Prague City Beat

The UK Foreign Office updated its Czech Republic travel advice yesterday, to take account of the flooding:
The Czech Republic is experiencing flooding with the worst affected areas being in Bohemia. Evacuation of some villages took place overnight. Prague is also at risk. In Prague, the Czech Government have implemented emergency anti-flood measures and informed the [...]

Our friend Jeffrey Martin sent us a link to his new 3-D panorama of flooding in Sázava, a small town southeast of Prague, along the river of the same name.
Link
(You might need to install a QuickTime plug-in to view it.)

As things stand, Prague seems likely to escape serious flood damage – but the situation in up to 70 places around the country remains serious.
Prague City Council described the situation in the capital this morning as “stable.” All available flood protection is now prepared, and all possible emergency measures have been readied.
According to meteorologists, however, [...]

The Prague authorities have begun evacuating some residents from Závist street in Zbraslav, in the far southwest of the city and, if necessary, are prepared to move people from homes in Lipence, Radotín, Velká Chuchle, Troja and Sedlec.
There are also a handful of road closures in connection with the flood alert:
• Nábřežní, Prague 5
• Roztocká, [...]

Away from the floods, Aktuálně.cz is reporting that a second case of bird flu has been discovered in the Czech Republic, this time in a dead swan in České Budějovice.

As expected, Prague moved to a second-degree flood alert last night, as the Vltava’s waters continue to rise.
Through the night, aluminum flood barriers have been erected along at-risk sections of the river, including parts of the Old Town, Smíchov, and Holešovice.
In some areas parked cars blocking access to the embankment have been forcibly removed.
Prague City [...]

The website of Povodí Vltavy, the state organization responsible for managing the Vltava’s waterflow, has a real-time map showing the various levels of flood alert along the river.
The most serious alert is a third-degree alert, represented here by red circles.
Yellow circles represent second-degree alerts, light green circles represent first-degree alerts, and dark green [...]

Not this again… As rapidly melting snow continues to flow north along the Vltava river, Prague is on a first-degree flood alert, bringing back inevitable memories of August 2002.
According to an iDnes.cz report posted at 15:26, the river is flowing at a rate of 800 cubic meters per second. We’re expected to move [...]

Well, the month has passed, and Morgan Spurlock (AKA Karel Gustav Bozan), presented the results of his Super-sized experiment to a packed Kino Aero. How did Morgan fare? IAmazingly, after 30 days of only beer, smažak and gulaš, ‘Karel’ looked better than ever; actually losing 6 kilos. [...]

Almost inevitably, bird flu has reached the Czech Republic.
The State Veterinary Authority has confirmed that a dead swan found in Hluboká nad Vltavou, near České Budejovice, had the H5 version of the virus.
Further tests are now being carried out to establish whether or not the bird had the deadly H5N1 strain.
There have already been confirmed [...]

In the unlikely event that you were looking for an online resource chronicling female nudity in Czech cinema, Jirkazz’s Odhalené scény (”Nude Scenes”; Not Safe for Work) is the website for you.
Subtitled “A Slightly Different View of Czech Film and TV Productions,” the site offers a bewilderingly thorough trawl through movie history, unearthing smut in [...]

Along with beer, Škodas, sportsmen and supermodels, animated children’s TV shows are one of those Czech exports that seem to turn up all over the place, rolling off the Večerníček (”Bedtime Story”) production line and conquering the world.
Because of that, it’s not such a shock to discover Jürg Schaeppi’s Pat & Mat Fansite – a [...]

If you’ve spent any time in Prague recently, you’ve probably seen a series of purple posters carrying a slogan beginning with the words “It’s legal…” and the web address its-legal.us.
At first, I thought they were probably part of some mobile phone campaign, but neither the style of the campaign nor the use of an American [...]

The Chamber of Deputies effectively killed off any chance that Czech workers get an extra day off last week, returning a bill to Senate that proposed that Good Friday become a new public holiday.
“The bill was returned mainly by the votes of the junior opposition Communists (KSCM) and the ruling Social Democrats (CSSD),” reports ČTK. [...]

Following on from Thursday’s genre prizes, the main Anděl Awards were handed out on Sunday night, at a ceremony at the Hilton Prague hotel.
According to the Akademie populární hudby (Academy of Popular Music), these were the Czech musical highlights of 2005:

Group of the Year: Chinaski
Discovery of the Year: Clou
Pop & Dance Album of [...]

Equivalent to the Grammys or the Brits, the Anděl (Angel) awards aim to honor the best in Czech pop.
The first batch of statuettes were handed out last night, at Reduta Jazz Club, to the musical genres deemed unworthy of the main event.
And the winners were…
Folk & Country: Jiří Smrž – Poslední láska
Hard & Heavy: Ador [...]

Tony Blair’s in Prague tomorrow morning, to attend the Party of European Socialists summit.
The British leader is the star attraction at the event, which will also be attended by former European Commission president Romano Prodi, current European Parliament President Josep Borrell, former Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Bulgarian PM Sergei Stanishev, German Social Democrat [...]

The US military’s daily newspaper, Stars and Stripes, probably isn’t the first place you’d look for a guide to shopping in Cheb, but reporter Seth Robson has covered the West Bohemian border town’s markets with impressive thoroughness.
Along with cheap cigarettes, Robson discovers, Cheb’s Vietnamese markets sell “all manner of pirated items,” including counterfeit CDs, dodgy [...]