April 2006


I had to switch off comments from unregistered users. The bots putting spam comments on my blog by far outnumber humans and I’m tired of having to moderate a hundred comments as spam every week. I’m really sorry, however, if you have something to say about anything I post here please register. Registration is quick and painless. And free. 🙂

Cracow is becoming more and more crowded on weekends, clear sign that the tourist season has started. As I walked today through these crowds filling up the streets of the old town I looked at people’s faces. I tried to focus on one for a few seconds then moved on to another. Each was different yet all had one thing in common – they were all alien, unknown, just glimpses of other lives and stories I will never know.

Walking like this I realised… in this whole whirl I’m in I long for one thing – serenity.

In its last issue The Economist writes that 3/4 of young French when would like to become civil servants. And that only 36% of all French think that free market capitalism is the best socio-economic system (less even than in the modern Russia!). That gives an interesting background to the recent unrest in France caused by their government’s pathetically feeble attempt to inject at least a tiny bit of free market into the country’s stagnant economy.

I think it should give a new meaning to the word “french”. In the 18th or 17th century syphilis was known as “mal francaise” (French malady). Right now “French malady” will become a synonym for a lazy, stagnant society trying to ignore reality…

They are going to have a very very unpleasant wake up one day…

This is Saturday and as usuall after an intensive week like the last one I’m unable to work, even though I should. My spleen catches up with me so I took refuge in a book. Instead of reading about strategic management, which I should do, I indulged myself with Paul Johnson’s “The Birth of the Modern “, a well written popular history of the second quarter of 19th century, just after the Wiena congress.

It is refreshing in a sense to see that looking in detail at any historical period shows how ilusory is the conviction about uniqueness of our own time. And that social forces and pure luck influence the direction and pace of technological progress much more than many intelectuals would admitt.

OK, time to bed, I’m tired enough so that I shouldn’t have trouble falling asleep.