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The Polish Armed Forces memorial plaque in St Peter's Square, Manchester

The plaque was unveiled on Polish Constitution Day, 3rd May 2024….

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Helen and Olga are kindly old ladies who open their hearts and wallets to down-and-out men in Los Angeles. In a city named for angels, the two women seem heaven-sent. After one of the men is killed by a hit-and-run driver - and then another suffers the same fate - investigators uncover a horrifying and twisted plot that stuns even the most seasoned detectives....

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Now reading....

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The Levenshulme

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How work was sabotaged....

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A little bit of Leeds in Badalona....

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Leeds United: Meslier, Byram (Joseph 63), Rodon, Ampadu, Firpo, Gray, Gruev (Kamara 88), Gnonto (Shackleton), Rutter (Gelhardt 79), Summerville (Anthony 78), Piroe.

Subs not used: Darlow, Cresswell, Cooper, Crew. This was the first Championship game of the weekend. Leicester City trounced Southampton 5-0 on Tuesday, which meant that if Leeds United failed to win tonight, Leicester would be promoted.

In view of our patchy form I wasn't sure what to expect, but I certainly wasn't expecting to witness our worst performance and heaviest defeat of the season, which has completely blown our chances of automatic promotion. Leeds are past masters at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and we did so in spectacular style against QPR, who ensured their Championship status for next season with this impressive win.

Although Leeds are still in second place, we are just a point above Ipswich who have two games in hand. Only a miracle is going to prevent them from claiming the second automatic promotion spot, which means it's the play offs for us….

I'm not sure what Daniel Farke's game plan was, but his team looked totally disorganised and were never really in the game. It took just eight minutes for QPR to find the opener after a bright start, and Leeds struggled to find any response. The home side were totally in control for most of the match and made us look very ordinary, as once again our best players failed to deliver.

Apart from a couple of decent chances that fell to Crysencio Summerville, we didn't create much, and the final score didn't flatter QPR at all.

Farke must be getting very worried….

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American idiots through the ages….

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A zoomer historian speaks…. Having already written extensively about the mis-use of this well known photo from the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and explained that the three young men who appear in it are neither German nor Jewish, my main reaction after seeing this particular abomination was something like….WTAF?

The photo actually shows three young Polish resistance fighters from the Miotła battalion of the Armia Krajowa and was taken on 2nd September 1944, after they'd just spent five hours crawling through the sewers from the besieged Old Town district of Warsaw to the city centre.

From left to right: Tadeusz Rajszczak (code name "Maszynka") - 15 years old, Kazimierz Gabara (code name "Łuk") - 17 years old, Mieczysław (Ryszard) Lach (code name "Pestka") - 15 years old.

I can't be bothered to comment on Zoomer Historian's batshit crazy take on history. It's pretty obvious where he's coming from….

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Classic Polish movie posters - GRZECH AZIZY (The Sin)

Directed by: Henry Barakat (1965)

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Moot Hall Arms

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Leeds united: Meslier, Firpo, Ampadu, Bamford (Piroe 74), Summerville (Anthony 86), Rodon, Gray, Rutter (Kamara 81), Byram, Gnonto (James 81), Gruev.

Subs not used: Darlow, Cooper, Shackleton, Gelhardt, Joseph. Prior to this game, Crysencio Summerville was named Championship player of the year, Archie Gray was named Championship young player of the year, and three Leeds players (Summerville, Georginio Rutter and Ethan Ampadu) made it into the Championship team of the year - which is all very nice for them, but it will mean fuck all to the fans if Leeds United fail to get promoted….

This was an exciting game, which we just about deserved to win….

Middlesbrough scored a slightly fortunate early goal before Leeds had really got going, but we responded brilliantly. A few minutes later, Rutter went on a solo run into the box and was brought down. Summerville took the penalty and found the bottom corner with power and placement. And it wasn't long before Leeds took the lead, when Junior Firpo whipped a dangerous cross into the box and Patrick Bamford diverted it into the net from close range.

But Middlesbrough also responded well to going behind and equalised in the 30th minute, only to see Leeds re-take the lead five minutes before the break. An excellent run from Gray found Summerville who turned and played in Willy Gnonto, who fired an unstoppable shot into the top corner. However, replays showed that Gnonto was offside, so the goal would have been disallowed if VAR was being used in the Championship….

Bamford had an excellent chance to make it four just before half time, but his shot from inside the box was well saved by Seny Dieng.

Middlesbrough dominated the first 15 minutes of the second half as Leeds sat back and invited them to find a way through. There was no urgency to our play until a quick break forward ended up with Summerville scoring our fourth goal.

The three points seemed secure until the 87th minute, when a long ball over the top found Emmanuel Latte Lath on the edge of the box, who cleverly looped a header over Illan Meslier and into the back of the net.

Fortunately we held on until the final whistle….

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Record Store Day at Ultra-Local Records in Poblenou, Barcelona....

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Who knew that the Nazis persecuted the Polish Catholic Church because of antisemitism? Rudolf Rosner was one of approximately 3000 Polish Catholic priests who were murdered by the Germans during the Second World War. Obviously this had nothing to do with antisemitism and everything to do with Nazi Germany's stated goal of destroying the Polish nation.

Long before signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and agreeing to carve up Poland with their Soviet allies, the Germans had already formulated a plan (Generalplan Ost) to turn all of Eastern Europe into the Lebensraum (living space) of Greater Germany. This plan explicitly required the complete destruction of Poland.

Prior to the outbreak of World War 2, thousands of Polish citizens of the Third Reich were arrested and killed. The Nazis also prepared a special list of 61000 of Poland's leading citizens who were to be eliminated following the German invasion (the so-called Intelligenzaktion). They had even drawn up detailed architectural plans to recreate Warsaw as a provincial German town (with a small Polish slave colony in the eastern Praga district).

In his Obersalzberg speech to Wehrmacht commanders on 22nd August 1939, Adolf Hitler explicitly announced that:

…."I have issued the command – and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad – that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness – for the present only in the east – with orders to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space we need"….

Nazi Germany's genocidal intentions towards the Polish people were crystal clear, and although Western historiography on the subject of Poland in the Second World War is focused almost entirely on the holocaust, the Germans also committed some of the worst atrocities in all of human history against the Polish slavic population (mass murder, the destruction of hundreds of Polish villages, ethnic cleansing, deportation of millions of people to concentration and labour camps, the kidnapping of Polish children for forced Germanisation, the brutal suppression of the Warsaw Uprising etc).

They systematically persecuted the Polish Catholic Church as part of the Nazi campaign of cultural genocide in Poland. Thousands of churches and monasteries were closed, seized or destroyed, and eighty percent of Polish Catholic clergy were sent to German concentration camps, where at least 1800 lost their lives (more than 800 in Dachau alone).

The Auschwitz concentration camp was established on Heinrich Himmler's orders in April 1940 and was located in Polish territory that was incorporated directly into the Third Reich. Alongside Stutthof (opened in 1939) and Majdanek (opened in 1941), it was constructed initially to intern Polish slavic prisoners.

The Germans incarcerated approximately 450 priests, seminarians and monks in Auschwitz, as well as 35 nuns. Most of them perished there or in other German camps.

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The three chimneys of Badalona

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Something bit me....