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A drunk, thirty-five- year old man decided that the best way to pick up girls would be to convince them he was Spiderman. After several rejections at a party he followed two girls home and to prove his case he climbed up onto the roof of their house and attempted to come down the chimney. Unfortunately for him, he got stuck halfway down where he was forced to await the arrival of police and firemen. He was pulled out, covered in soot and taken to the drink tank to sober up before being fined 1,000 crowns for disturbing the peace. Unsuccessful as the tactic was, he did give firefighters a good laugh and they were still cracking jokes at his expense when journalists arrived to ask them about the incident the next day.

Jiří Pospíšil The country’s new justice minister Jiří Pospíšil has a lot of time on his hands – or, to be precise, a lot of watches that are giving him a headache. His predecessor Daniela Kovářová ordered and paid for 34 luxury watches to the tune of half a million crowns. They were intended as PR gifts, but she only gave away a few and the rest passed on to minister Pospíšil. Now that saving is the order of the day, the minister feels it is unethical to hand out expensive watches and has asked the ministry’s employees to look into the possibility of re-selling them. That however will not prove easy since the watches were ordered with the ministry’s name and logo engraved on the back. Thank goodness the austerity measures did not come back in 2008 when it emerged that military officers had received expensive gifts from a secret fund – including overpriced satin Y-fronts –those would have been even harder to re-sell.

Jaromír Jágr, photo: www.hawk.ru Jaromír Jágr’s name sells products and since signing with Russia’s OMSK his face has appeared on billboards advertising mineral water, he made an ad on joint medicine and most recently opened a gas station in Siberia – as a favour to one of OMSK’s most generous sponsors. The gas station located on the road between Čeljabinsk and New Siberia is named 68 – after Jágr – with one of his hockey-shirts prominently displayed under a glass panel. At the opening ceremony Jágr let loose a hawk – symbol of the OMSK hockey team.

Josef Čepák A sixty-year-old secondary school teacher is running in the autumn local elections even though he is dead. Josef Čepák is eighth on the candidates list of the coalition of Greens and the Party for an Open Society in České Budějovice and he is staying right where he is even though he died in an attempt to conquer Mont Blank in mid-August. In line with regulations the coalition handed over a final list of candidates on August 10th and the rules do not allow the coalition to ask for a replacement. The only option would be to have his name crossed off, which his colleagues think would be a show of disrespect. “It is a question of trust – and his death has not severed that” a party official explained. So even after his death Mr. Čepák is pursuing a career in politics. The question now remains how many people read about his demise in the middle of the summer holidays. Because if not many did – he may find himself elected in memoriam.

Sharing is a rewarding experience – or so they say. In any case, a twenty-five year old man attending a techno-party paid a high price for refusing to share his bottle of vodka. In order to hide it from his friends the already drunk man headed for a nearby shrubbery and failed to notice an open dry well partly covered by greenery. He fell in like a stone and his shocked companions called the police. As Czechs say – drunks have all the luck in the world – this one survived the fall without a scratch on him. Although getting him out proved a challenge since he was too drunk to climb up the ladder they hoisted down to him without help. In the end one of the officers had to climb down and push him up – step by step – from behind.

Photo: CTK Archeologists digging in a burial site dating back to 9th century Great Moravia were amazed to come upon a well-preserved hen’s egg. The Hradiště burial site is one of the largest uncovered dating back to that era with the number of graves estimated at 1,500. Archeologists have so far uncovered 350, finding early medieval jewelry and weapons buried with the remains. For some reason the people of Great Moravia often put eggs in graves as well, but they always quickly disintegrated leaving only small scraps of shells. In this case the egg had been placed in a pot where it remained –almost intact for centuries. The shell was only slightly damaged and the content was dry but still there.