Magazine
An American family is stunned by the news that their family photo had been turned into an ad by a Prague grocery store. A man survives a fall from the sixth floor. And, training for a race? If it’s in Pelhřimov you’ll need a stuffed goat. Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarová.
Do you use your family photos as greeting cards and post them on the web? If so, be careful. You never know where they may end up. An American family was stunned by the news that their family photo had been blown-up to life-size proportions and served as an ad in a grocery store window in Prague. They might never have known had it not been that a friend visiting the Czech capital recognized them and took photos of the store to alert them. The store specializes in Italian food imports and its owner –Mario Beruccio – said he thought the images had been computer generated. “We will be happy to write the family an email with our apology,” he said, adding that if the family had lived locally he would have offered them a bottle of fine wine. Well, given that the family snapshot was used to advertise the shop’s grocery delivery service, he could have done better than that!
There’s no accounting for taste they say – and ketchup giant Heinz has stopped trying to figure out why Czechs don’t want their French fries with ketchup but order tartar sauce instead. Convinced by sales figures, Heinz has started supplying the Czech market with tartar sauce produced by a partner company. Czechs have developed a passion for tartar sauce and consume more of it per head than any other nation in Europe – possibly the world. Sales of this high-cholesterol product have gone through the roof and many Czechs are putting it on anything fried or barbecued. Even so, putting tartar sauce on the market is not enough, you have to get it just right to suit Czech tastes – a Heinz representative says - tartar sauce must taste sweet-and-sour, ketchup should be on the sweeter side and as for mustard – Czechs have a brand that is specifically their own – the likes of which you will not get anywhere else in the world.
Over 10,000 visitors turned up for this years “Aviation Fair” air-show in the town of Pardubice, east of Prague. First held in 1991 in memory of pilot Jan Kašpar and his pioneering flight from Prague to Pardubice the air-show highlights the tradition of aviation in the town dating back to the 1930s. Among this year’s attractions were the Hungarian acrobatics pilot Peter Besenyei and the P-38 Lightning two-engine fighter plane – the type in which the French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupery, famous for his novel The Little Prince, was shot down and killed by enemy fire on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean in July 1944. The US army originally produced 10,000 of these and there are a mere nine fully functional planes left today. People came to see it from as far away as Japan – and said it was well worth the trip. Another big treat for aviation buffs was being able to climb into the cabin of a Gripen fighter jet.
