Magazine

A Prague clinic offers its nurses plastic surgery for free if they sign a three-year contract, British singing sensation Susan Boyle will be coming to Prague to record her first album and, what is going on with Prague’s zebra crossings? Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarová.

Crisis or not, the lack of nursing staff is a chronic problem at many Czech clinics and hospitals and perks like fitness-centre vouchers are not doing the trick. A private clinic in Prague has now resorted to a somewhat drastic course of action, offering nurses who sign a three-year contract with the clinic a fast solution to their image problems - plastic surgery for free. Ten nurses have so far taken up the offer and rave about the employer who has the sense to offer complimentary silicone-enhanced breasts. One of the nurses –who had a complete makeover – says she saved hundreds of thousands of crowns and would never have been able to afford the surgery from her salary as a nurse. While the nurse was happy to show off her new curves for TV cameras, women’s right activists are outraged, claiming that the offer is an insult to the whole nursing profession.

The clinic’s management maintains that there is nothing sexist or insulting in helping women to look good and reports a ten percent increase in job applicants since the offer was announced. One thing is obvious – with ten nurses having undergone breast enlargement surgery, and seven more considering makeovers, this clinic should have the best looking nursing staff in the country. No doubt it will bring them more patients as well.

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Susan Boyle’s many fans in the Czech Republic can look forward to seeing the British singing sensation in person. Mz Boyle who became an overnight celebrity after appearing in Britain’s Got Talent, will visit Prague in late June/early July to record her first album with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Coincidentally it is the same ensemble that cooperated with another British superstar - Paul Potts.

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What are you saving money on in the crisis? The results of an opinion survey just out show that while 34 percent of Czechs have cut back on alcohol and tobacco and 19 percent are eating out less frequently, only 4 percent are willing to change their holiday plans. Researchers said Czechs were determined to hang on to their foreign holidays no matter what – with only two other things more untouchable – expenditures for health and education.

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In this respect good news has come from Croatia – the most popular seaside holiday destination for Czechs with limited means. In order to be able to afford a holiday by the sea many Czechs have to save on food which means stocking up on meat and dairy products for picnic lunches at the beach. Last year Croatia imposed strict limits on the amount of food products tourists could bring into the country – restricting it to 1 kilo of meat and dairy products per person. Czech tourists promptly headed elsewhere which made the Croatian authorities backpedal. Today Czechs can once again fill the boot with salamis and head for Croatia and at a time of crisis no doubt many are grateful for the possibility.

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It has come to light that a planned terrorist attack by radical Islamists which was foiled by the German police in 2007 would not have taken place thanks to faulty Czech fuses. On September 4th of 2007 a German anti-terrorist squad raided a house in Obeshledorn, arresting four terrorist suspects and confiscating explosives and fuses that the radicals had intended to use near the US military base in Ramstein. What the terrorists never suspected is that the twenty or so Czech-made fuses they bought were – according to German experts -all faulty and would have effectively spoilt their plans. A nice subversive operation there by Czech producers though one doesn’t usually approve of crap products on the market.

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Even at a time of economic crisis, when saving is the order of the day, Kafka’s legacy is alive and well. Czech bureaucrats are currently waging a war over zebra crossings in Prague and the inhabitants of the Czech capital find it hard to believe their eyes as pedestrian crossing appear and disappear again without warning. After dozens of people called the media and the city hall to demand an explanation for this strange phenomenon an unbelievable story came to light. The Prague City Hall decided that dozens of zebra crossings in Prague went contrary to a regulation introduced by the Transport Ministry –namely that a zebra crossing across a street with a tram line must have street lights. And it ordered road maintenance crews to remove 79 zebra crossings in places where they are vitally needed. Removing them cost 800,000 crowns. Showered with complaints the Transport Ministry ordered them to be put back, pointing out that in Prague the regulation could not be taken so literally. The city hall says it will have them re-painted but insists on regulations being adhered to, so in some places it has painted the zebra only half way up the street – skipped the tram track - and painted the rest, producing broken up zebra crossings. The solution has pedestrians shaking their heads in disbelief at the games bureaucrats are playing. Surely changing the regulation would be the obvious solution. But that would be much too simple and Czechs would no longer be able to crack jokes about living in Kafkaland.