How Do Czech Restaurants Make Money? On Bottled Water

Czech restaurants have never done so well in terms of profits when it comes to non-alcoholic drinks, the iDNES.cz news server writes, having done the math.

Generally speaking the purchase price for a .3L bottle of water in wholesale is CZK 4 (yes, FOUR), but if you go to a restaurant, a coffee house or a similar place, you pay CZK 18, according to the most recent Czech Stats Office figures.

There are towns and places, however, where a thirsty guest might pay even CZK 50, which represents a 1,000-percent margin, the daily wrote. Charging this much for soft drinks is the best way to compensate lower prices on other menu items.

If you watch TV commercials for one day, you will see four to five ads trying to convince you that this or that mineral water is the best for you because it contains something. TV ad authors are very good [sarcasm warning] at inventing new names of miraculous contents that no other product contains. Meanwhile, doctors say that the best water in the Czech Republic is the one that you have in your homes.

The beer paradox
I don’t drink alcohol with the exception of Bailey’s so when I go to a pub with friends, my check is usually bigger than theirs because they pay much less for their four half-liter glasses of beer than I do for my three bottles of Pepsi or similar beverage. The same with NORMAL WATER which is more expensive than beer.

Plus, the daily mentions another strange thing that most foreign tourists are pissed off about: no free mug of water with your order. You have to pay for it.

China: A Place Athletes Are Afraid To Go

I thought the Olympic Games are a place that should be a perfect venue for celebration of sport.

A place that should be proud of its scenery, like Albertville, France.

Or a place that should be proud of its state subsidies of sport and healthy lifestyles, like Norway.

Czech athletes are a little afraid to go to China.

Or to be exact they are scared of what might happen to them there.

They are bringing face masks because of smog. And apparently, so are American and Japanese athletes. One of the doctors who will take care of Czech swimmers says that if you stand at one corner outside the swimming arena, you can hardly see the other corner. And: that there is dust on the seats in the bleachers!! There is not a single swimming hall in the world with dust on the seats, I am sure…

And some Czech athletes have applied for exemptions when it comes to DOPING! They will be permitted to use some medication that contains substances that are otherwise illegal. Of course the amounts will be observed closely, so that the athletes do not cross the boundary between this exemption and a misuse of illegal substances.

This is far from normal. For the purpose of this paragraph, “far” means the distance between Beijing and Lhasa.

Many world cities have been denied the Games for reasons that are much less significant than this.

So if China can organize the Games under these smog conditions, I think Switzerland could host shark hunting competition. And that ain’t a mistake.

Beijing beat Toronto, Paris, Istanbul and Osaka.

I might be wrong, but I don’t think there would be many Canadians being escorted from Toronto somewhere to the Northern Territories. Or would the French government transport dissidents, journalists and other troublemakers to, let’s say, Ile du Levant.

They Helped A Car Accident Victim. Now They Might Be Sick

The police from a town near Brno are looking for people who were witnesses to a car accident in which a car hit a man who was jaywalking in the middle of the night. The man sustained serious injuries and was even unconscious for a while.

Doctors in hospital found out he suffers from a serious disease and people who were trying to save his life might have become infected.

Many Czechs don’t know the names of their MP’s but they will remember THIS for the rest of their lives and the next time they see an injured car accident victim, they will stay way back…or just walk away. One of the reasons is that most Czechs are mad about the healthcare reform that includes “hospital fees” for every day spent on a hospital bed. And ironically, even victims have to pay… I am a supporter of this reform, because without it the system will collapse soon, but this sucks…

China Is Pissed At Czech Prime Minister. Because of a Tibet Flag

A few weeks ago the Czech Prime Minister announced he would go to China after all. Not to the opening ceremony, but to support Czech athletes.

As he was making the announcement, he was wearing a pin with a flag of Tibet.

Now the Chinese got mad. Our ambassador to China was invited by their Foreign Ministry to provide an explanation of the Czech foreign policies, whether “there has been any change”. And the Chinese ambassador to Prague sent the usual polite-but-mad-inside diplomatic note.

First of all, I don’t think there has been any change. There can not be any, as the Czech Republic has never supported China in the matters concerning Tibet, and quite frequently Tibetian flags are displayed here to support this region.

And second of all, the Chinese should realize that even a prime minister should be granted his personal freedom of speech right. Czech PM’s partner/girlfriend is a supporter of free Tibet, so it is natural that he might agree with her on various issues.

The PM announced his intention to go to China while wearing a flag pin: by which he said that the issue of free Tibet should not be left aside during the Games. What his gesture tells me is that even bigger attention should be paid to it.

Famous Drummer Died In A Motorbike Accident

Drummer for one of the most famous Czech pop bands Chinaski, Pavel Grohman (38 y.o.) died in a motorbike accident Friday. According to the most recent information he was passing a car that was about to make a left turn and was waiting at the center line to do so.

You do not have to be a professional driver or a traffic cop to assume that he was probably to blame for the accident.

And since traffic safety and bikers are a huge issue in this country, many people have their say underneath news articles at news servers.

But what do you know, we have a typical situation here again.

• the iDNES.cz news server cancelled it
• and so did the Novinky.cz news server
• and the Blesk tabloid daily did not open any at all

I must say I don’t understand the have-your-say policies of Czech news servers. This is a topic that could not have initiated ILLEGAL discussion, like racial hatred comments. Sure, they must have been insensitive. But almost every adult in this country is a driver. Almost anyone could have been there. And since people get killed by irresponsible drivers, people should talk about it. And relatives and family of people who cause an accident and end up in a paper should avoid the discussion boards altogether.

So where is the problem?

Where Tanks Go To Die

THE CZECH DAILY WORD EXCLUSIVE

Three posts below I mentioned Soviet Red Army vehicles that are still being kept in old Czech Army compounds, rather than being dismantled.

I wonder what happens to these Czech tanks that I also managed to take a picture of. They are in the same compound – I managed to get closer and take a better photo [the link is to a large photo].

The army does not need to recycle?

Child Abuse and Sexual Torture Case Continues

The court is back in session in the matter of the worst child abuse and sexual torture case in the history of the Czech Republic. Six defendants are charged with several crimes and almost all of them might end up in jail for twelve years. The torture practices included cutting out a piece of flesh flash [sorry...when I type in a hurry, my typos are usually wrong words, coincidentally] of one of the victims’ buttocks.

On Thursday several interesting witnesses appeared in court. One of them was an employee of an asylum home for children were taken after they had been discovered in the “dark hole”. She testified that the boys had scars on their backs, or when they ate they said they didn’t even know some food, like apple pies.

The boys’ grandfather said he had been meeting his grandsons regularly until one day his daughter cut him off and he could no longer see them, and she claimed she had to re-educate them.

It is obvious that this destructive behavior of sect members affected everybody. One of the witnesses is a well-known theater actor from Brno whose little daughter’s DNA sample was taken by one of the defendants so it could be swapped with that of another defendants who had to pose as a little girl on several occasions. The actor said he had no idea…

What kind of a father are you, you idiot…

…to be updated…

UPDATE FRIDAY JULY 25:

On Friday the court heard several witnesses who were not directly involved in the torture but who know some of the defendants. An employee of a child asylum home testified she saw tiny scars on the body of the second boy who was not thought to be tortured at first. He said they were from a pet rodent’s claws since he would always carry his pet on his back and it would crawl back and forth.

And several other witnesses testified about numerous “cover stories” the defendants would use and present to explain the strange situations. Apparently one of the defendants had claimed that some intelligence agencies were involved with their sect.

This is getting creepier and creepier…

If I Had a Woman Like Her

Quote of the day:

If I had a woman like her, I would start a small country and put her face on stamps, so that I could lick the back of her head.
– Alan Harper, Two and a Half Men

AND, I add, I would become the president and I would make her my spokeswoman.

How Czechs Live (8): Without ATM’s and Pay Phones

Sometimes you never realize how important some thing is until you really need it. Czechs in the 21st century living in villages or smaller towns know.

Example: a bank operates an ATM in a small town. According to a cost and profit calculation, the machine is not making profit. And the bank is losing money. It demands that over 200 withdrawals a month be made, otherwise the municipality that ordered the installation would have to compensate the charges. So the bank decides to shut it off, making locals and summer-season tourists having to travel 20 kilometers to the nearest one.

Similarly, not so long ago municipalities would fight with the landline phone company. There is only one in the country, having monopoly, so in a village with population under 1,000 those three grandmas making two-minute calls a week was not enough to keep a public payphone there. And villages that are so small would not have enough money to compensate the costs either.

I must say I haven’t heard of a similar case for a while. Must be because now there are more active cell phones than people (!!!) and even the careful grandmas realized it is better to be in permanent contact with families and if something happens to them it is easy to call an ambulance from a cell phone.

I know a 90 year-old lady who still goes picking mushrooms in the forest and her neighbors know it. So if she gets missing, the rescuers can always track her by her cell phone signal… It happens over here all the time.

Soviet Red Army Vehicles Still In The Czech Republic

THE CZECH DAILY WORD EXCLUSIVE / updated on July 22-23

Forty years ago, in August 1968, Warsaw Pact armies, especially the Soviet Red Army invaded then Czechoslovakia in order to halt Prague Spring reforms. The occupation lasted for many years and the last Russian soldier left the county in 1990.

Eighteen years later it becomes apparent that some vehicles have not been scrapped. I managed to find some.

Some of them are parked in the town of Olomouc. In an old Czech Army compound…

As you can see on a detail, the Russian signs are still visible! After eighteen years. I do speak some Russian but I can not seem to decode that sign:

The entire facility is a mess and it is obvious that is is unkempt, unused and you can tell by looking if you walk around that the buildings are months from collapsing.

… as you can see on this Maps.cz satellite image…

It is obvious that the Czech Army’s idea of good management is non existent. The facility is guarded by unarmed private security agency employees. There are no MP’s, no sentry towers, just old barbed wire.

So in other words, this is not a wall of an old house where an old Russian slogan would remain for years. This is a facility that a NATO-member military institution shall have done something about years ago.

————-
UPDATE JULY 22: Walking around the fence, you can see another row of tanks, these are most definitely Czech. But as for the aforementioned mess that the Czech Army is known for, notice the blue barrel ON THE ROOF on the right-hand side…

And since there are no “Do Not Enter” signs, and since there are some big holes in the fence slash wall, I will try to get closer on Saturday…