Magazine

Illustrative photo Police in the town of Pardubice were called to a very strange case recently. A young woman was attacked on the street by a masked man and woman and while the man held the victim the woman cut off her beautiful long hair. After a few days on the case the police had tracked down the culprit – a woman who worked at a hair salon and her boyfriend admitted responsibility. The victim had visited the salon for extensions and after having her hair lengthened she slipped out without paying the bill. In a rage, the hairdresser decided that since the woman hadn’t paid for the hair she had no right to keep it!

Sometimes financial institutions go to excesses to reassure their clients they’ve put their money in the right bank. One such institution sent all its clients a letter stating that it was not affected by the global financial crisis and that their money was safe. In order to make the client feel pampered the company used perfumed stationary. However the scent proved too much for one of its elderly clients. After feeling slightly giddy and sick he decided the letter could be the work of terrorists and promptly took it to the local hygiene office. The hygiene office called in the fire-brigade and the firefighters took the offending letter to the regional chemical laboratory for a thorough test. Well, it’s always nice to know the system works!

Illustrative photo Sometimes the police get help from the most unexpected quarter – in December a man reported that his country cottage had been burgled and the police arrived to investigate. With a list of all that was missing they left promising the man to let him know as soon as there was any development. A few days later the man visited his cottage again to find a stranger fast asleep on the couch. He called the police and it turned out to be the burglar they were searching for. He had no where to spend the night and decided to use the uninhabited cottage he had burgled to get a few hours of sleep.

Photo: www.transhospital.cz They say that when someone faints or feels faint –you should put their feet up. Sometimes though, one can get too much of a good thing. A twenty-seven-year old gardener was trimming the branches of a tall tree when he suddenly felt unwell and fainted. Luckily he was well-secured by a rope. He fell several meters down and hung there until passers by called for help. The poor man spent over an hour hanging head down. When the fire brigade arrived thez brought him down extremely chilled but conscious. Putting one’s feet up clearly works but a few minutes should be enough.

Photo: CTK The tradition of a New Year’s fancy-dress party on a train going from the town of Vimperk in the Šumava mountains to Kubova Hut, close to the German border, is gaining increasing popularity. All you need to do is book a ticket and then come dressed as your favourite historical or literary character. This year the train had the honour of transporting Emperor Charles IV, Empress Maria Teresa with her children, Marie-Curie Sklodowska, Cardinal Richelieu and reformer priest Jan Hus who somewhat spoiled the show by drinking champagne with his inquisitors. These New Year’s rides have a ten-year-long tradition with only the topic of the fancy-dress party changing. In past years the train carried convicts, cowboys and Indians, story-book characters, horror-movie characters and for some reason, Russian leaders.

Photo: CTK Disgruntled Czech football fans disappointed with the national team’s failure to qualify for the World Cup can now have a laugh at the players’ expense. A new cabaret is coming to town called “goals, points and striptease” parodying the television sports news title “goals, points and seconds”. The story begins with the nation mourning the Czechs’ failure to qualify for the World Cup. The players decide to drown their sorrow in a night bar where they pick up some girls (an obvious reference to a 2009 incident when some of the national team’s key players were caught by paparazzi having a good time with the girls after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Slovak national squad). Fans are outraged and the players are expelled from the national squad. Out of work, they sit around and consider how to make some money, when the organizers of the Sportsperson of the Year competition come to the rescue: they offer them an astronomical sum if the players agree to do a transvestite show at the prize awarding ceremony. The rest you can imagine – as the nation’s former football stars practice for the big night. The cabaret promises a very good time and should be on at the Casa Gelmi palace in Prague’s Vinohrady district. The cabaret is not the first cultural event reflecting Czech triumphs and defeats on the sports field. Some people may remember that in 2004 the Czech National Theatre premiered the opera Nagano, celebrating the Czech hockey team's victory at the winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, in 1998.