Funny stories

This is not a joke. Lidove Noviny informed about the curious case in today edition. Not only other presidents do not invite Klaus anymore, but somebody found out Havel can be still a good representative for EU events, even when he has not been the president for five years already.

Klaus let us to know, through his speaker, he is going to miss today Euroaction connected to the EU Chairmanship in the National Theatre without explanation. Meanwhile, Czech diplomats started to explain foreign journalists, who meanwhile found in the pressure among the prime minister and the president the topic for their articles, that Klaus is not that important and that we can do it without him.

Tonight in National Theatre, there won’t be Vaclav Klaus, but other Vaclav and foreigners, who perceive it from the outside, maybe won’t even notice he is no longer the president. So the originally chimeric image of putting Havel to the front again became, at least for a little bit, real.

It is easy to get a few pounds more on the huge gorilla body without anyone noticing, but the gluttonous female Shinda from Prague zoo had yet too much of extra pounds. She had 106 kg in September, and her movement in the yard was more of a powerless rolling than walking. So, her keeper Marek Zdarsky applied reducing diet on her. No bananas, apples, only vegetable. At the beginning, her reaction was naturally anger, but in a month she got perfectly used to it.

The slimming achievements are clear after those three months – Shinda is now only 96 kilos. But her keeper ended up worst, as he didn’t got under 97 kg. That was the condition of the bet, he made with other zoo keepers, so now there is no champagne for him, on the contrary, he had to buy and serve juice to the Gorilla. “well… its kind of embarrassing” he commented the fact he is heavier than the animal.

Emil Kucera went through a movie-like adventure at his escape from India. He, together with Petr Svacha were seized for collecting of beetles in India national park. They however claim they have never entered the park. The whole case was full of obscurities, the outcome only underlined its absurdity, as one of them was discharged, the second one got three years.

Kucera gave an interview for the CT, so we know how it was – his appeal which should have taken a week ago didn’t take place – simply nobody came there, so Kucera knew the Indian authorities are not going to give him righteous case. He wrote his girlfriend, who send him his second passport and money for the trip. Than, he moved to Darjeeling, and as he knows very well the area, about 2 hours walk was enough to get to Nepal. From there, he flew back to the Czech Republic.

The escaping etymologist has send e-mails to Czech embassies, apologizing for his actions.

And now the cherry on the cake – Petr Svacha who should have been home a month ago, stays, thanks to inability of Indian offices, still in India.

The foreign policy have arrested a man at Brno airport with a Natrix tessellata grass snake in his pants. Literally. This kind of snake lives for example in Turkey.

The foreign police have seized the man of Czech nationality, travelling to Brno from Burgas in Bulgaria. The speaker didn’t mention, whether the underwear smuggler is a snake breeder or vendor, or what he intended to do with it.

According to the speaker of foreign police the 32-yo man probably committed an offense. The snake was taken to the Brno Zoo, where it is probably to stay.

The Robber was probably 20-25 yo, with a wig on his head. He entered an affiliate of Ceska Sporitelna in Vrsovice with a bag and a pistol (later, the employees discuss whether the pistol was from pvc or if it was a gas-gun) and forced a cashier to give him money. When he got 20 000 czk, he left the bag there and escaped.

The Police have evacuated the employees and clients of the Vrsovice affiliate, knowing the bag contains some strange plastic material. The pyrotechnic have however found only Plasticine and some gas-gun projectiles. During the incident, nobody was hurt, and the plasticine violator is looked for by police.

The biggest surprise for the police unit of that night – to stop one car twice a night, that is not very common. It begun, when they checked a man, driving with 1,8 percent BAC. In addition, the unit knew him, he had lost his driving licence just because of alcohol. So they loaded him into their car, and drove with him to the police station. He gave his keys to his wife before.

When they were on the way, the police officers felt, the car behind them was moving somehow weird – it zigzag too much. So they stopped again, and made her to take a breath test. What was their surprise, when she breathed even more than her husband – 4,77% of alcohol. Surprising, when we know the critical level of alcohol for the human organism is 3,5%….

I work as a Pragensis journalist, which means my writing job is focused mostly on Prague. I have seen many web pages about Prague, but sometimes I stumble across such a pearl, I feel I have to share it.

Last time, When I wrote about a video of German students piling beer bottles in a Prague hotel room, I didn’t have an idea of this one, which I feel obliged to share, because it gave me a really good laugh.

It is a video by studentuniverse.com, called Romance in Prague and it is really bad ;)

The Czech Prime minister Mirek Topolanek wasn’t let in a discotheque at Cyprus at first. Topolanek’s group didn’t have any girls with them, so they weren’t let in.

Topolanek than came with the argumentation: “You know who I am?” But the bouncer only laughed, didn’t believe him to be the prime minister, and still the programme of the party, after the official visit at the President of Cyprus, was quite in danger.

Finally, Topolanek needed to call the owner of the club, who eventually let them in. Such problems at the same place had the French football player Zinedine Zidane. Rather surprising for a man with such a famous face. Or is it an intention of the club to create the air of VIPivity?

The art-group called ‘Deti sidlistni Recese’ based in Prague turned a subway car into a living room this past weekend. Their aim was to ‘Travel first class on the subway’ they needed 12 ‘Agents’

The whole action took place on Friday, April 4th. The group was spread station after station, and entered the metro train one by one, always carrying a piece of equipment. The first was a girl with a rug, spreading it on the floor. It got accompanied on the next station by a large armchair, than a table, antique telephone, slippers, and a flower in a vase.

When everything was set-up, the ‘landlord’ came in, all dressed-up, in a tie and suit, sat down and made himself comfortable; than, a nice cup of tea was served to his newspaper.

PS: This must have been fun. Do you rememer the fictive atomic bomb explosion project?

There is eight of them, and they squeak so loud, as if there was at least twice as much of them. The exotic capture animals station in Prague hosts them, and the employees reportedly love them.

The cubs were brought by the police, which got them from the building company, that was laying down some cables. As they were digging the ground, they found their fox-earth. The mother was probably scared by the noise and run away.

To find foxes in Prague is unique. Even on the outskirts. The personnel have reported the siblings are quite crawly, so they have to watch where do they escape. There are visitors coming to see them, foresters drive long miles for the little foxes.

Because they are not aggressive at all, the station have agreed with a zoo spot in Prague Chuchle, who will take the foxes from them. But they have to grow up first.

They had their ‘art crime’ well prepared – Czech television transmits a kind of weather show every morning, during which you can watch Czech countryside live and see whether its raining etc. it is called Panorama. Art group Ztohoven got an idea – to break in one camera tower, and to plug in a laptop with adjusted film from the very same camera- the countryside was the same, but… there was a new mushroom, an atomic bomb explosion mushroom to be precise.

Members of Ztohoven are now at the court, defending their point of view: “Medial reality is made up by substitute signs, and those substitutes doesn’t have to correspond with reality” They also won the 333 prize of the Czech National Gallery. According to them is was a warning ‘the only reality is the reality you live’

They are pressed charges against because of their unauthorized access to the transmitting tower and also because of spreading false alarm information.

This post definitely belongs to the ‘funny stories’ column, the only thing that can be asked is whether it was funny for officers of Czech Food Inspection Authority as well. They came for inspection to a bakery in Dolni Chabry, the Czech Republic, after one customer complained.

During the first visit they paid there, they found the light on, machines running, but the bakers run away by back doors and they weren’t find. But the inspectors didn’t give up, and the evening of the same day they came again, this time with police support.

When thee first two employees saw them, they started to run again, but this time police was waiting. With these two, they continued into the object. After a moment they found a ‘sophistically’ closed doors, behind which, after a moment, they found the baking team, playing hide and seek and waiting, how the situation will develop.

What did they find there? Mold in materials fridge, moldy plates for keeping of buns and rolls, parts of ceiling falling down, directly in the manufacture the ‘bakers’ had a little place, where they smoked and drink liqueurs, (which, as the police found out, were smuggled bottles). Also, there lived a cat in there, who also came to check, how the police is working. The whole place was closed down immediately.

During the night from Tuesday, the young, 5-year old boy set off from a Czech town Mimon, from his parent’s garage, in their car. He rode for 500 metres, during of which he damaged two parked cars and ended his ride by crashing into a house. He didn’t get hurt, but the damages got to 100 thousand czk, about 3,7 thousands €.

According to the police report the boy wasn’t harmed thanks to low speed he was moving, his crashes didn’t even blast airbag.

The boy was driving in his pyjamas with bunnies. When he crashed into the house, he ran out of the car and hid in a park. The police found him there, after they got a call from a woman who had seen him behind the steering wheel. They turned to social workers, to investigate, how it was possible the parents didn’t know the boy has left in the night, and how it is possible he was able to drive in five years.

The unusual mascot who accompanied a police unit in Brno, lived in a police car and probably liked it enough to not let himself caught for a month, was finally found. The story starts, when the red grass-snake escaped his breeder to his neighbour, where he hid for a week. When he was found, the person called police and handled the snake in a box. The snake sensed adventure and so broke from it in the police car, and hid close to engine, where it was warm enough (the story took place during Czech winter).

The police mechanics worked on dismantling the car for a week, then they just gave up. Where exactly the red, nonpoisonous snake hid, is not clear. They labeled the snake as missing and life went on. But one day, the policeman sitting on the front passenger seat recognized the red and hissing, and probably also hungry animal getting to him. He was surprised, but not panicked and caught him. The sanke and his breeder were than reunited again.

The unusual discovery happened at Antarctica to a team of Czech geological scientists. During their research, they found not only valuable minerals, but also food supplies left by a British science team in 1950’s. In the area, where the temperatures drop well under -30 Celsius, the bag soups stayed in a good shape. The team reported it tasted just fine.

According to the leader of the Czech expedition the half-a-century-old soup satisfied the Scottish specialist on logistics and transport in cold environment Nick Halls, too.

Czech scientists initiated geological mapping of neighbour areas of James Ross island, where is the Czech Polar Station. They found Jurassic sediments close to Crystal Hill, and to their surprise also a supply point set by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who is the world leader exploring global problems connected to Antarctica weather.

A 20 year old woman in Brno, Eastern Czech Republic, was send to prison for 24 hours.

This is the shortest sentence in the Czech history. Her Monday, she spent in prison, was filled with activities – she had to go through all the prison formalities. That means, go through the prison regime presentation for two hours, medical check-up, hand over clothes and belongings and put on a prisoner’s outfit.

She spent the day behind the bars for avoiding 2 hours she had left from her 50 hours of community work, to which she had been sentenced to in 2006 for a theft. She has been repeatedly called to take her work up, but she didn’t response. At the end, she was given the prison sentence.

Lidove noviny Brought an Interview with Tomek Grabinski, a Wroclav-living Bohemist. They ask him, what is it in Józek z bagien (Jozeph from swamps) the Poles love.

Which Czech music Poles like… normally?

On one hand the famous Czech pop singers like Helena Vondrackova, Karel Gott and Nohavica, on the other groups like Cechomor, Uz jsme doma and -123 min.

Why Józek z bagien became such a hit in Poland?

It is probably because of Polish TVN 24 broadcasted the video with Polish subtitles in a satirical show. The video than started to spread massively via Youtube. This week, there was even an interview with Ivan Mladek (the author) and the strange dancer. Poles just loved the guy in a weird suit and the lyrics.

What is it about?

Some say it is an ecological song; the civilization intervenes into the nature too much. Others say it is a sociological song – Józek eats especially people from Prague, which represents hatred some people in other regions keep against Prague citizens.

In any case the Poles like the fun Czech are able to make of themselves, fun which the Poles like, but are not quite capable of making by themselves. Some polish cities even have ‘Józek for President’ written on walls.

Ivan Mladek comments it he doesn’t get exited very much – he with his group has been playing the song for 30 years, and the thing that matters is, whether there will be a tour in Poland.

Original article from LN here

Polish people found the music video at youtube, which was made 30 years ago by Ivan Mladek and his group ‘The Banjo Band’. They equipped the video with Polish subtitles. The popularity, which the video after gained in Poland, was sudden and huge. (click to see the video)

_{The music video on youtube is available with Polish subtitles. Ivan Mladek on the left acts mostly serious, the guy on the right does funny dance.}

The Poles like Czech humor, especially the kind of humor where Czechs make fun of themselves. And they know the things the songs is about – Jozin eats especially Prague citizens, Skoda 100 is an old car still used in Eastern Europe. We have similar

experience, we can laugh at the same things. Ivan Mladek himself is glad, because of sudden Polish media interest, but as he has never stopped playing, the thing that matters for him is whether there will be a tour in Poland.

ENGLISH lyrics of Jozin z Bazin:

1. I drive Skoda 100 to camp here on Orava So I hurry, take a risk – go through Moravia The monster lives there, comes out of the bog Eats mostly Prague citizen, its name is Jozin (Joseph)

Chorus: Jozin from the bog creeps through swamp Jozin from the bog closes to the village Jozin from the bog edges its teeth Jozin from the bog bites, strangles To defend Jozin from the bog, who could imagine, only works a plane with manure (white powder)

2. I was driving through the village on road to Vizowice The village mayor greeted me, said to me during drinking Sliwowica (DIY plum vodka) ‘The one who will bring Jozin dead or alive gets my daughter and a half of National Agrarian Farm

Chorus: Jozin…

3. I said: ‘give me a plane and powder, mayor, I’ll bring you Jozin, I see no trouble about that’, Mayor helped me, in the morning I went up in the sky The powder from the plane prettily fell on Jozin.

Chorus: Jozin… …I got Jozin, I seized him, Every penny is fine, I’ll sell him to a Zoo.

One of the so called Darwin Award of 2007 goes to the Czech Republic. Darwin awards deal with the premise that some people will live long and prosperous lives, while the weaker will weed themselves out by committing unbelievably stupid acts such as smashing into a high-rise window to prove it’s shatterproof, or using dynamite as a means to make a small hole for ice fishing.

(28 July 2007, Czech Republic) A pack of thieves attempted to steal scrap metal from an abandoned factory in Kladno. Unfortunately for them, they selected the steel girders that supported the factory roof. When the roof supports were dismantled, the roof fell, fatally crushing two thieves and injuring three others. (2007 Darwin Award Nominee, Confirmed True by Darwin)

Now that’s an interesting international prize to win!

According to court doctors, his alcohol load was at the edge of alcohol poisoning. The 46-year old drunken driver was transporting a dead body to post mortem examination in Hospital in Usti nad Orlici, when he got caught by the police from the city.

Czech law does not allow drivers to drink at all, so his licence was taken away and he faces court proceedings.

The record holder of drunk driving in the Czech Republic is Milan Curda, who, driving a gulley sucker, had an accident, afer which he was secured with almost 8% of alcohol in blood. He ended in prison, as he didn’t finished the alcohol treatment the court ordered him to.