‘I went loopy’: the photographer who walked 12,000 miles from Wales to Poland
Sean O’HaganMichal Iwanowski came across some graffiti in Cardiff that said: ‘Go home, Polish.’ So he did. The 105-day slog almost broke him – but it restored his faith in a volatile, fractured Europe
Ah:
On 27 April this year, Michal Iwanowski left his house in Cardiff to walk to his home village of Mokrzeszów in Poland. Carrying British and Polish passports and wearing a T-shirt bearing the word “Polska”, he began his 1,200-mile journey east, sticking as closely as possible to a straight line he had drawn on a map. Over 105 days, it would take him through Wales, England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic.
Stand down, stand down. It’s just the usual innumeracy of the arts graduates at The Guardian.
Strange straight line
Yes, a direct route to Mokrzeszów from Cardiff avoids France and Belgium and the Czech Republic. After 105 days in the same t-shirt, the villagers will have been impressed at the personal hygiene habits picked up from the Welsh.
Magellan went around the world in 1519 which as Lee Trevino says isn’t bad if you consider the course.
This is bullshit:
1,200 miles in 105 days is ~12 miles per day. Given him a bit extra for wandering around looking at stuff and cal it 15 miles per day. The average person has an easy walking pace of at about 3 miles per hour so at worst he was walking for 5 hours per day.
According to his web page he’s 41, unless he’s disabled in some way that pace should be easy for anyone that age.
I was going to ask: don’t these people have any mental conceptual map of the world…. but these are the people who put Newcastle on a map in Teesside.
I’m headed for my eighth decade and I walk 10 miles a day at work. He’s a pussy!
‘Go home, Polish.’
Who knew it was so easy?
And why didn’t he take a train? Walking proved what, that he’s Polish?
BNID beat me to it.
The bloke is lazy as well as a nutter.
Uh… take THAT, anonymous graffito vandal?
BRB – off to write “EAT SHIT, THERESA MAY” on my shed.
Obviously well off to be able to take 3.5 months off for a petulant stunt like this.
Off topic but can anyone help substantiate the claim that operating our railways is in line with the rest of the EU, it’s just that we subsidise our ticket prices less than elsewhere.
Obviously the leftoid borg disagree and think it’s expensive because rail users and taxpayers pay foreign TOCs a fortune in dividends.
“Michal Iwanowski came across some graffiti in Cardiff that said: ‘Go home, Polish.’”
I note it wasn’t written in Welsh.
@Phil I found these links on Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Europe and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_European_Railway_Directive_2012.
They should have a split between infrastructure, commuter, and freight but different countries do it differently. Much like the general approach to implementation of EU directives.
114 or so miles walked every day for 105 days isn’t a bad pace for a 41 year old.
Wasn’t it actually an advert for Mr Sheen ?
@ DtP
That would be bloody good for any age: there are a couple of dozen guys and at least two women who can walk 114 miles in a day – once – but to walk 114 miles and still have time to sleep is Olympic standard.
@ jgh
Yeah – unlike Americans who can’t find Canada on a map Teessiders put the Northumbrian barbarians on the northern extremities of a map of County Durham 🙂
He must have been staggering all over the place, lurching from Paris to Barcelona, then left again to Ghent.