Magazine

Photo: www.glamourcars.cz A new taxi service is doing its best to improve the tarnished image of Prague taxi drivers. Glamour Cars promises a whole different world: luxury saloon cars driven by attractive female drivers, perfumed interiors, refreshments, newspapers and magazines and, naturally, an internet connection. Should passengers feel like chatting the drivers will be happy to converse in Czech or fluent English. There’s just one tiny hitch – the cost of the taxi service will be double the average. On the other hand, given that some unscrupulous taxi drivers triple or quadruple the fee – that may not be such a bad deal after all.

Illustrative photo Littering the streets is not a good idea, especially if you are a wanted criminal. A man in the centre of Prague made the mistake of throwing aside a used hanky. Two police officers who were walking a few meters behind him promptly caught up with him and asked him to pick it up. While they were at it they requested to see his ID –only to find that he was on their wanted list. The guy is now behind bars and probably kicking himself for being so stupid.

Photo: www.ct24.cz A family in Třebíč could not believe their eyes last week when a huge piece of ice crashed through their roof smashing into pieces, some the size of a man’s fist. Police and experts called to the spot concluded that the chunk of ice which demolished 8 roof tiles would have been approximately 30 times 30 centimeters big and most likely dropped from a plane. Similar cases have only been reported abroad and so when the owner of the house called his wife to tell her a huge chunk of ice had crashed through the roof she refused to believe his and gave him hell for getting drunk- again. He said later he had to save what was left of the melting ice in the fridge as proof.

Illustrative photo A man from Náchod was surprised to see his stolen camera on sale on the web. The man, who’d had the camera stolen along with other stuff from his car, alerted the police and expressed interest in the sale. He not only got the camera back, but helped the police catch the thief who has broken into several other vehicles and had plenty of interesting second-hand items to put on the market.

Photo: www.dobryden.cz Visitors to the town of Ořech in central Bohemia are surprised by the sight of a bizarre company – kings, queens, bishops and knights wherever you look. Although it looks like some kind of modern exhibition, filling the town with outsize chessboard pieces is actually a PR stunt to promote tourism in the region. They are hard to miss – 32 figures, the highest of which is 3 meters tall and weighs 1,5 tons. Each figure has the emblem of a given town in the region – and will eventually be transported there. Tourists in the region will then be expected to uncover all 32 black and white pieces and get a photo taken next to each one –in the hope of winning a prize. It is not clear if the PR stunt will do the trick but the chessboard figures themselves are attracting a lot of attention. And there’s one good thing about them – weighing as much as they do it is highly improbable that they will get stolen. Were it otherwise more than half of them would now be standing in peoples gardens and backyards as collectors’ items.

Zdena Šnoblová, photo: CTK The latest edition of the Czech Book of Records made a splash at its book launch last week. The book is annually updated and traditionally sells well since Czechs love setting and hearing about various records. The honour of launching it always goes to one of the record holders. Last year it was a knife thrower –who pinned it to the wall with a dozen precise throws. This year the honour went to diver Zdena Šnoblová who dived into the swimming pool with it – at the grand old age of ninety.