I made it back from my now-annual trip to Poland in one piece. I had a great time in Gdansk, despite being a fairly small place, it seemed much livelier than Warsaw after dark. I ended up going to a bhangra night at one of the city's biggest clubs - the sight of a couple of hundred of Polish kids dancing to Bhangra Knights was quite amazing, especially as the city seems to have an Asian population of about six. Contact was planning to decamp to Estonia for a special event but were unfortunately told by a friend in Tallinn that the bar owners there were so sick of English tourists that they'd be unlikely to let us have a space. As Ryanair and Easyjet have just started flying to Gdansk, we may have a few months grace before the Poles are just as wary. It would be great fun to put on a show there.

It is, after all, a city where Min Net are celebrated in an appropriately scuzzy manner and just 12km from Sopot where the legendary Klaus Kinski was born. You get the impression that the locals know how to enjoy themselves.

Two years ago, when i was in Krakow, i watched a few episodes of the Polish version of Pop Idol. One of the contestants, Monika Brodka, genuinely amazed me. She was so greatly superior to the rest of the (fairly decent) field that the show became something of a farce. There was literally no way that anyone else could have won. Particularly impressive was the programme in which all the potential idols were forced to sing in a language that they knew nothing about. They all did a reasonable job but Brodka was bouncing around the stage like singing in what i assumed to be Greek was the most natural thing in the world.

Sadly, her debut album, in the tradition of Pop Idol, is heavy on the covers but it's still quite good. She's certainly someone to watch over the next couple of years - she's ridiculously talented and charismatic - if she gets the right writers she will be enormous.



Buy Brodka stuff

Brodka - Ten