Saturday, 20 February 2010
History of ENIRDELM
As the 20th anniversary of our network in 2011 approaches, we are starting to compile a more detailed record of what we have achieved. ENIRDELM friends are invited to use this blog to send in any recollections they may have of conferences and networking activities during the last 19 years. Currently David Oldroyd is updating the list of conferences, themes and keynote speakers in order to place on the ENIRDELM web-site a fuller record than the one we have at present. The archive of newsletters on the web-site extends back only to April 2001, so any colleagues who have supplementary evidence of ENIRDELM (formerly ENIRDEM) and related activities might be able to fill out the achievements of our friendly network that we plan to celebrate next year. If you have any recollections, please send them to David or write them directly on this blog.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
February musings
The temperature has risen above zero Celsius for only a few short hours during the last month and today the line from the old carol “snow has fallen , snow on snow, sno-ow on snow” sums up our “deep mid-winter”. While the snow falls, the Polish economy rises:
While most of Europe fell into recession last year, Poland’s economy grew faster than expected, fuelled by domestic consumption, infrastructure spending and a slump in the zloty that helped buoy Polish exports. The Central Statistical Office reported on Tuesday that GDP rose by 1.7 percent in 2009, compared to 5 percent in 2008, higher than economists’ mean expectations.
This buoyancy spilled over into the World Economic Forum in Switzerland:
In a speech on the first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, National Bank of Poland head Slawomir Skrzypek explained that Poland could be prepared to begin the procedure for adopting the Euro by 2013 and that inflation would drop to a level allowed by the ERM-2 procedure as early as later this year. He noted that the country’s budget deficit and growing public debt remained the primary obstacle to Poland’s adoption of the EU common currency. Skrzypek also predicted that Poland’s GDP
would continue growing from the 1.7 percent rise for 2009 announced earlier in the day.
Joining the eurozone would not put an end to the ever-present indecisiveness about when to exchange my pension pounds for zloty. During my time here, the exchange rate has fluctuated from 7.08 to 3.98 PLN to the GBP (4.57 and falling today: I got 4.64 last week at my favourite money changing kiosk). Perhaps the amplitude of fluctuation would lessen for the GBP against the euro but the unpredictability would remain. The way we have resolved this is simply to change currencies when the need arises and subject ourselves to chance rather than trying to ‘play the currency market’. With the amounts we deploy, the aggregate amounts of gain and loss are not huge.
As the economy heals (though at what cost to the environment?) public health is also looking up and new health legislation will benefit the national exchequer at the same time:
Tough new anti-smoking legislation could inflict a painful financial blow on anybody lighting up in smoke-free places. Under new legislation being debated in parliament smokers will have to pay as much as PLN 500 if caught smoking in a no-smoking area. Five times the amount originally proposed.
“This will force smokers to conscientiously comply with the smoking bans,” argued Law and Justice’s (PiS) Boleslaw Piecha, head of the parliamentary health committee. The legislation reflects growing concern in Poland over the effects of passive smoking and could call time on Poland’s traditionally smoke-filled bars. But there was good news for bar and restaurant owners: the law excludes them from criminal responsibility if smokers flout the law on their premises. The only time they could feel the heat of financial retribution is when a minor lights up. Legislators are also pushing for a complete ban on smoking in bars, cafes and restaurants, similar to those enforced in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Smoking also faces being banned at railway stations and bus stops, and smoking compartments on trains will be axed. But debate still rages over whether to ban electronic, or e-cigarettes. Battery powered, emitting vaporized nicotine without the carcinogenic elements found in tobacco, e-cigarettes are touted as an effective means of quitting smoking.
Smoking in restaurants and cafes is still practised, though less evident than in bygone years, and it will be so much pleasanter and less of an aggravation to any grumpy old man tendencies if the legislation comes into force. A local bee-keeper probably had a better case for being grumpy but took it all very positively, as this report from my source for all the above extracts, the New Poland Express, describes:
A 76-year old man declared dead woke up, inside his own coffin. Jozef Guzy, a bee-keeper from Katowice, suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead upon the doctor’s arrival. But three hours later when his wife asked to see his body, it was found that he still had a pulse. “The undertaker saved my life. I am grateful and thank him very much. The first thing I’m going to do is give him a big pot of honey,” said Mr Guzy.
While most of Europe fell into recession last year, Poland’s economy grew faster than expected, fuelled by domestic consumption, infrastructure spending and a slump in the zloty that helped buoy Polish exports. The Central Statistical Office reported on Tuesday that GDP rose by 1.7 percent in 2009, compared to 5 percent in 2008, higher than economists’ mean expectations.
This buoyancy spilled over into the World Economic Forum in Switzerland:
In a speech on the first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, National Bank of Poland head Slawomir Skrzypek explained that Poland could be prepared to begin the procedure for adopting the Euro by 2013 and that inflation would drop to a level allowed by the ERM-2 procedure as early as later this year. He noted that the country’s budget deficit and growing public debt remained the primary obstacle to Poland’s adoption of the EU common currency. Skrzypek also predicted that Poland’s GDP
would continue growing from the 1.7 percent rise for 2009 announced earlier in the day.
Joining the eurozone would not put an end to the ever-present indecisiveness about when to exchange my pension pounds for zloty. During my time here, the exchange rate has fluctuated from 7.08 to 3.98 PLN to the GBP (4.57 and falling today: I got 4.64 last week at my favourite money changing kiosk). Perhaps the amplitude of fluctuation would lessen for the GBP against the euro but the unpredictability would remain. The way we have resolved this is simply to change currencies when the need arises and subject ourselves to chance rather than trying to ‘play the currency market’. With the amounts we deploy, the aggregate amounts of gain and loss are not huge.
As the economy heals (though at what cost to the environment?) public health is also looking up and new health legislation will benefit the national exchequer at the same time:
Tough new anti-smoking legislation could inflict a painful financial blow on anybody lighting up in smoke-free places. Under new legislation being debated in parliament smokers will have to pay as much as PLN 500 if caught smoking in a no-smoking area. Five times the amount originally proposed.
“This will force smokers to conscientiously comply with the smoking bans,” argued Law and Justice’s (PiS) Boleslaw Piecha, head of the parliamentary health committee. The legislation reflects growing concern in Poland over the effects of passive smoking and could call time on Poland’s traditionally smoke-filled bars. But there was good news for bar and restaurant owners: the law excludes them from criminal responsibility if smokers flout the law on their premises. The only time they could feel the heat of financial retribution is when a minor lights up. Legislators are also pushing for a complete ban on smoking in bars, cafes and restaurants, similar to those enforced in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Smoking also faces being banned at railway stations and bus stops, and smoking compartments on trains will be axed. But debate still rages over whether to ban electronic, or e-cigarettes. Battery powered, emitting vaporized nicotine without the carcinogenic elements found in tobacco, e-cigarettes are touted as an effective means of quitting smoking.
Smoking in restaurants and cafes is still practised, though less evident than in bygone years, and it will be so much pleasanter and less of an aggravation to any grumpy old man tendencies if the legislation comes into force. A local bee-keeper probably had a better case for being grumpy but took it all very positively, as this report from my source for all the above extracts, the New Poland Express, describes:
A 76-year old man declared dead woke up, inside his own coffin. Jozef Guzy, a bee-keeper from Katowice, suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead upon the doctor’s arrival. But three hours later when his wife asked to see his body, it was found that he still had a pulse. “The undertaker saved my life. I am grateful and thank him very much. The first thing I’m going to do is give him a big pot of honey,” said Mr Guzy.
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