Section Archive Letter from Prague
Dr Strossmayer and health care reform
Czechs, doctors and patients alike, seem to be really worried about their
health care and the government’s plans to reform it. These plans which,
among other things, include fees for visits to the doctor’s, emergency
wards and prescriptions, might have even cost the ruling coalition the
recent regional elections. Most people are apparently happy with the way
things are now, and have been since the state nationalized all medical
care. Well, for one, I am not.
More
Pankrác Plain: from marketplace to shopping mall
Prague’s Pankrác neighbourhood has been a subject of many debates over
the past months. Plans to build high-rise buildings on the Pankrác Plain
have angered not only local inhabitants but also experts from UNESCO, who
argue that the new skyscrapers would destroy Prague’s unique historical
skyline.
More
Will you marry me for life?
Some goofs are so bad you just want the earth to swallow you up and if you
happen to be a cabinet minister, constantly surrounded by the media, things
are even worse. You are asked to explain the goof over and over again and
made to look like a complete fool on the prime time news that night.
More
“Lucky” chimney sweeps dwindling in numbers in Czech Republic
Chimney sweeps here in the Czech Republic dress all in black except for
thin white caps that somewhat resemble baker’s hats, though they are
smaller and fit more closely to the head. In Czech the word for sweep is
kominík, which is related to the word for chimney, komín. More
The Czech school of driving
After years and years of holding out, and scrounging lifts from my parents,
I finally took the plunge and decided to learn how to drive. This was
something I had already flirted with in my native Scotland. But alas, I had
made no more progress than locating where my mirrors were and stalling my
way slowly around a country cul-de-sac or two. My mother has a conspiracy
theory that British driving instructors can at times be somewhat ponderous
when it comes to actually teaching their students how to drive. My
experiences at the hands of my full-throttle Czech instructor couldn't be
more different...
More
A bank with quite a history
In recent years, for the first time in my life, I actually enjoy going to
the bank, and not just because I have developed a rapport with the clerk
who one day announced she was my “personal banker”. After a move of
flat, I simply transferred my accounts to the most convenient branch –
and, what do you know, that branch is housed in a masterpiece of inter-war
Czech architecture with a fascinating history. More
Being part of the baby boom
The Czech Republic is currently going through a baby boom, a fact you can
hardly fail to notice when you walk the streets of Prague these days. While
in the past, you would rarely bump into a mother with a pram, now they are
simply everywhere. Maternity hospitals are bursting at the seams and
mothers have to register six months in advance to secure a place. The last
baby boom was in the 1970s and the 70s kids are now in their 30s. As a
result, 2008 saw the biggest number of newborns in 15 years.
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The story of an old coffee bean grinder
A couple of bags of rich-roasted Hawaiian coffee beans recently led me to
re-discover a small family relic, which lay forgotten for years in a back
cupboard, until it was needed: a small, cast-metal coffee bean grinder,
produced sometime in the 1930s, a grinder, it turns out, once manufactured
by my family. I had been looking for a means of grinding up beans we had
received as a gift last Christmas, when my father dug up the object, still
bearing my grandmother's family name and logo. More
Letter from Prague, Nebraska
One summer day in 1994, a van stopped outside my aunt and uncle’s house
in a village near Třebíč, in western Moravia. Four men got out, knocked
on the door, and addressed my relatives “Ahoj, jak se máš”, in Czech
without an accent. They were the Vrbka brothers, with a cousin, from
Nebraska, looking for their roots in the old country. This summer, I got to
repay the visit and see the long-lost part of the family for myself.
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A journey to England twenty years later
Last week I spent a few days in England with my mother. She was invited to
a class reunion at St Hilda’s College in Oxford, marking 40 years since
matriculation and I went along to give her moral support, in case none of
her former classmates recognized her (a worry which of course proved to be
pointless). On the way from London to Oxford, I realized that the two of
us, plus my older brother, travelled along the same road more than twenty
years ago, when Czechoslovakia was still under communist rule.
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