Press Review

The funeral of Britain's Queen Mother receives front-page coverage in most dailies today; Pravo and Lidove noviny feature pictures of the Queen attending Tuesday's service in Westminster Abbey, while Mlada fronta Dnes leads with pictures of the royal coffin on its final journey. The sober business daily Hospodarske noviny is the only paper to ignore the Queen Mother's funeral, opting instead for news that MPs have finally approved plans for the country's new state administration.

Mlada fronta Dnes provides an interesting footnote to all the fuss over the Benes decrees at the moment - reporting that both Adolf Hitler and Konrad Henlein - the leader of Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German Nazi Party - are still honorary citizens of the town of Lanskroun. The mayor says he has no intention of removing the names, saying they're part of Lanskroun's history and reflect the atmosphere of the time.

And the historians agree with him. "Lanskroun was a German town, before the war only 5 percent of the town's inhabitants were Czech. That's a historical fact, and no-one can change it," says one. "Removing the names of Nazi leaders or Communist functionaries cannot change the past," she tells Mlada fronta Dnes. Some of the locals are less than pleased, however. "Hitler an honorary citizen? Lanskroun will be hanging its head in shame," says a shopkeeper in the town.

Further on in the paper, Mlada fronta Dnes reports on new measures to be adopted by Prague city council to catch dishonest taxi drivers ripping off customers. There's been a great deal of coverage in the media recently of the so-called "turbo" - an illegal device which speeds up the meter in the cab. The city council says it wants to use undercover employees to ride the city's cabs, fining those drivers who bump up the price.

Pravo reports today how a self-styled cowboy from a village in South Moravia was fined by police on Tuesday night after riding his horse under the influence of alcohol. The "drink-riding" incident took place in the little village of Zelechovice - the 52-year-old man was stopped by police after his horse was spotted swerving dangerously on the road. The man tried to outrun police officers, but fell out of the saddle when the horse was cornered in a side- street.

"You're not allowed to be in charge of any means of transport under the influence of alcohol," said police spokesman Ivo Mitacek. "It doesn't matter whether you're in a car, on a bike or riding a horse." A waiter in the pub told Pravo the man regularly tied up his horse outside the pub, in the mistaken belief that drinking and driving didn't concern horses. He was also fined for riding with no lights.

And finally who's that cool dude gracing the pages of all the Czech dailies today? Why, it's non other than Vaclav Klaus, leader of the right-of-centre Civic Democrats. Mr Klaus is pictured at a Civic Democrat party in Prague on Tuesday night, dressed in sharp suit and wraparound shades and looking for all the world like a white Ray Charles. Party officials are strenuously denying that the shades are an attempt to spice up Mr Klaus's rather boring image - they say he needs them to recover from a recent eye operation.