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Barack Obama, photo: Štěpánka Budková Photo: CTK US President Barack Obama only spent 24 hours in the Czech capital but he won the hearts of millions of Czechs. “He is a genuinely nice person, unaffected and incredibly charismatic – I am not surprised by the Obama-mania the world over” the former president Václav Havel said after meeting the US president in person. There aren’t many things that Czech politicians would agree on – but this seems to be one of them – each of them had something nice to say about the US president. “He is direct and open and doesn’t mince his words, the latter is a quality we both share” outgoing Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek told the media. President Václav Klaus was seen beaming and nodding through Mr. Obama’s speech and later noted how nice it was of the US leader to have devoted so much of it to the Czech Republic and Prague “a truly nice man and he knows how to win people’s hearts,” Mr Klaus said .Opposition leader Jiří Paroubek called President Obama “a man with a vision” and even the head of Czech security – co-responsible for the US president’s safety in Prague remarked on what a cheerful, energetic and forthcoming man the US president was “a pleasure to work for,” he said. Although the US president departed on Sunday – bits of gossip about his stay are still selling papers, the Jablonec minting house is minting 500 silver and gold coins with the president’s portrait and the Zoo in Dvůr Králové which had long awaited the birth of three precious Persian leopards – promptly named one of them Barack.

Photo: CTK Now something you may have missed in our sports reports – Czech shooting champion Kateřina Emmons and her husband Matt are the proud parents of a baby girl called Julia. The baby was born on April 5th and both mother and baby are reported to be doing well. The baby was born at a Prague clinic and Kateřina has requested a few weeks of privacy to enjoy the time alone with her daughter and husband. They will be leaving the Czech Republic in June for Minnesota where they have reportedly bought a house. Kateřina says she wants to return to shooting as soon as possible and aims to start training in May. Her next big goal is to do well at the world championships in Munich in mid-2010.

Photo: CTK The Blansko-Boskovice spring tour has become a popular tradition with people who like a bit of fun. The first tour –which ends conveniently at a beer brewery – was organized in memory of a local professor who was so absent-mined he went from Blansko to Boskovice wearing only one sock – yellow at that. A century later over 500 people and six dogs covered the same route all wearing one yellow sock. Since, the tour’s organizers have got into the habit of picking a certain theme to make the tour more fun – a play on words related to a given Czech saying. For instance if you want to say that someone is smart in Czech you say “he has it (something) under his cap”. This was the theme of last year’s tour and 800 people turned up with something under their caps – a live rat, a plastic imitation of dog poo and even a sparrow’s nest with eggs in it. This year the theme was the Czech saying “mít kliku” which suggests that one tend to be very lucky, but translates literally as “to have a handle”. Close to a thousand people turned up for the tour carrying handles of all shapes and sizes – door handles, window handles, a handle from a barrel organ and a 15-kilogram handle that was used to operate a crane. Well, that is one aspect of the Czech mentality that many foreigners simply can’t figure out – like why people would want to invent a fictitious genius and elect him the greatest Czech that ever lived. Czechs just like a bit of fun.

Photo: CTK The town of Semily has a major new attraction – or rather an old one – a huge mosaic on the town’s main square harks back to the communist days – sporting a red star, hammer and sickle. After the 1989 revolution the mosaic was covered by a huge billboard promoting a local company and everyone conveniently forgot all about it. However the company in question stopped paying for the add four years ago and the town hall ordered it to be taken down – unveiling the mosaic behind it and giving the councillors a big headache. What’s to be done about it? The town hall has asked the locals for advice –possibly hoping to save money – and various suggestions are arriving on the town hall’s web pages. One joker suggested that the town hall could just keep covering it up with billboards and that way – if the bad old days were to come back at any point in the future – the town hall would only need to peel away the latest ad.

Its spring again, but miraculously the Czech Republic is enjoying summer weather with day temperatures reaching 23 degrees Celsius. Ice-cream sales are up again and in an effort to attract more customers ice-cream parlours and coffee houses are experimenting with new and unusual flavours. There are places in Prague where you can now get garlick-flavoured ice-cream, tomato and olive flavours, cucumber, pink pepper, celery or beetroot ice-cream and even an ice-cream with a distinct sea-flavour. Well, it great to be given a choice but why does it not surprise me that Czechs are proving conservative in this respect and the best-sellers are still chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ices. Of course, that could change if they get round to introducing a beer sorbet.

Photo: CTK If you should happen to be in the west-Bohemian town of Plzeň in the course of the next two years you could be treated to a funny sight – a packed tram in which passengers keep moving around and changing places. There is an explanation for this crazy behaviour – the local interactive museum of science and technology has launched a rather unusual publicity campaign. It has plastered the interior of a tram with all manner of scientific questions, riddles and brain-teasers for passengers to rack their brains over as they travel to their destination. The answers to the questions are provided – only they are in a different part of the tram. This means that anyone who is searching for an answer must inevitable read many other questions and answers in the process – and hopefully get hooked and come to the museum for more. You’ll know it when you see it – the tram is labelled Techmania -and should remain in circulation for two years, by which time most of the locals should be scientific geniuses.