July 2026
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5–8 minutes
I Love You, Filip Chajzer
Read more: I Love You, Filip ChajzerDisclaimer: This is an act of desperation. I do not usually do this, and I hope never to have to again. The problem is that by posting on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram in English, the designated reader will probably not read it. His English appears to…
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5–8 minutes
Small Boats
Read more: Small BoatsThree women, reportedly aged about twenty, thirty and fifty, were found unresponsive on a boat near Dunkirk. In a separate incident farther south, a man died after a dinghy capsized. Others, including a small child, were rescued. The British government says every death in the…
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8–13 minutes
Dogs Eat Dogs
Read more: Dogs Eat DogsHot, slightly anxious, almost completely without money. Money borrowed from people who earn theirs through public relations, stock exchanges in Switzerland and London, corporations, investments and defence contracts. Money produced somewhere inside the vast machinery of finance and war, then passed down to me in…
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2–4 minutes
My Ghost
Read more: My GhostAnother package arrived this morning. This one hadn’t been returned by the post office. It came from the district court. One hundred and twenty pages of it. Inside was a version of my life that I recognised immediately. Bank statements. WhatsApp conversations. Facebook messages. LinkedIn…
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10–16 minutes
Returned to Sender
Read more: Returned to SenderThe package was sitting on the doormat, my name and address still visible beneath the labels accumulated during its journey – from one side of Warsaw to another, and back again. Inside were two books. Both mine. Both signed. Both written out of two years…
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2–3 minutes
Poland’s Silent Intelligentsia
Read more: Poland’s Silent IntelligentsiaIt took me years to realise that I wasn’t simply changing jobs, but repeatedly colliding with the same institution. Different names, buildings and logos, but a very simlar conversation. Or rather, the absence of one. The Academy always wins. Not necessarily the university, but the…
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2–3 minutes
Warszawa na rowerze
Read more: Warszawa na rowerzeNie mam prawie żadnych pieniędzy. Kiedyś myślałem, że to stan wyjątkowy. Teraz to po prostu część mojego życia. Przez wiele lat wydawało mi się, że utknąłem w Warszawie. Każdy niezapłacony rachunek był jak kolejny łańcuch. Patrzyłem na tanie loty do Londynu, Berlina albo Paryża. Nie…
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3–4 minutes
The Quiet Americans
Read more: The Quiet AmericansThe loud America is easy to find. Presidents, billionaires, cable television, aircraft carriers, Trump, Infantino presenting yet another oversized trophy beneath exploding fireworks. It is an America of noise, certainty and permanent performance. There is another one. One that flaoted several thousand miles to take…
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1–2 minutes
Do Birds Own Passports?
Read more: Do Birds Own Passports?Perhaps there are kingdoms in the sky and empires beneath our feet whose borders are drawn in currents of air, scents, magnetic fields or memories beyond our comprehension. We assume that because we cannot decipher the politics of ants they have no history, yet ant…
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1–2 minutes
Waving Not Drowning
Read more: Waving Not DrowningWe wave goodbye. We wave somebody over. We wave a flag. We wave away an objection, a memory, an inconvenient truth. We speak of waves of grief, waves of migration, waves of panic. The same word keeps returning, carrying different cargo each time. Perhaps that…