In Magazine: a pub owner is in hot water for displaying a stuffed bear, a hotelier in Mikulov makes headlines after threatening to humiliate visitors who pee outside his hotel, a sixteen-year-old boy out on a joyride smashes into a police car, three Czech women declare war on a cheating husband’s mistress and two literary buffs are turning police reports into poetry.
Photo: archive of Customs Administration of the Czech Republic
The owner of an unnamed pub in the Pardubice region was in for an unpleasant surprise when customs officials checking the stamps on alcoholic beverages turned their attention to an entirely unexpected problem – a stuffed bear, who had long served as the pub’s mascot. The customs officials called in their colleagues from the environmental inspectorate on suspicion that the stuffed bear was a protected breed under the international CITES convention and they were quickly proved right. Although the pub owner’s alcohol supplies were above board, he was unable to show them any kind of document proving that he had acquired the stuffed bear legally. Police suspect he got it from a travelling salesman or poacher for a few hundred crowns or maybe just a few pints of beer. Now he faces a fine of up to one and a half million crowns and panicked pub owners in the vicinity are quickly storing any stuffed animals they had exhibited in their cellars.
Photo: archive of Radio Prague
A shocking hairstyle, body piercing or visible tattoos are no longer considered a serious setback in the workplace. According to the results of a survey conducted in close to 170 firms by the internet site Jobs.cz the majority of employees do not have a problem accepting an eccentric dress style or body art in others and employers are also becoming increasingly liberal. 21 percent of managers said they paid no attention to personal style if the applicant had the needed skills, 58 percent said body art would only present a problem in certain positions and only 18 percent rejected them entirely as unacceptable. On the other hand, jobs.cz says that other forms of hidden discrimination still exist –on the grounds of age, sex and nationality.
Illustrative photo: Dominika Bernáthová
An elderly woman from Hradec Králové alarmed the police at eight in the evening that her husband had gone missing for several hours and needed to take his medicine. She said her husband had only gone to pick up something at the local supermarket and must have had an accident. Officers combed the vicinity and much to their amusement found the old man having a roaring time among a bunch of teenagers at the Hip Hop Kemp festival taking place in the town. He told the police the vibes were fantastic and invited them to stay awhile and enjoy the show.
A hotelier in Mikulov has made headlines by putting up notices banning visitors from peeing in the vicinity of his hotel. Peeing here is strictly banned. If you do so you will be recorded on camera and posted on Youtube –that is the message that surprised visitors are getting. Many now stop to take a snapshot or film the unusual sign outside the hotel. Petr Marcinčák says he has not yet resorted to the threat and hopes that the clear message will shame those who may be tempted to use the grounds as an open air toilet. The signs – which the hotelier himself authored – have raised many comments on Facebook and Twitter.
Cheating husbands are not a rare phenomenon in these parts but not all women are ready to forgive and forget and some ladies have staunch friends to back them up. A dramatic incident in the town of Pardubice goes to prove this. Three women – aged 25, 30 and 57 set out on a punitive mission after finding out that one of their husbands was sleeping around. The ladies, armed with a sword, a baseball bat and wooden stick went to the home of the woman he was supposedly sleeping with and demanded that she come out and get the punishment she richly deserved – a public execution in the street. The woman called the police who came to pacify the outraged visitors who were led off to the police station to explain their behaviour.
Photo: archive of Radio Prague
A sixteen-year-old boy who was taking a night joyride in the family car had an unfortunate encounter with the police. Under Czech law one is not eligible to hold a driving license until the age of 18 and this 16-year-old was clearly not the best of drivers. He was moreover very drunk. Even so, everything was progressing more or less well until a police patrol noticed that the driver had omitted to switch on the car’s lights. They overtook him and waved him to a halt stopping ahead of him on the roadside. The boy made an attempt to draw to a halt behind them but clearly miscalculated the distance because he smashed right into the parked police car. Neither his parents nor the police were amused.
Photo: Kristýna Maková
Given the bizarre incidents that the police get called to deal with it is hardly surprising that police reports often make amusing reading. In fact two literary buffs from the town of Brno have started collecting police reports and turning them into poetry. They claim that officers –who get bored with writing these reports latch onto any absurdities that come their way and highlight them for their own and their colleagues amusement. Marek Pícha who transforms these reports into poetry says he does not change a single word because they contain hidden poetry already – he simple breaks them up to accentuate certain words and underline a certain rhythm. The reports have proved a huge hit on social networks where people have started collecting money to have them published in what would be the country’s first anthology of police poetry.
