Magazine
The three wise men rode through Prague this week, distributing chocolate euro coins! Is your mailbox empty? Don't lose hope some postcards take 15 years to arrive! And why can cheating on your man prove to be a very costly business - find out in this week's Magazine with Daniela Lazarova.
They are well educated, in good shape, have a clean criminal record and a drivers licence. Right now many of them fail to see this as a bonus. Because they are better than their contemporaries, the army has picked them as the last set of young men who will serve a year in the army before it becomes fully professional. From five and a half thousand potential candidates the army chose under two thousand of the best and brightest. Many of those who got their marching orders wish they hadn't been quite so good...
Although everything is becoming computerized - desk and wall calendars are still something that people buy for their home and office. And although most people go for the world-sites, nature, animals, chefs or models collections there are some very bizarre calendars coming out. One of the country's funeral and cremating services has produced its own calendar - don't ask me what's on it- because I didn't look further than the stylish funeral parlour on the front page. Also a Czech jailhouse has produced its own calendar for the year ahead. Called Jail-views, it is a collection of photographs from various barred windows of the jailhouse. There is a calendar of dwarfs and last but not least the army -which is working on a better image - has produced a novelty this year: an army calendar of mock battle scenes and army sportsmen posing as Greek gods.
With temperatures at minus seven degrees it is somewhat difficult to recall the sweltering heat that Europeans experienced last summer. Meteorologists have published an end-of year report which says that last year was one of the hottest in over two centuries. Similar average temperatures were allegedly recorded in the years 1811 and 1868.
The Ostrava Town Hall is reconstructing its paternoster -a wooden, open-door continuous elevator from the 1930s. Far from discarding its services, the town hall is immensely proud of this historic legacy and says that the elevator is the brightest jewel on the property. It has 12 cabins for two passengers each and, when full, carries a weight of close to two thousand kilograms. I should mention that Czech Radio itself has one of these old lifts and visitors to Radio Prague love to try it out after overcoming their initial nervousness about jumping on and off an elevator in constant motion. That's what keeps us on our toes here at Radio Prague!
Mrs. Hana Svobodova from Tanvald couldn't believe her eyes when she opened her mail box this week. Inside was a postcard from her brother Miloslav who said that he was having a great time holidaying in the Bulgarian sea resort of Nesebr. All well and good - except that the news was 15 years old. Mrs. Svobodova's brother spent the summer there back in 1988 and that's when he sent her the card. This was a year before the fall of communism in both countries and the card was sent to Czechoslovakia - a country that technically no longer exists. Even so the card made it home safe and sound though somewhat battered - and 15 years overdue.
If you are obsessed with time - then the newly opened Karlstejn Museum of clocks is the place for you. Visitors can admire masterpieces dating back to the 16th century produced by the best clock-makers around the world. There are clocks made by the best craftsmen in England, France, Switzerland and the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. There are masterpieces from China, Japan and the United States -in all shapes and sizes -including tower clocks - all ticking away in Karlstejn. It is the only exhibition of its kind in the Czech Republic and in the winter months it is open on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
According to the country's many travel agencies Czechs are gradually abandoning the practice of weekend shopping expeditions to neighbouring Germany, Poland or Austria. In the 1990s travel agencies organized such one or two day shopping trips on a regular basis but today neither the price nor the assortment of goods on the market prompts Czechs to shop further afield than they need. Indeed, the scales have now turned and tax hikes in neighbouring Poland and Slovakia have started the practice of Slovaks and Poles coming to the Czech Republic to buy basic products at a much cheaper price. Today Czechs heading for a day in Vienna will most likely devote it to sightseeing.
Cheating on your man can prove to be a costly affair if he's the jealous type. A young man from the town of Kladno who found that his girlfriend was two timing him with a local fireman got so inflamed over the affair that he drove to the fire station at four am and proceeded to devastate it - fairly systematically - three doors, four cars and a high rise ladder -damage estimated at over one million crowns. He was like a lunatic, destroyed everything in sight, a fireman said, if there had been an emergency we would have been unable to help. The man then drove off, parked his car at a local petrol station and called the police to come and pick him up. He could face up to three years in prison or some time in a lunatic asylum...and all because of a bit of fun on the side. So keep that in mind, especially if you fancy a fireman!
