Post by tufta on Dec 20, 2008 11:17:35 GMT 1
January
The month of January was chilly indeed, and no one would agree more than police stationed in Warsaw's Ochota precinct, who spent a couple of hours in the cold during a bomb scare. The police quickly traced the call and discovered the caller's identity. Armed with this information, they were able to trace his whereabouts through information on social-website Nasza-klasa.pl. It turned out that the culprit had wanted revenge on the police, claiming he had been wrongfully detained for eight months in 2001.
Another suspicious phone call nearly ended the marriage of Małgorzata and Marek. The pair received a phone bill for zł.1,500 which revealed that a number of calls had been made to premium escort and phone-sex numbers. Upon investigation, however, the couple realized that they had both been out of the house at the time of the calls, with the phone left at home.
February
The army isn't a terribly popular career choice in Poland. One unhappy recruit swallowed several metal screws in order to avoid military service. When taken to hospital to be operated upon, he escaped, but was caught an hour later.
March
Nasza-klasa.pl has grown in popularity in Poland and its users find it a great place to share information about themselves. Evidently a number of Military Counter-Intelligence (SKW) officers on a "secret" mission in Afghanistan felt that way too. They placed pictures of themselves and their colleagues sporting Afghani dress, as well as military uniforms. "I thought nothing could happen to heighten our sense of chaos at the SKW. I was wrong," commented Paweł Graś, a former secret services minister.
April
Well-known gangster Marek Cz., nicknamed "Rympałek," was arrested by the police, who had been tipped off that the criminal would be dining at a fast food joint in Warsaw's Wilanów district. Rympałek, who had masterminded the so-called "robbery of the century" in Warsaw in 1995, was completely surprised when police stormed the restaurant and handcuffed him.
May
April showers brought more criminal news to Poland, when police arrested Marek G., the alleged leader of an international drug gang. Upon raiding his house in Piaseczno, a suburb of Warsaw, officers found an impressive collection of stolen art works. "The house looked like a museum," said a spokesperson for the Chief Police Headquarters.
June
The month of June brought with it a soccer frenzy like no other, as Poland played in the European soccer championships for the first time. Poles took the team's first game - against Germany - a tad too seriously, however. Tabloid Fakt published a photoshopped picture of Polish national team coach Leo Beenhakker holding the severed heads of the coach and captain of the German team, with the headline: "Leo, give us their heads." The picture and slogan caused a stir on both sides of the border. After Poland lost the game, League of Polish Families' MP Mirosław Orzechowski proposed that Polish-born football players who had played on the German team be stripped of their Polish citizenship. Among these players was Lukas Podolski, who scored both goals in the match, leading to a 2-0 victory for Germany.
July
The heat was on in Poland in July, and especially in a suburb of Kraków which suffered a tarantula infestation. Zofia Hantów, whose seven-year-old son was bitten by one of the eight-legged creatures, speculated that the problem might have been caused by a "crazy breeder who either let the [arachnids] loose, or they escaped from him."
Meanwhile, in London, a Polish street cleaner who danced his way through work earned his 15 minutes of fame. Videos of "Ziggy Dust," the man's nom de guerre, became an online sensation on YouTube. The videos in question showed him dancing Michael-Jackson style to music while sweeping the streets.
August
The church also managed to get a cameo role in this year's odd news. In August, "Father Ed," a parish priest in western Poland, locked himself in his church to protest the Olympic games in China. He also raised the Tibetan flag on a pole near the church. The priest has boycotted Chinese products for many years, even exchanging children's First Communion prayer books when he learned they had been printed in China.
September
Poland's preparations for the Euro 2012 soccer championships require all sorts of dirty work to be done. For example, a study was conducted to investigate the state of cleanliness of Polish toilets. Researchers analyzed the state of 260 toilets in Poland and, after weeks of investigation and statistical analysis, they concluded that toilets in railway stations and airports were dirtier than those in hotels. An excellent use of taxpayers' money.
October
Some swallow screws to avoid the army, but in October it turned out that others pay bribes to join. Recruits were paying doctors up to zł.1,500 to issue positive medical opinions to help their applications. The reason? The introduction of reasonable pay for soldiers.
November
A group of Intelligence Agency officials, the secretive and elite group of the Polish secret services, lost a magazine full of live rounds. They tried to cover up the embarrassing situation, but it later turned out that while escorting a convoy of money from the National Bank of Poland, one of the officers had dropped the magazine.
December
News broke that a Cypriot hotel was preparing to sue two PiS deputies for allegedly wrecking a pair of hotel golf carts during a spree of alcohol-fuelled destruction. The two MPs were on an official trip for a Council of Europe meeting in Cyprus. The suit claims the golf carts were worth €10,000, but the politicians vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
The month of January was chilly indeed, and no one would agree more than police stationed in Warsaw's Ochota precinct, who spent a couple of hours in the cold during a bomb scare. The police quickly traced the call and discovered the caller's identity. Armed with this information, they were able to trace his whereabouts through information on social-website Nasza-klasa.pl. It turned out that the culprit had wanted revenge on the police, claiming he had been wrongfully detained for eight months in 2001.
Another suspicious phone call nearly ended the marriage of Małgorzata and Marek. The pair received a phone bill for zł.1,500 which revealed that a number of calls had been made to premium escort and phone-sex numbers. Upon investigation, however, the couple realized that they had both been out of the house at the time of the calls, with the phone left at home.
February
The army isn't a terribly popular career choice in Poland. One unhappy recruit swallowed several metal screws in order to avoid military service. When taken to hospital to be operated upon, he escaped, but was caught an hour later.
March
Nasza-klasa.pl has grown in popularity in Poland and its users find it a great place to share information about themselves. Evidently a number of Military Counter-Intelligence (SKW) officers on a "secret" mission in Afghanistan felt that way too. They placed pictures of themselves and their colleagues sporting Afghani dress, as well as military uniforms. "I thought nothing could happen to heighten our sense of chaos at the SKW. I was wrong," commented Paweł Graś, a former secret services minister.
April
Well-known gangster Marek Cz., nicknamed "Rympałek," was arrested by the police, who had been tipped off that the criminal would be dining at a fast food joint in Warsaw's Wilanów district. Rympałek, who had masterminded the so-called "robbery of the century" in Warsaw in 1995, was completely surprised when police stormed the restaurant and handcuffed him.
May
April showers brought more criminal news to Poland, when police arrested Marek G., the alleged leader of an international drug gang. Upon raiding his house in Piaseczno, a suburb of Warsaw, officers found an impressive collection of stolen art works. "The house looked like a museum," said a spokesperson for the Chief Police Headquarters.
June
The month of June brought with it a soccer frenzy like no other, as Poland played in the European soccer championships for the first time. Poles took the team's first game - against Germany - a tad too seriously, however. Tabloid Fakt published a photoshopped picture of Polish national team coach Leo Beenhakker holding the severed heads of the coach and captain of the German team, with the headline: "Leo, give us their heads." The picture and slogan caused a stir on both sides of the border. After Poland lost the game, League of Polish Families' MP Mirosław Orzechowski proposed that Polish-born football players who had played on the German team be stripped of their Polish citizenship. Among these players was Lukas Podolski, who scored both goals in the match, leading to a 2-0 victory for Germany.
July
The heat was on in Poland in July, and especially in a suburb of Kraków which suffered a tarantula infestation. Zofia Hantów, whose seven-year-old son was bitten by one of the eight-legged creatures, speculated that the problem might have been caused by a "crazy breeder who either let the [arachnids] loose, or they escaped from him."
Meanwhile, in London, a Polish street cleaner who danced his way through work earned his 15 minutes of fame. Videos of "Ziggy Dust," the man's nom de guerre, became an online sensation on YouTube. The videos in question showed him dancing Michael-Jackson style to music while sweeping the streets.
August
The church also managed to get a cameo role in this year's odd news. In August, "Father Ed," a parish priest in western Poland, locked himself in his church to protest the Olympic games in China. He also raised the Tibetan flag on a pole near the church. The priest has boycotted Chinese products for many years, even exchanging children's First Communion prayer books when he learned they had been printed in China.
September
Poland's preparations for the Euro 2012 soccer championships require all sorts of dirty work to be done. For example, a study was conducted to investigate the state of cleanliness of Polish toilets. Researchers analyzed the state of 260 toilets in Poland and, after weeks of investigation and statistical analysis, they concluded that toilets in railway stations and airports were dirtier than those in hotels. An excellent use of taxpayers' money.
October
Some swallow screws to avoid the army, but in October it turned out that others pay bribes to join. Recruits were paying doctors up to zł.1,500 to issue positive medical opinions to help their applications. The reason? The introduction of reasonable pay for soldiers.
November
A group of Intelligence Agency officials, the secretive and elite group of the Polish secret services, lost a magazine full of live rounds. They tried to cover up the embarrassing situation, but it later turned out that while escorting a convoy of money from the National Bank of Poland, one of the officers had dropped the magazine.
December
News broke that a Cypriot hotel was preparing to sue two PiS deputies for allegedly wrecking a pair of hotel golf carts during a spree of alcohol-fuelled destruction. The two MPs were on an official trip for a Council of Europe meeting in Cyprus. The suit claims the golf carts were worth €10,000, but the politicians vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
