Prague City Beat

The Czech(oslovak) flag is 85 years old today, according to Radio Prague.
Incorporating the red and white of Bohemia and Moravia and the blue of Slovakia, the flag was apparently devised by an Interior Ministry archivist, Jaroslav Kursa, in 1920.
As well as having a distinctive and striking design, the Czech flag is, perhaps most importantly, fairly [...]

With Stanislav “Flat Stanley” Gross’s government on the brink of collapse, and given that Czech politics seems to exist in a constant state of crisis, why not beat the rush and join me in calling for the resignation of the next Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolánek?
It’ll only save time later.

Skej?a?ka, on the Interkoncerts website, as a description of Avril Lavigne.

Via Prague Monitor. Surely some mistake?. Pantsing the president is hardly respectful behavior, even from the youthful prime minister.
It was an exciting encounter, by the sound of it. “No official statements or stances were announced after the hour-long meeting.”

Twelve days on from the Karlovo náměstí tram crash, I’m taking the number 20 up Evropská.
My stop is coming up, so I get to my feet ahead of time and wait by the door.
It’s then that I happen to glance into the driver’s “cockpit” and notice that he’s writing an SMS with one hand and [...]

Every Saturday I watch the TV Nova pop show Eso and every week I ask myself:

What the hell is Leoš Mareš wearing?

Via Prague Monitor, a new study suggests Czech workers are lazier than the average European.
Each EU firm has about a fifth of the so-called workaholics, while in the Czech Republic it is only 13 pct. On the other hand, each Czech firm has more than a half of people who cause trouble and [...]

The collapse of FC Bohemians Praha has been one of the most depressing Czech football stories in a season jam-packed full of them.
Now, though, help is on the way, in the shape of Družstvo fanoušků Bohemians.
The DFB is a co-op set up by fans of the Klokani (Kangaroos) aimed at raising the money necessary to [...]

U2, The Beatles and Moby figure most frequently on the playlists of Czech Audioscrobbler users, according to the latest weekly chart.
It isn’t the most exciting selection of music, I suppose, but at least Lucie Bílá doesn’t make the cut.
Audioscrobbler is an unexpectedly addictive website that uses a downloadable plug-in to build an online profile of [...]

I was alarmed to find a story about German troops occupying Prague in Moreover.com’s daily mail-out of Czech and Slovak news headlines.
Luckily, it’s from the Manchester Guardian archives, from 1939, and we aren’t about to be arrested for our opposition to National Socialism.
Along with the general horror of the piece, what strikes me most [...]

Can the Czech Republic really sustain a 24-hour cable news station?
I guess we’ll find out on May 1st, when, according to iStrategie, public broadcaster Česká televize launches ČT24, a Czech CNN of sorts.

What the hell’s going on with the weather?
According to forecasters, last week’s sub-zero temperatures will climb as high as 17 degrees C (63 degrees F) over the next few days.
Because of the rapid thaw, flooding is expected, with war, famine, pestilence and death presumably not too far behind.
Story (In Czech)

Oi vey! The Commies, like it or not, have got to come in from the cold sooner or later, and the Czech political scene is going to look drastically different when they do. The latest poll shows support for the Reds at 25% (!), with no non-Commie combo of parties able to form a majority. [...]

OK, this is a totally insidery questions but I might as well ask it here. In the PTV-linked Prague expat world there are said to be three Jeffs: Good Jeff, Bad Jeff and Ugly Jeff. I’m pretty sure I know them all, yet it’s never been clear to me which is good, which is bad [...]

On trips abroad it’s always interesting to see what aspects of Czech culture (if any) have infiltrated the host country. I just got back from a few days’ holiday in Cologne, Germany, where, along with Pilsner Urquell and Budvar signs, Czechs seemed to turn up in the most unexpected places.
Here’s a list of “sightings”:
Milan Knížák [...]

1996, late August or early September – definitely summer on the verge of fall. I had been living in Brno for a few weeks, learning how to teach English grammar (i.e. learning English grammar). I had yet to experience any kind of culture shock because everything was just as I had expected it would be: [...]

First of all, in a world of shameless self promoters, you have to admire a politician who chooses “How I Erred in Politics” as the title of his memoirs, but that’s former Czech premier Milos Zeman for you.
I’ve just been reading quotes (as translated by the CTK news agency, so please direct any libel [...]