Magazine

The Czech man's dream wife? A truthful, faithful, understanding, sex bomb. Prague's mayor disguises himself as a rock star to check on the capital's overcharging taxi drivers. And, the thief who hid his loot in the back seat of a police car. Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarova.

What is the Czech man's idea of a dream wife? According to the latest study published it is a 24 year old brunette of medium height, with an hourglass figure and a charming disposition. She should be truthful, faithful, understanding and a good housewife and mother, but she should also be able to represent them well at their annual work-party. Overly energetic, self-confident, ambitious and independent women are simply not desirable as wife material.

According to the author of this study the ideal, the Czech man's dream wife should look like the Miss Czech Republic beauty queen Lucie Kralova but act like their mother. Psychologist Slavomil Hubalek says he's disappointed by the outcome of this study, because it indicates that Czech society is not moving away from the traditional division of roles in which the man is the breadwinner and the woman is the homemaker more slowly than he had anticipated. A survey among Czech men also revealed that the vast majority of them think that a woman's role in life is much harder than a man's and under no circumstances would they want to swap - not even on a temporary basis!

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A young Czech couple tied the knot last week in a spectacular manner. The wedding ceremony was held at Sumava's highest mountain peak Spicak where the couple arrived on brightly decorated snow scooters. The mayor of Zelezna Ruda conducted the marriage ceremony in a snow drift and as soon as Jana and Martin had been pronounced man and wife, they sped off down the mountain side on snowboards - the bride's veil flapping in the wind as she clutched her wedding bouquet. Most of the other guests followed on skis or snowboards but the elderly relatives joined the mayor in a more dignified descent on the funicular. At the bottom of the ski slope there was a wedding bash, followed by a snowball fight in which the entire party joined in. "The registry office would have been boring - we wanted a really fabulous day to remember," the newlyweds said.

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Three neighbouring villages in southern Bohemia - Milevsko, Dmystice and Drazice - could easily put up notices saying "Caution! Danger of conceiving triplets!" It is as yet an unexplained phenomenon but, whatever's behind it, the fact is that in the past ten years triplets have been born five times in this relatively small area. This is way beyond the average statistics for any other place in the Czech Republic. In a village with seven hundred inhabitants triplets - conceived naturally, not as a result of fertility treatment - is something you'd expect to happen once in a hundred years. The locals have tried to figure out what's behind this phenomenon and so far their only conclusion is that it could be in the local water. All the parents of triplets allegedly have their own wells. So - just to be on the safe side - if you happen to visit the region and are not planning a big family I suggest you buy bottled water for the duration of your stay!

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Prague's mayor Pavel Bem disguised himself as an English-speaking rock star last week to check on Prague's overcharging taxi drivers, a year after he went undercover as an Italian businessman. At the beginning of 2005, Pavel Bem denounced widespread overcharging, citing one taxi driver who charged seven times the official rate for the trip across town. This time round, the mayor said the situation had "improved considerably" after one driver only doubled the official fare and another actually charged the correct amount! The taxi drivers were allegedly happy to answer the "rock star's" questions about the capital's nightlife, telling him he could buy marijuana at certain discos and how much a night with a prostitute would cost him, the Czech daily Mlada Fronta Dnes reported.

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Sometimes the police find stolen loot in the most bizarre places - but none more so than the back seat of a police car. A bank robber in Karlovy Vary escaped with fifty thousand crowns and when the police caught up with him on the outskirts of town he claimed that he's just seen a suspicious-looking man running into the woods. The police left their dog to guard the man and ran into the forest chasing a non-existent robber. Meanwhile, the real thief managed to slip the money into the lining of the police car's back seat. Much to his dismay the police eventually uncovered the hiding place. How he'd planned to retrieve it- if they hadn't - is not clear.

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Fancy having a bat for a pet? Hana Gerakova, a zoo employee, has been taking care of a critically endangered baby flying fox - a type of bat with fox-like features ever since she found it abandoned in the zoo's nightlife pavilion. When it was clear that none of the bats would take the baby under its wing Hana stepped in as surrogate mother and fed it every two hours on milk and camomile tea. She named it Saxana and the baby bat answers to the name - flying to Hana and perching on her finger when called. "It is very hard to breed this endangered species in captivity and I certainly didn't expect it would be so easy to tame and befriend," Hana told reporters showing off just how much Saxana trusts her. The baby actually curls up for a nap on her chest - lying on its back -which is totally foreign to a species that sleeps hanging from its feet on a tree branch. Also known as the Rodriguez flying fox, this type of bat grows to lengths of up to 14 inches and weights of about 10 ounces.

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A thirty year old Czech mum from Ostrava has just given birth to an outsize baby! Little Vojtech came into the world looking like a ready made sumo wrestler - weighing an impressive 5.9 kilograms, that's 13.2 pounds.