Prague City Beat

Following on from DVD obaly, here’s another legally dubious but potentially useful site.
As the name suggests, Titulky k serialum (”Subtitles for Serials”) mainly offers free downloads of Czech subtitles to American TV shows – often before they actually air here, and sometimes within 24 hours of them first airing in the States.
There are some English [...]

This is NOT WORK SAFE!!! but quite funny. For those in cubicles you’ll be able to bring up the page and then close it really fast and still get the joke.

DVD obaly is a website that offers high-resolution scans of hundreds of Czech DVD covers.
This admirably diverse collection includes everything from Abba In Concert to Matrix Revolutions to the timeless classic Rocco’s Reverse Gang Bang (Not Safe For Work).
Even stranger, the site also includes links to an online store that sells empty DVD cases.
But [...]

Green is the new brown at Budějovický Budvar, where bottled Bud has had a makeover.
Out go the dark 0.5-liter bottles used by most other Czech breweries and in comes this spiffy light-green number.
In the Czech Republic, green, it seems, is the color of upmarket beer.
Budvar’s main rival, Pilsner Urquell, has been sold domestically in [...]

The new 14 T tram rolls out in December. Get ready for races on the rails.
Full Story

Father Christmas lives at the North Pole, but where does his Czech equivalent, Ježíšek (”Baby Jesus”), hang his hat?
One possible answer is Železná Ruda, where the Šumava ski resort’s information center is receiving letters intended for the industrious infant.
If kids want to pass their Christmas wishlist along they’re instructed to write to:
ITC
Javorská 154
34004 Železná Ruda
Potential [...]

You couldn’t make it up. (Could you?)
The cast and crew of the Czech reality show VyVoleni (The Selected) were cleared from the Prague villa used for filming before dawn on Sunday by about 40 security guards and dogs sent in by the site landowner over a rent disagreement, broadcaster TV Prima announced.
Full Story

On dark winter nights, there’s nothing quite like a hearty bowl of soup.
If you don’t have time for all that tedious chopping and simmering, though, help is at hand – under the trade name Brick, the Prague firm Comperio is now offering Polévky ve skle (literally, “Soups in Glass”).
The website lists four varieties, available in [...]

The Czech Republic plays Norway tonight, at Toyota Arena (Letná), in the most important football match of the year.
Leading 1-0 from the first leg, Karel Brückner’s men need only a draw to qualify for the World Cup – something no Czech Republic team has previously managed.
Captained, once again, by Pavel Nedvěd, heavily favored by bookmakers, [...]

…is now the average monthly salary in Prague, reports ČTK, quoting the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ).
Currently equivalent to 950 US dollars, 548 British pounds or 810 euros, the sum is significantly higher than the average national salary, which was 18, 763 CZK in the second quarter of 2005.
Full Story (in Czech)

A strong detonation and another two minor blasts preceded a blaze that burned down Prague’s Globe replica over the weekend. There were no injuries. There were also no productions there since Moravek’s Richard III in 2001. I imagine a stage built of wood has adequate fire insurance. [...]

One of Terry Gilliam’s more unusual engagements on his recent trip to Prague was Friday’s opening of Terryho ponožky (Terry’s Socks), a new store at the art house Kino Světozor cinema.
The shop’s name refers to a famous photo of Gilliam (above), taking his shoes off onstage at Žižkov’s Kino Aero, to show off a pair [...]

Have you seen these men?
Police are still hunting convicted murderers Rostislav Roztočil (left) and Roman Čabrada, who escaped, hidden in a large cardboard box, from a maximum security prison in Plzeň on Tuesday.
Convicted of killing an Egyptian student in 1975, 58-year-old Roztočil is now thought to be abroad.
While Roztočil insists he’s innocent, Čabrada once told [...]

It’s a real word, apparently.
Full Story

Poor groundskeeping or a cunning ploy?
That’s the question Czech football fans are asking after learning of the “catastrophic condition” of the pitch at Oslo’s Ullevaal stadium.
With Pavel Nedvěd back in the squad, the Czech Republic are due to play Norway at Ullevaal on Saturday, in the first leg of their all-important World Cup playoff. (The [...]

Heroin, hash, sage, bird flu vaccine?
PDM reports today that dealers have added a exciting new black market drug to their product line in the Czech Republic: Flu vaccines.
It’s reported that the doses (supposedly from Switzerland) are currently available only through COD delivery, but i wouldn’t be surprised if the black [...]

Good news from Roxy…
The club has resumed late-night dance parties, following their partial closure over the summer.
Under the name “Kinokavárna 3000,” the New Town venue is combining film screenings with DJs, from 10pm, most Fridays and Saturdays in November.
See the official site for the full program (in Czech).
According to the club’s press release, the [...]

Is the CIA holding al Qaeda suspects at a secret prison camp in the Czech Republic?
The idea sounds far-fetched, but according to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, “a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe” is being used for that very purpose.
Priest doesn’t name the country in question, “at the request of senior US officials,” but adds [...]

Czech audiences have been staying away from cinemas in droves this year.
According to a ČTK report (hosted here on the spangly new Aktuálně.cz news site), cinemagoing is down by nearly a quarter.
Compared to the same period last year, there’ve been around two million fewer movie tickets sold in 2005.
According to Jan Bradáč of the Unie [...]

Start your Christmas shopping early and strike a blow against consumerism at the same time – Česky sen is coming out on DVD and VHS.
Originally released in Czech cinemas in May 2004, it’s taken Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda’s hypermarket hoax a long time to filter through to Czech stores, but this highly entertaining documentary [...]