step up to the mike...

"Impartiality is not neutrality. It is partiality for justice." - Stanisław Jerzy Lec (1909-1966)

 

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Mike & Fran Oborski are online here!

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Where do we go from here?

Political hubris comes in strange forms. Often it is an incident which is in iteslf relatively minor which comes to suddenly encapsulate the mood of the moment not because of any huge intrinsic importance in its own right but rather because, minor though it is, it suddenly confirms what everyone was beginning to think anyway.

The manhandling of an over 80 year old delegate who dared to heckle the Foreign Secretary by stewards at the Labour Conference is just such a moment. It suddenly appears to confirm the widespead feeling that Labour are becoming bullies and unduly authoritarian behind all their excuses about the need to tackle terrorism and protect people by reducing our civil liberties.

Three points stand out:-

- The Stewards may have been amateurs - volunteers BUT they are NOT untrained! Who told them to go in rough with "hecklers"? What does that tell us about the sensibilities and perceptions of those running the Labour Party?

- What exactly did the Police think they were playing at by holding the "heckler" under the suppression of terrorism act? Who told them to do that or at least indicated that it was an appropriate way to behave? Are the self same Police investigating any suggestion of assault against the delegate concerned? Why was that not their first concern? Where do their loyalties lie?

- On the day of the incident the Chairman of the Labour Party "apologised" for the incident but said that the "heckler" would NOT be allowed to return to the Conference. By the following day he was offering to meet the "heckler" who was being given a hero's return on his return to the Conference. Which was the gut reaction of the Party Chairman - banning the guy or welcoming him back? Obviously it was the former. So what does that tell us about what is seen as acceptable at the top of the Labour Party?

Of course the fuss will die down. Labour Leaders will write this off as a nine minute wonder. Nevertheless I suspect that the public attitude to Labour has fundamentally shifted. The incident is embedded in the public conciousness as a symbol of Labour arrogance and disregard for civil liberties - not because of the significance of the incident itself but because it seems to encapsulate in minature what the public already sense to be the malaise at the heart of New Labour.

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Edward Rydz-Śmigły
Marshal of Poland
1886–1941

Find out more!

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THE NIGHT AFTER
by Slawomir Majman (Warsaw Voice)

The Poles have chosen.
The Poles have chosen, but it's not clear what they've chosen.
Two parties are the winners in the election-the Civic Platform (PO) and Law and Justice (PiS), each of them an excellent opposition party for the other.

The PiS wants state healthcare, more welfare spending, more state in the economy, withdrawal from some completed privatizations, and primarily-radical de-communization, harsher punishment for crimes, more government control over the courts, and substantial ideologization of public life under the slogan of a "moral turnaround."

The partner of these charming statists, the PO, is in favor of a liberal state, liberal economic policies and privatization of some of the state's welfare duties.

posted by: Oborski at 21:16 | link | comments |

Kaczynski gaining ground...

Social-conservative Law & Justice (PiS) presidential candidate Lech Kaczynski has the backing of 35% of the electorate according to the latest OBOP poll commissioned by the weekly Polityka.

He is closing the gap with the Civic Platform's (PO) Donald Tusk who has 42% backing. Just a week ago, Tusk had support of nearly 50% while Kaczynski was below 30%. It seems the Parliamentary elections which PiS won have given the Kaczynski presidential candidacy new life.

Andrzej Lepper of the populist Self-Defense party (Samoobrona) has 11% support and leftist SdPL candidate Marek Borowski is fourth with
6% support.

posted by: Oborski at 21:09 | link | comments |

I'm back!

I managed 4 hours intensive leafletting today. Not bad less than 6 weeks since major surgery. Mind you the last 30 minutes were probably 30 minutes too much.

If anyone is wondering if the stories about a surfeit of "Daddy-long-legs" this year are true or not the answer is a resounding "yes"! They were everywhere today while I was out leafletting.

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Cancer O.K.!

When I started this weblog I already knew I was ill. I think it was why I started it! In mid-August I had a major operation for cancer of the bowel. It went well. Now I'm looking at chemotherapy as a precautionary measure.

Why didn't I post about this before?

Well, at the simplest level it just comes as an enormous shock. I've always been articulate - the spoken word is my business - as a teacher, a Councillor and a Consul.  For the first time I'm truly lost for words.

The Priory Hospital in Biringham were marvellous. Doctors, nurses and everyone else were marvellous and couldn't have been kinder. I got through the operation literally without pain - discomfort from tubes and lying in bed yes - but surprisingly no pain whatsoever.

The prospect of my own mortality doesn't bother me too much. I'm a Catholic and have faith so I don't have a long term problem. Leaving people behind and missing out on new CDs, DVDs, concerts, meals, trips and adventures would be sad. I cannot imagine Fran and I not being togrther. Death only scares me in terms of the amount of pain involved in the actual transformation.

What really terrifies me is any change in my current status. Hitherto I have been "Mike Oborski", "Councillor", "Consul" or whatever - love me or hate me. Now I am terrified of being tagged by other words - "ill", "sick", "patient" and "cancer". I'm also terrified of being controlled by the illness and everything that goes with it. Maybe that is irrational. I don't know. It is how I feel at this moment.  Watch this space.

 

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Final results...

The official final results of Poland’s general election held last Sunday announced this afternoon are as follows: Conservative Law and Justice – headed by the Kaczynski brothers, of whom Lech is the mayor of Warsaw - has won 155 seats inthe 460-seat lower house. It is followed by liberal Civic Platform with 133. If both parties agree to form a coalition they would together have a number of seats short of the 307 two third majority needed to, for example, amend the constitution.
4 more parties exceeded the 5% threshold. These include the farmers’ militant Self defence 56 seats, leftist Democratic Left Alliance – 55 seats in the lower house, league of the Polish families 34 and Peasant party 25 seats.
Turnout amounted to 40.5%.

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With 90% of votes counted:

Sejm
PiS 26.4% 152, PO 24.23% 133, Samoobrona 11.66% 57, SLD 11.38% 56, LPR 7.89% 33, PSL 6.95% 27

Senat
PiS 48, PO 35, LPR 5, Samoobrona 4, PSL 3

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Radio Polonia Reports...

Law and Justice and Civic Platform to form next government

Monday, 10.00 a.m.: With sixty percent of the votes counted in the Polish General Election the conservative, Law and Justice have 26.6%, followed by the pro-business Civic Platform with 24.1%. The populist farmer’s union, Self Defense has 12.4% and SLD, outgoing ex-communists SLD have 10.9%, says the Electoral Commission.

The percentage of the votes translates to 151 seats in the Polish parliament, the Sejm, with Civic Platform gaining 123, Self Defense with 67, SLD with 51, the far-right League of Polish families with 36 and the PSL peasant’s party with 30.

A coalition between Law and Justice (PiS) and Civic Platform will form the new government, and negotiations will start soon this week. “We have long said that we want this coalition and there are no reasons why this shouldn’t happen,” said Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the favorite to become Poland’s next Prime Minister. kaczynski has indicated, however, that we will only take the job if his twin brother Lech does not win the October 9 presidential elections.

Talks might be difficult, however. The economic policies of the two parties are notably different, with Civic Platform favoring a low flat- tax and Law and Justice less willing to make harsh reforms to the labor code and tackle Poland’s ballooning budget deficit.

posted by: Oborski at 10:12 | link | comments |

Polish Election exit polls...

Exit polls in the Polish Parliamentary elections indicate:-

The Sejm (Lower House):-
PiS (Law & Justice) 27.6% - 157
PO (Citizens Platform) 24.7% - 138
SLD (the previously ruling post-communist left) - 52
Samoobrona (Self Defence) 10.5% - 47
LPR (League of Polish Families) 9.5% - 45
PSL (Peasants Party) 5.9% - 19
Reserved for German minority - 2

The major potential variable lies in the PSL showing. If they actually perform slightly worse than Exit Polls show and poll under 5% they could be eliminated from representation - leading to more seats for the other parties.

Senate is projected at PiS 44, PO 36, SLD 6, Others 14.

PiS performed best in the South East. PO performed best on the North West Baltic coast (including Gdansk).

PiS were boosted by Church and Solidarnosc support.

The SLD showing although disastrous was not as bad as expected as their hard core supporters turned out despite the fact that overall turnout was well below predicted at 40.4%.

Speculation on the impact of the Parliamentary Election on the October Presidential Elections is varied. One viewpoint suggests that Parliamentary results will boost PiS morale, activity and support while denting PO morale, activity and support. The contrary view is that having given PiS the lead in Parliament Poles will not want to give them the Presidency as well and this will sustain or increase PO lead in the Presidential race.

posted by: Oborski at 23:23 | link | comments |

Skype!

For those who aren't yet in on the secret what about Skype?

It is a simple download which only takes a few seconds. The instructions are dead simple. All you need to then add is a microphone or headphones / microphone. Mine cost me a massive GBP 6.99.

If you want to you can then register to make phone calls from your computer set up to any conventional phone number anywhere. Of course you'll need to work out how much you'll have to pay and compare it
with your current phone supplier. It looks cheap and I may well pick up on it down the line.

BUT, meanwhile, there are THREE great FREE aspects of Skype!

1. If you are on Broadband and you use Skype to contact another computer with Skype which is also on broadband you can talk for as long as you like for NO further charge. I mean FREE to both of you! Of course the other person needs to be on line when you contact them.

2. The sound is NOT like making a phone call. The sound quality is just like talking face to face in the same room.

3. You can "conference" up to 5 computers in different locations and if they are all already on Broadband nobody pays anything extra.

So, yesterday evening I set up a conference (sounds complex but actually took just 3 seconds!)between me (in my office, upstairs), my wife (downstairs in the living room with her lap top) and my cousin in Warsaw! As we are all on broadband we chatted together for over an hour free of any charge and the sound quality was absolutely brilliant!

Tonight we have arranged to all meet up online at 8.30pm (Polish time) to discuss the Polish elections.

I intend to contact all my Polish and US friends who are on broadband and encoursge them onto Skype.

If you have any queries about Skype post here or contact me directly at oborski@btinternet.com

Mike Oborski
Consul RP

posted by: Oborski at 14:36 | link | comments |

Radio Polonia Reports...

POLISH ELECTIONS...

On Sunday, Poles will be electing a new parliament. In addition to some thirty million people eligible to vote here, there are around 2.5 million Poles living abroad who can have an influence on the ballot at the weekend. Michal Kubicki reports.

In the United States, where the west coast is nine hours behind Poland and the east coast - six hours - voting will take place Saturday, as it will in Sydney, Australia, eight hours ahead of Polish time.

All in all, Polish officials are expecting a record turnout among Polish voters across the globe, from Afghanistan to the United States, from Iraq to Ireland. The Polish foreign ministry has arranged 162 polling stations in 92 countries.

Polling stations have also been set up in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, where there are large Polish expatriate communities. Poland's accession to the European Union last year played a key role in boosting the number of Poles abroad eligible to vote.

The Sunday election is the 10th since the collapse of communism in which Poles abroad have been able to vote. According to the Polish electoral law, they vote for candidates in the Warsaw constituency. In the last general elections in 2001, expatriate voters accounted for 12 percent of votes cast in the capital. Among those voting abroad will be former president Lech Wa³esa. He will vote at the Polish embassy in Washington where he will be on an official visit.

Last election polls predict narrow victory for Civic Platform

Just hours before the obligatory election silence Polish media present the last results of election polls. According to the most recent data the winner of the election will be the liberal Civic Platform which should get 32% of the votes or 170 seats in the 460 seats' parliament, Law and Justice should come close second with 30% and 164 seats. The remaining seats will be distributed among the populist peasants' Self Defence – 59 seats, the extreme right wing League of Polish Families with 36 seats and left-wing Social Democratic Alliance with mere 31 seats. Radio Polonia will cover the election in a special election magazine on Sunday evening.

posted by: Oborski at 16:38 | link | comments |

From those nice people at Rockall Times...

That UK hurricane relief plan in full

US needs our help and by God it's going to get it

The largest economy that the world has ever seen is unable to put its hands on a few bob just at the moment and has asked its friends to chip in. Blair, panting like an eager spaniel puppy, is first in the queue. The Rockall Times reports on the UK aid plan.

Widely reported are 500,000 date-expired combat ration packs, thought by experts on US dietary habits to provide about 200,000 regular or 100,000 super-size portions. Sources inside Downing Street reveal that this is just the first instalment in an integrated aid package which should leave the people of Louisiana in no doubt just how much the British value their erstwhile colonial cousins.

"Off-loading those ration packs was a stoke of genius," Said Major Tim Barraclough of the Queen's Own Highland Pastry Chefs. "We were going to have to pay Cleanaway to incinerate them; they all pre-dated the First Gulf War and half of them pre-dated the Falklands as well. Good God, some were even stamped 'Crimea' and marked 'Best before January 1855'. I don't suppose the 11th Hussars needed them in the end," he chuckled.

The Government is also looking round for other suitable aid, and has compiled a list of nutritional consultants which Britain could spare. "It will be a difficult for us," said Hillary Benn, Secretary of State for International Development, "but we are going to have to let some of our finest nutritionalists work in the US for extended periods."

We understand that Ainsley Harriott, Jamie Oliver, Gary Rhodes and Delia Smith have all been issued with compulsory overseas aid orders under the new Prevention of Being Bloody Irritating Act (2005) which was rushed through with cross-party support earlier this week. These will follow an instalment of dinner ladies who were sent last week under a little-known provision of the food hygiene laws.

"The dinner ladies have been a great success," enthused Benn. "Watery mince, lumpy mashed potatoes and nuked cabbage all delivered with chirpy 'Mrs Mop' style banter is exactly what you need if you have just been flooded out of your home."

We tracked down the husband of one of the dinner ladies as he relaxed with friends at the Queen's Head, Godalming. We asked how he thought the Americans would react to a taste of authentic British home cooking. "Poor bastards, as if they haven't suffered enough?" was all he would say as he stared wistfully into his pint of mild and bitter.

Despite the apparent lack of real substance, British aid plans are actually quite advanced. "Once the floods have subsided we will be issuing more compulsory overseas aid orders," said Benn. "To help with reconstruction we will send Carole Smiley, Handy Andy and Llewelyn-Bowen — if he survives his current mission in Democratic Republic of Congo. The entire cast of DIY SOS have been put on 24-hour standby, although sometimes they can be quite funny so we are deferring a final decision."

We understand that an offer to create a community garden with gravel path, decking, a nice pergola and water feature incorporating one of the minor levee breaks were rejected under local laws prohibiting the displaying of erect nipples except during Mardi Gras, so the Ground Force team has instead been airlifted to Zimbabwe where it will make over a cemetery with gravel path, decking, a nice pergola and water feature.

The EU has been stung into action by the UK's rapid and generous response and has found large consignments of bras and silky pyjama outfits with funny pointy hats which are already being loaded into container ships.

Other countries chipping in include; Bangladesh (sacks of grain), India (sacks of grain), Sudan (sacks), Switzerland (squeegee mops and buckets) and N. Korea (250,000 heavily-armed troops). Concern over the possibility of corruption in the administration of the aid programme were largely allayed when the UN withdrew its tender.

City Authorities in New Orleans seemed desperate to reciprocate in some way. Mayor Ray Nagin said "You have given so much and we have so little to offer in return." He thought for a moment. "Look I'll tell you what, George Bush has only three years left in office – would you like a second-hand President? You can take the half-wit now so far as I'm concerned. Would you like him gift wrapped in concrete?"

So, a vision of hell, but human nature shines through. Even the tiny island of Rockall is considering allocating some of its top-quality guano to the Louisiana State Government. "You can use it to build nests," explained a spokesgannet. "It also adds spice to army-issue bully beef, if properly dried."

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Polish Elections...

The latest opinion polls show Poland heading for a Centre-Right coalition of Citizens Platform (PO) and Law & Justice (PiS) in Parliamentary elections later this month. The way things are going they could secure an overall majority between them in the Seym. The right wing ultra-Catholic League of Polish Families trail third ahead of the right wign populist Self Defence (Samoobrona), while the ruling post communist left SLD totter on the brink of extinction on just 6.7%. Most commentators seen to think that the Polish people want a government that will tackle sleeze, cut unemployment and rebuild the Social Security system.

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Love it!

 

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The Bells, The Bells!

Opinion seems to be divided on the local Police initiative of handing out cat collar bells to elderly ladies so that they can attach them to their purses. The idea is that if an attempt is then made to steal the purse from pocket or handbag the sound will alert the owner and indeed the sight of the vexious bells may well deter the would be robber in the first place.

The Police think the initiative may deter crime. Tory Council Leader Stephen Clee thinks that, on the contrary the bells will simply highlight and identify potential victims. Surprisingly neither the Police nor Cllr Clee have, as far as I know, thought to tslk to ourlarge tom cat Tadek and his associates or to the dwindling number of birds in our garden. Their experience is very revealing.

All the evidence is that belling cats does NOT decrease their kill rate. Indeed the Mammal Society comment on a UK survey that:-

Of the 740 cats for which we have bell records, 232 were bell wearers (31%) and 508 were non-bell wearers (69%). The mean kill rates for bell-wearers was 19 and for no-bells 15. In other words cats wearing bells killed more! The number of birds that they killed was about the same but bell-wearers killed about 33% more mammals. Are they better hunters because they have to be more stealthy in order to keep their bells quiet?

Both Tadek and gang and the remaining birds in our garden can confirm the truth of this revelation!

Firstly, birds do not naturally associate bells with feline aggression and by the time they have finished thinking "what's that sound" they are no longer in a position to think anything about anything anymore! Secondly, Tadek and the rest of the gang (Janusz, Malgi and Kibble) go about their business all day - and that includes walking, running, leaping, playing and hunting as well as sleeping and\ eating - without a single ring of any of their bells! The only time the bells are heard is when they are rung deliberately - with a brisk shake of the head - to attract our attention to summon us to undetake some chore demanded by the cat and usually involving adding food to a plate.

How does this feline experience translate to the purse experiment? Firstly, it will generally be very easy to pick up a purse with a bell attached without making a sound. Secondly, if you are in a busy and noisy street, shopping mall or supermarket you are unlikely to notice any sound from a tiny cat bell anyway and even if you do by the time it clicks in your brain that this means trouble the thieve, the purse and the bell will be long gone. In the unlikely event that anyone else hears what is happening they are even less likely to immediately associate the sound with what is actually going on.

A final argument might be that at least the bell campaign is drawing attention to the problem of theft of purses from the elderly. The contrary argument, which I find more convincing, is that it lures us into a sense of false security by making us think that we have done something about the problem. As the associates of cats (there is no such thing as a cat owner) we thought we had done our bit to protect birds and small wild mammals when we put bells on our cats. We had done our bit and so we could forget about the issue. Now it turns out that we were simply deluding ourselves.

My guess is that the cat bells on OAP purses will be a nine day wonder neither improving or worsening the situation. What I would like to see is some real Police action to clamp down on the thieves, alert the elderly to the dangers and ultimately eliminate the problem. As Tadek can tell you that will take a lot more than a cat collar bell!

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70th Anniversary...

September 15th 2005 marks the 70th Anniversary of the start of the maiden voyage of M/S Pilsudski from Gdynia to New York.

 

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Polish politics: confused? You ought to be

Radio Polonia Reports...
 
With a general election only weeks away, and a presidential election early next month, you will often be hearing descriptions of the various political parties as either being right, left, liberal, moderate and so on. Warning: these labels in Poland can be very confusing.

Take, for example, the leading political party in most of the opinion polls at the moment, Civic Platform. I have seen them variously described as liberal, centrist, center/right, rightist, and even neo-conservative.

The term ‘liberal’ is doubly confusing as it means different things on different sides of the Atlantic. In the United States ‘liberal’ is generally seen as being left of center. To an American right-winger, a liberal is a ‘pinko’ who believes in Big Government. During the McCarthy trials in the nineteen fifties a liberal was a communist (although we should remember that having a significant amount of facial hair in nineteen fifties made you a communist in America).

In Europe, however, a liberal means someone who believes that the government should do less, not more.. To ‘liberalize’ the economy means to roll back state intervention. A liberal in Europe can mean a right-winger who believes in small government.

But what does a ‘neo-conservative’ mean? Does this mean Civic Platform is Poland’s first party of neo-con? Does this mean that Civic Platform share the foreign policy ideology of a Paul Wolfewitz and Donald Rumsfeld, for example? And if they do share this view of the world, then how does that make Civic Platform ‘moderate-centrists?

Confused? You will be.

If you take look at Civic Platform’s manifesto it basically consist of liberal (in the European meaning of the term) economic policies – meaning increased privatization, and a low, flat tax policy. But on social issues the ‘liberal’ Civic Platform is relatively conservative – they do not propose to ‘liberalize’ Poland’s very restrictive abortion laws, for instance.

Liberal, free market economics, plus social conservatism are actually policies associated with Margaret Thatcher. And if you called Maggie Thatcher a centrist-moderate, or even a center-rightist, she would give you a sharp crack over the head with her handbag. Thatcher was a radical right-winger. Period.

And Civic Platform are rightwing. Period.

Confused yet? Well, it gets worse.

Take what have been called the ‘far-right’ League of Polish Families. These are ‘christian nationalists’, with a nationalist pedigree that goes back to the nineteen thirties. Historian Norman Davies has described The League of Polish Families nationalist, forbears as ‘professional anti-Semites.’ So they do sound like typical far-rightists in their choice of prejudices. But when the League of Polish Families was set up as a political party a few years ago I saw them labeled as ‘christian left’ – whatever that means. For sure, their policies are based on an interpretation of Polish social Catholicism; they are isolationists – they hate the EU, for example, as they think that Poland will become inundated with social liberals (in both the American and European meaning), abortionists and gays and lesbians. They also want to restrict the amount of foreign capital in Poland.

So are they left, or right?

The Law and Justice party was set up by the Kaczynski twins, Lech and Jaroslaw. They have been described as ‘conservative’, ‘right wing’, or even, sometimes, ‘center/right’. They have promised to be tough on crime and criminals, even going as far as to bring back the death penalty. These types of anti-crime policies are usually associated with the political right. Economically – and here’s the twist - Law and Justice are, if anything, to the left of the so-called ‘centrist’ Civic Platform, but to the right of the so-called ‘christian leftists’, the League of Polish Families.
And so it goes on. I will deal with other terms like ‘populism’ and the like in another letter.

But at a time when left and right are all but loosing their meaning in the west, in Poland, where these labels are quite new to the political scene, they are all but useless. Politics in ex-communist countries is peculiar to ex-communist countries. So using the terminology of left, right, etc, has little meaning outside of the country where the terms are being used.

But journalists will still be using them. And if you think that you are confused by Polish politics, spare a thought for the poor old Polish voter, who will have to choose where to put their tick beside the name of a party, or individual, that could be labeled as either liberal, centrist, rightists, moderate, neo-conservative, or all of them simultaneously.

And people wonder why turnout in Poland is so low!

posted by: Oborski at 20:52 | link | comments |

In the lead...

Four weeks before the presidential elections, public opinion polls show a spectacular rise in popularity of Donald Tusk, leader of the liberal Civil Platform. Tusk has extended his lead to 41 percent - twenty percentage points ahead of his right-wing rival, Warsaw mayor Lech Kaczynski.

Actually, it’s the fourth time in as many months that voters have seen a change in leadership in public opinion polls. Left wing candidate Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz - who threw his hat late into the ring - topped the list of candidates six weeks ago.

Media experts argue that the massive billboard campaign highlighting Donald Tusk as a person with the right values has won public support.

Tusk, deputy speaker of Parliament, has never considered himself a front runner on the Polish political scene. A turtle neck wearing Tusk has been deemed the most sexiest politician in Poland by some of the female electorate.

But sex appeal is only half the story.

Today Donald Tusk has a twenty percent advantage in presidential polls over his closest right wing rival Lech Kaczynski from PiS - the Law and Justice party.

Professor Andrzej Rzeplinski, from the Polish chapter of the Helsinki foundation, says that Poles are looking for a fresh face and a new image.

Several weeks ago, it was the left wing candidate Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz who was on top in the presidential race. But his lead has dwindled considerably in the polls as a result of what many observers describe as a rightwing smear campaign geared to discredit him as an honest politician.

Political analyst, Marek Matraszek, from CEC government relations thinks that Poles have had enough of such tactics.

Ryszard Pieńkowski, from PBS, thinks that the most important outcome of the presidential campaign is in the aftermath of the elections.

A few days ago presidential candidate, and celebrated Polish cardiac surgeon, Zbigniew Religa, withdrew from the race throwing his support behind Donald Tusk.

During commemorations marking the 25th anniversary of Solidarity former Polish president Lech Walesa also announced that his is backing the leader of the Civic Platform.

It is clear that Poles are looking for a strong president who will give Poland a sense of stability. It seems that Donald Tusk could be the right man for the job, according to the polls.

posted by: Oborski at 19:13 | link | comments |

Roger McGuinn's Blog...

Yes, the ex top Byrd and all round good guy Roger McGuinn has a blog!

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The box set to end all box sets...

13 CDs and 2 DVDs...

Box "Simple Story" jest podsumowaniem wieloletniej działalności zespołu. Wydany został między innymi z okazji sprzedania milionowego egzemplarza płyty. Zgodnie z wolą zespołu do boxu weszły tylko płyty monograficzne, studyjne polskie oraz dodatkowo 2 dvd z serii "Złote DVD" oraz dwie płyty bonusowe. Jedna z nich - SINGLE - zawiera wersje radiowe znanych przebojów zespołu, które nie były dostępne na płytach w sprzedaży. Druga - UNIKATY - to prawdziwy rarytas dla fanów zespołu. Znajdują się na niej nagrania, nigdy wcześniej nie publikowane, wersje demo piosenek czy utwory nagrane do filmu "Wielka majówka". 
Dodatkiem do całości jest bogato ilustrowana książeczka, którą wstępem opatrzył Marek Niedźwiecki. W książeczce są pełne redakcje płyt, zdjęcia w większości nieznane fanom i teksty wszystkich piosenek zespołu.

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posted by: Oborski at 20:35 | link | comments |

posted by: Oborski at 20:32 | link | comments |

posted by: Oborski at 20:32 | link | comments |