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Haryk six years ago, photo: Václav Bartoš A Czech family has joined several dozen people claiming to be the rightful owners of the dog who traveled 75 miles down Poland’s Vistula River and into the Baltic Sea on an ice floe before being saved by a Polish vessel. It is not clear how the dog got lost but the crew of the Baltica – a group of Polish ocean scientists carrying out research – said he was in good shape and appeared to have been well looked after. Since TV stations around the world reported on his adventure Baltic – named after the ship that found him – has become something of a media star and several dozen people from Poland and abroad have claimed ownership. However Baltic has shown no signs of recognizing any of them and the ship’s crew has said they intend to keep him unless his real owner turns up. Now a family from Hejnice says Baltic is really Haryk – their long-lost dog and are planning to set out for the port city of Gdynia where the ship regularly comes to port –confident that the dog will recognize them. So what are the chances they are telling the truth and are not just after the publicity involved? The family has produced pictures of Haryk bearing an uncanny resemblance to Baltic and vets say that in cross-breeds the chance of two dogs having the same marks is extremely rare.

Marek Šátka, photo: CTK In the course of the last decade the country’s ten, twenty and fifty haller coins were gradually withdrawn from circulation. Although the central bank gave people plenty of time to get them exchanged at banks and money outlets around the country tens of thousands of them never made it back. Many people keep a few for sentimental reasons, collectors save a few for themselves and people like Marek Šátka keep boxes of them at home. He uses them to build models of famous buildings, planes and ships. His very first model was of Karlštejn Castle, followed by a model of the White House, of the Titanic and a Messerschmitt war plane – each made up of around 25,000 coins. Altogether their value, in coins, exceeds twenty thousand crowns. And he is now seeking a bigger challenge: he wants to build the Eiffel Tower out of more than 100, 000 hallers. At least the central bank knows where all the coins have gone.

Time A great salesman can sell ice to Eskimos they say and two Czechs are proving their worth in this respect. Filip Rajchart and Vadim Malgin are doing good business selling the things people want most – faith, love, hope and even time for those who lack those precious commodities. They are sold in cans – for instance a can holds an hour of time – meaning that you can open the given commodity and only use as much as you require at the given moment. The two business partners said they were fascinated by the idea of selling things immaterial and found that with a good marketing strategy anything was possible. Happiness They even canned the spirit of Prague and the spirit of Christmas. “The only real thing that we ever sold was oxygen,” Rajchart told journalists. Come to think of it, the people who bought their oxygen sprays probably never bothered to try them thinking it was just another funny collectors’ item. Not surprisingly, the two men are also in the business of selling plots of land on the Moon.

Photo: Facebook Czech primary and secondary school teachers have become the target of a new form of harassment – students tear them apart on Facebook. What they would not dare to say in class is easy to write on Facebook and many kids ridicule their teachers’ mannerisms, personal traits and dress – adding photographs for good measure which are then analyzed by the fashion police. Teachers say that while they try to ignore what’s going on they don’t like being exposed in this way in public. School managements have taken different approaches to the problem. Some have forbidden kids to snap their teachers in class on the grounds that it is disruptive and rude. Others say there is little they can do about it and argue that if teachers aren’t snapped in class they will be at break. In other words, they can either ignore the whole business as a bout of adolescent fun or dress better. What is more serious for the teachers targeted is that students are openly criticizing their teaching methods and often hit the mark. A site called “Do you get it ? No? Then let’s move on to something else” reportedly has 130 thousand fans.

Osmany Laffita, photo: CTK The crème de la crème of Prague society turned up for the annual Opera Ball at Prague’s State Opera House last weekend. Politicians, actors, film-makers and fashion models attended the prestigious event, with VIP guest French actress Michele Merciere whom crowds of fans turned out to glimpse. The Prague Opera Ball has a long tradition going back to the beginning of the 20th century and was in its hey day in the years before the communist take over when it attracted leading entrepreneurs, diplomats and members of the nobility. Michele Merciere, photo: CTK The tradition was revived after the 1989 Velvet Revolution when the ball attracted personalities such as Alain Delon, Sir Peter Ustinov or Ian Gillan from Deep Purple. The oldest guest this year first attended the ball in 1948 – though paradoxically his name is Jan Domabyl – which translates as Jan Stay-at-home.