Winds of.... oh bugger!

16th December 2011



About a year ago I wrote here how it was difficult to tell whether Poland was doing well, or whether it was on the brink of disaster. This is just as true today. It seems cruelly unfair that Poland is doing a pretty good job of looking after itself, yet every piece of news from abroad affects us negatively.

Cracks in the Euro, the zloty loses value. Italy’s credit rating drops, the zloty loses value. Barack Obama has a slight head cold, zloty drops in value. Sudan faces goat cheese crisis… All we get from abroad of late are ill winds, blowing us no good.

Poland is still not in recession, unlike the rest of Europe. We’ve finally got a motorway running from Poznan to the German border, and there’s a chance it might soon stretch as far as Warsaw. The stadiums for Euro 2012 are all more or less ready.

The road, rail and hotel infrastructure for next year’s football tournament may let things down a little, but that shouldn’t detract from what’s been achieved in the midst of a global crisis. Yet, in the coming year the situation in Poland will be shaped by events outside the country more than decisions within.

It reminds me of Unlucky Alf from the BBC’s Fast Show. Alf is a nice old chap who steps out of his front door one day and is carried off by a strong wind that steers him into a deep hole at the end of his street [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJK-G9-dLzw].

In the coming year, I hope Poland loses it’s Unlucky Alf status, the Swiss Franc tumbles against the zloty (what did the Swiss ever do to deserve it?) and that the ill winds stop blowing down all our streets. Happy Xmas everybody.

---

Readers Comments

---

This article is over 90 days old so comments are now closed