Magazine
After years of fighting a losing battle with prostitution, the Prague Town Hall says the time has come to legalize it. A fisherman in the Orlice river got more than he bargained for - the dreaded Piranha, home in South America's rain forests has appeared in a Czech river. And the world champion in doing headers with a ball - 36,000 of them in one go - says: Go for it, but it's a pain in the neck! Find out more in this week's Magazine with Daniela Lazarova.
You know how fishermen tend to exaggerate the size of their catch - however some do have reason to boast. The winner of this year's fishing contest in Luhacovice, Stanislav Gabrhel, caught a prize carp - 79cms long and 8,6 kilograms in weight. The most amazing thing is that his bait was plain bread. There were 720 contestants who altogether caught over 800 kg of fish. I was using all kinds of fancy baits - and nothing, Stanislav said, so I tried plain bread - and he caught on right away. It must have been some hungry carp!
The Pelhrimov Museum of Curiosities and Records has launched a nationwide search for the tallest Czech man. This happens every now and then so that the agency which collects Czech records can update its findings. All giants over 2 metres 5 centimetres have been invited to the Tallest Man Contest on September 20th where they will be sized up by a jury. There's a lot of excitement in the air since the agency says it has contacted a man who claims to be 2 metres 20 centimetres tall. The tallest man ever recorded lived in the 19th century and is said to have measured an unbelievable 2 metres and 42 centimetres. There is only a written record of that but the museum has more on Mr. Musil from Brno who entered the competition in the 1950s, measuring 2 metres 18 centimetres. He won hands down - and left the museum one of his giant shoes as a future exhibit. The shoe is now brought out at every Tall Man Contest and measured against the shoes of present day giants. As a gift it was more valuable than one might think - poor Mr. Musil couldn't buy shoes and clothes like the rest of us he had each piece tailor made at considerable trouble and expense.
Some towns are made famous by the people who emerged from them -whether real or made-believe. Jicin - the home of the popular fairy tale hero Rumcajs, whom every Czech child knows and loves, holds an annual fairy-tale get-together at this time of year. The week-long event which centres around the highwayman who stole from the rich to give to the poor -a Czech Robin Hood of sorts- this year attracted 10, 000 visitors and the mayor proudly opened the latest Rumcajs attraction - his shoemaker's workshop, complete with his wife Manicka and little boy Cipisek. "Visitors to Jicin -even foreign visitors -would ask us about Rumcajs related sights, so we decided to give them a proper one," the mayor said. The fairy tale week in Jicin is like no other - the main square is not crammed with parked cars but a fairy tale motor train, children search the place for the keys to the forbidden chamber and everyone in town must respect the Seven Fairy Tale Commandments - according to which teachers and parents are not allowed to get angry, no one must frown at anyone else and everyone has to perform at least one good deed a day. Possibly it might not be a bad idea to spread out this tradition to the rest of the Czech Republic.
According to the results of a public opinion survey more than half of all Czechs have at some time in their lives resorted to giving a bribe to ensure the quality of services rendered. The highest level of corruption appears to be in hospitals and on the streets, where people bribe traffic police in order not to have to pay much higher fines. Many respondents said they had bribed university staff to try and make sure that their offspring would be accepted to the university of their choice. Many bribes also end up in the pockets of bureaucrats to ensure a quick and problem free building permit or to the auto-mechanic to make sure that he pays special attention to our precious baby. Although bribes were a way of life under the communist regime it is not clear how many of these incidents happened before the 1989 revolution and how many after. In any case it is revealing that a vast number of respondents expressed the view that corruption and bribery are a fact of life and nothing much to be ashamed of.
It is time to pull our heads out of the sand and admit that prostitution is not going to go away -so at least let us get it under control with prostitutes paying taxes, health and social insurance, Blazek told the media. How do you tax a prostitute exactly? According to Blazek, one way to do it is according to the number of visitors she entertains. He points out that there are at least sixty whorehouses in town masquerading as massage salons. Under the proposed law, whorehouses would be approved by the town hall which could thus influence where these places would be. "I am not a fan of prostitution I'm a just realist," Blazek says when challenged by opponents. It is not clear what chances the bill will have in Parliament but many Czech towns -especially border towns close to highways - who have been fighting a losing battle with prostitution -would welcome the chance to come to grips with the problem out in the open.
Visitors to the street ball tournament in Bohumin last weekend were able to admire a fantastic performance by the world champion in doing headers with a ball. Fifty one year old Charalambos Bursas, who is of Greek descent, holds 80 Czech and 10 world records in this discipline all achieved over the past 10 years, after he gave up playing football professionally. I just liked playing around with the ball and it developed into a serious hobby, Bursos said. He can do headers in any position - sitting down, lying down, kneeling or anything else he's asked to try. His Czech record in heading a ball up and down without a break is an admirable 5 hours and 45 seconds during which time he did 36.000 headers. Asked how he felt after such an achievement he admitted "sometimes it's a pain in the neck"!
