rembertow, Stara Milosna, Trakt Brzeski, Most Siekierkowski, ul. Wilanowska, and other nocturnal highlights. This with the usual lengthy running commentary.
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Rising Artists in Warsaw
Original YT playout date: 2 January 2009
Duration: 1:04:45
The original title of this video was going to be Vernisage. You can still see that at the beginning.
I took Sophie, who seems to have something of an artist’s eye, to this exhibition of work made by an association of rising artists in Warsaw.
In these days where shares and investment schemes are a joke, where even real estate is down 30% or more, what are you going to invest in? Gold? They’re making it right now in the Hadron collider! (You didn’t think they switched it off for six months after a single day’s work after spending all that money did you? It’s not for nothing they tucked it discreetly underneath the main banking capital of the world in Switzerland!) You are left – apart from the hopefully obvious one of storing up treasure in heaven – with workable investments in know-how, education and technology, production assets for the food supply chain and media, and with art investments.
The really rich have always invested in fine art, and you can do the same. Of the dozen or so rising artists shown here, the chances are good that one or more of them could rise to become the future Dalis, Picassos, Rembrandts. The paltry prices looked for today by these artists for their works could pay back in years to come hundreds of times over.
The chances are a good deal higher than for premium bonds or lottery tickets, and you get to use your own taste to pick and back tomorrow’s treasures, unlike the automated processes determining prizes in lotteries or the fallible, impersonal checks and balances of the financial investment system.
On top of which, of course, you get the art beautifying your living and working environment, giving aesthetic value day by day as it accrues financial value also.
I can either buy for you from the artists and arrange transport or secure storage, or you can buy from them direct, as I have no need to earn commissions and handling fees from anyone for this (although I’m also not going to turn my nose up at them either in this day and age) and you will see in the film contact details for most of the artists.
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