Magazine

Photo: www.nova.cz The Rumburk football team were forced to take it all off and run back and forth across the town’s main square naked last Sunday to honour a lost bet. A crowd of onlookers gathered to cheer them on as the team made good on their bet – running –as their coach said – much faster than they had done at any time during the lost game. The idea of the bet came from a popular Czech teen movie where the main character lost a bet and was forced to run across the square naked. Two police officers catch up with him and cover him up with a blanket. In this case officers in Rumburk watched the scene nervously – but made no attempt to intervene and were clearly glad when it was all over.

Czechs are not inclined to be overly temperamental – but occasionally traffic police here find emotions running high. Last week a couple of officers who tried to fine a woman driver were in for a surprise – her teeth and nails came out and before they recovered from their surprise one of them has deep nail marks up and down his arms – and the young woman had sunk her teeth into the forearm of the other. Needless to say she was handcuffed and taken to the hospital for blood tests after which charges were filed against her for attacking civil servants. The police report said the woman was a foreign national but provided no other details.

Illustrative photo A great many people who go to the dentist in Prague 2 are now extremely worried about the state of their teeth. The Czech Association of Dentists on Wednesday announced that it had discovered a fraudster in its ranks – a former nurse who had been posing as a dentist and had treated thousands of patients in the course of the last six years. The head of the association Pavel Chrz said he was shocked that the woman had gone undetected for six long years and said he did not even want to contemplate the health complications she could have caused people. The association is now checking the credentials of all its dentists.

Grandhotel Pupp The party thrown for the opening of the 45th annual Film Festival in Karlovy Vary on Friday night was a big challenge for the staff at hotel Pupp. Fifty cooks were kept busy preparing Argentine steaks, bio-chickens, roasted pork and salmon to be served with the best beer and wine the country has to offer. The culinary highlight of the evening was a three-storey cake – one meter by one meter – with chocolate, strawberry and blueberry filling –which arrived exactly at midnight –as the lights dimmed to give it a proper entre.

Milan Krejčí (left), photo: CTK The town of Prušanky in Hodonín held its annual contest in opening champagne bottles with a sword last weekend. Napoleon’s officers are said to have turned this ability into an art –known as sabrage -and many Czech wine makers pride themselves in doing likewise, wowing their friends at social events. The annual contest has over the years been broadened to include knives, sabers, axes and other less predictable objects such as a guitar. Milan Krejčí successfully defended his title for a third year in a row – and his team set a new record – opening 44 champagne bottles with a sword in the space of just one minute. Three of the contestants this year were women.

Michael Jackson Plans to place a bust of Michael Jackson in Prague’s Letná park have sparked a storm of controversy in the Czech Republic. A group of his fans have won approval from city hall to place a two-metre bronze bust of their idol in the park where he performed in 1996. They wanted the bust unveiled on August 29th to mark Jackson’s 52nd birthday – but a storm of protest from thousands of Czechs may cause the city hall to reconsider. While Jackson fans and opponents of the idea are trading insults on Facebook a Prague art gallery has proposed other statues for the location – all by Czech contemporary artists, including David Černý who caused a stir in Brussels with this art work Entropa. The Michael Jackson bust is already in the making – being financed by donations from his fans – but its place in Letna Park is far from secure. This particular location is not easily accessible to anyone – as the late British-based architect Jan Kaplický had good reason to know. Despite winning a competition to build a national library building there – the doors on the project were slammed shut after it became a matter of heated controversy.