Poland's President Wraps Up Britain Visit With Startling Pub Claim

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski wrapped up his state visit to Britain with some sightseeing and lunch in the City financial district, after he revealed that he once worked in a London pub -- illegally. The president and his wife Jolanta were formally bid farewell by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in central London where they had been staying as personal guests of the monarch during their three-day trip. Kwasniewski has been to London before, though in a rather less official capacity -- and in a television interview Thursday, he replied to a question about his stay as a student in 1974. Was it true, he was asked, that he learned his English behind a pub bar near the north London home of Premiership champions Arsenal, his favorite English football team, whose stadium he visited Thursday. "I can't talk about this period of my life," he replied on Channel Four News, "as this was an illegal job." Illegal immigration is a political hot potato in Britain, with popular tabloid newspapers predicting that the country will be flooded by job-seeking eastern Europeans in the wake of EU enlargement. Kwasniewski told Channel 4 News that such fears were "exaggerated".