Posted on 12/12/2012 2:03:29 PM PST by TurboZamboni
Tomasz Paczkowski from the northern Polish town of Elblag now sports bandages around his head after a request from his wife to help with the housework while he enjoyed a few days off work backfired. “My wife had gone to work and asked me to help with the housework,” the 32-year old told the Polish newspaper Fakt. “After breakfast I started to work. I turned on the boxing channel on the TV, opened a beer and started ironing. “I was really getting involved in the boxing and was not really thinking about what I was doing,” he continued. “Suddenly the phone rang and I mucked things up: instead of grabbing the receiver I picked up the iron and put it to my ear.”
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The phone lines were burning up!
Money quote (in this context).
“Suddenly the phone rang and I mucked things up: instead of grabbing the receiver I picked up the iron and put it to my ear.”
Good for him they didn’t call back.
This was interestingly also the same time the Irish jokes started and both had the same origin: conquering powers wanting to put down the conquered.
In the Poles case -- the history dates back to the partitions of Poland by the Russians, Austrians and Prussians in 1772-1793: and the downfall of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth has strong lessons for us today
In the 1600s the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth encompassing much of what is now Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine was the largest state in Europe and uniquely not one dominated forcefully by one nationality -- the reasons are that it started as a union between Poles and Lithuanians (and the Lithuanians were themselves united with the Ruthenians (Ukrainians/Belarussians)) -- anyone, so this was a pretty potent state which even conquered Moscow in that time, thrashed the Muscowites soundly and did the same to the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1683 -- so they were feted by all of Europe for doing this
But, they were a republic -- yes, they elected their kings, so when one died, the next could be anyone chosen by the nobility (a republic, flawed yes) -- and the elite preferred to choose people who were NOT living amongst them, as otherwise they'd get too powerful (like Jan Sobieski), so they invited in Saxon monarchs, who bought the throne by bribing with money from the Russians (hints of Obama)
This started 70 years in which Poland was supposedly independent but where the kings were Manchurian candidates in the pocket of Moscow
And Poland waned in power before Moscow and Prussia
Then, just 90 years after saving Europe, Frederick the Great of Prussia instigated a plan along with Catherine the Great of Russia to tear apart this state
They bit off parts of the P-L commonwealth in pieces until 1792 and the Poles wrote their constitution -- the first constitution in Europe and promising people the same rights as we had in the US. The Prussian, Russian and Austrian autocrats couldn't have this -- imagine a state like that on their borders. So they cut up Poland completely and even agreed that the very name Poland was to be removed from all official and public communication -- and that's the origin of the Polish jokes as a way to disparage a nation and eliminate it
The Poles had 5 uprisings in the 1800s but these were defeated for one reason or another and they got their chance for freedom in 1917
This is an important part of Western history and most people don’t even know about it.
Thank you for this post.
interesting.
thanks.
Three Stooges ping!
And even the number 44 is significant in Polish history!
Initially, the victim thought it was a hot call from his girlfriend!
I had a coin from around 1910 that was in 2 denominations and alphabets/languages; a Polish friend said it was from the “Russian part” of Poland. Another coin, from 1917 with one denomination (”fenigow”), he said was from the “German part” of Poland.
Fascinating history there; thanks!
Talk about dehumanizing your enemy -- and it worked.
Obviously a flat rate calling plan...
I never tried out a Polack joke here, but I think most Poles would laugh at it -- they have a self-deprecating and at times absurd humor. On the streets of Warsaw I do see some drunks more than in say Bear, De, but the problem is about comparable to New York and is worse in the small towns around Warsaw. My wife tells me it was bad during communist times when people despaired of anything changing that many men became drunks -- they had a funny serial called Rancho -- check this youtube link -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gvAQjB7uTQ
Though it is changing now and compared to the other European country I lived in (the south of England), the drunks are middle-aged or elderly and not violent
Man likes his flatbread.
4 more years of the Bamster and I may become a drunk,too.
the interesting part of the partitions is that it still reflects in the infrastructure layout
Those are railway lines -- can you make out the German part? :)
I think after they got their independence in 1918 it must have been crazy -- 3 different regions that had not been one nation for 120 years, different currency, different language of bureaucracy, different levels of bureaucracy, different development levels etc.
Even in the military it is interesting the way Zamoyski describes them: the German hussars had tons of equipment, all very precise. The Austro-hungarians had very shiny uniforms and slightly less discipline and the Russians had no constant uniforms and had sheer panache -- and yet all were Poles. And then in adition there were the irregular militia and the Blue Army - Poles from France and England
Talk of a right mess :)
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