General Sikorski
General Sikorski was a wartime Polish leader.
The pictures show his statue in Portland Place.
An Overview Of Peer-To-Peer Lending
I just found this excellent article about peer-to-peer lending in the Northern Echo.
Poles In Britain
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in London, there were large numbers of Poles. Every class at school had a few children, who were either Polish or had a Polish father. I also worked with a couple of Polish engineers, who had been part of the large numbers of their countrymen, who had come because of the Second World War.
Last week, I was relating this and other stories to a Pole, who manages my local restaurant. She had no knowledge of what I said, as under the Soviet influence, this important part of Polish and British history was not taught in schools.
What’s This All About?
I went to lunch at Leon in Kings Cross station today and saw this small crowd afterwards on the concourse.
Does J K Rowling realise what she’s started? I suspect her bank account does!
My Father Was A Real Cockney
My father was born in Islington and although he had all the rhyming slang and other knowledge, he never called himself a real Cockney, who was born within the sound of Bow Bells. Today, he wouldn’t have been, but when he was born in 1904, he would probably have been born inside the area, as indicated by this map.
I went past the church of St. Mary-le-Bow today and took some pictures.
According to the map, I think that both my maternal grandparents and possibly my paternal grandfather, were all born in the required area. So I could be three-quarter Cockney.
Are The English Arrogant?
This post was selected by the phone-in on BBC Radio 5.
I don’t think arrogance is the word. But there is a class of the English, that has extreme self-confidence, which means they do things that are exceptional.
David Beckham is a classic modern example, as there are few people, who have achieved what he has done by pushing themselves to the limit.
Throughout history, we have had English leaders who could probably have been considered by some to be arrogant, but they just had this amazing self-confidence. Just look at Churchill, Nelson, Hawke and Thatcher for a start. In sport, there have been quite a few with it too like Bradley Wiggins, David Hemery, Stanley Matthews, Fred Perry, Nick Faldo, Will Carling, Geoffrey Boycott.
and then there’s the arts and the media, with people like David Hockney, Laurence Olivier, Henry Moore and David Attenborough.
You might think that I’m being very male and white oriented here, but I am tending to pick people, whose careers started and in most cases finished many years ago. In a few years time, the list will probably be different. But even now, you can pick many women and those from the broad non-white community, who owe their success to a supreme self-confidence.
So why are the English like this?
It’s difficult to find a definitive reason.
Hackney Is London’s Cycling Capital
That is the strapline on this report in today’s Standard. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
Hackney has been declared the cycling capital of London after research showed that more residents commute to work by bike than by car.
The figures, drawn from the 2011 Census by the Office of National Statistics, reveal that 14.6 per cent – or one in seven – of Hackney residents use a bike as their main method of getting to work.
This is the highest bike ridership in London – neighbouring Islington is second on 9.6 per cent – and is three-and-a-half times higher than the city-wide average of four per cent.
Obviously, Hackney is near to the City and it’s an easy cycle to work. But perhaps a bigger factor, is that Hackney must be one of the flattest boroughs in London.
Food Wars In Israel
Most stories to come out of Israel are not about how well Orthodox Jews and Muslims get on, but this one from The Australian is. Here’s the introduction.
IT was meant to be a battle for supremacy in the kitchen and, perhaps, for the right to claim ownership of the cuisine.
But Israel’s most popular cooking contest has achieved what decades of peace talks have failed to do after turning an orthodox Jew and a Muslim Palestinian into firm friends.
As Jackie Azoulay and Salma Fiyumi completed their dishes in the Masterchef final on Wednesday, they cheerfully embraced on national television.
It’s just a pity that the leaders of both sides can’t sit down with these two women and have a really good meal.
My next door neighbour years ago, had been a Colonel in the British Army. At one time, he had been enforcing the British mandate in Palestine, so he knew the area well.
He said that the only way to tell if the various people in the area, were Jew or Arab, was from their surname. It would appear, these two women have performed that wonderful feat of turning the clock back constructively.
Are Wind Farms A Good Idea?
A wind turbine in Devon has collapsed in high winds according to this article on the BBC.
I suspect engineers and investigators will find the cause of the collapse, but it illustrates one of the problems with turbines.
Failures like these stiffen the resolve of people, who don’t want them nearby, making the costs of the installation even more uneconomic.
If we need to develop renewable power sources, there are better systems available, than putting multiple blots on the landscape.
The Anonymous Widower 
