According to new stats, the number of Czechs seeking the services of a shrink has grown by almost a third since 2000. Experts claim that one of the reasons for that is more information about psych treatments. Supposedly almost half a million Czechs ended up on the couch in 2006 including 17500 hospitalisations due to mental illness.  read more »

Turns out Czechs are just as susceptible to stress at work as people in other industrialized nations. What a surprise!  read more »

A complete text (all in Czech) of a book survey of Czech exile literature between 1971 and 1989 was made available by the author on the University of Glasgow's Slavonic Studies Department website.  read more »

One of those glass half-full half-empty surveys.

Proud to be Czech, but leave the politics aside - Czechnews - Aktuálně.cz  read more »

YouTube is a great source of video to illustrate historical events and the Velvet Revolution is no exception. Here are a few clips.

Montage of moments from the days of and after 17 November:  read more »

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Lots of cycling stories in the Czech press this last week. Czechs seem to be buying lots of cycles but don't like to think of them as a commuting device but rather one for getting some exercise in. Prague is becoming a bit more cycle-commute friendly but it's still more the exception than the rule.  read more »

Czech communists but doubtless others are remembering the great October revolution of 1917 in Russian celebrated on 2 November (due to discrepancies in calendar systems).  read more »

Ludmila Brožová Polednová was among the prosecutors who were involved in sending Milada Horáková and others to the gallows in the 1950s. Now, she is on trial for judicious murder. This Czech interview with a historian explains why the case against her is strong even after all those years.  read more »

Uzeniny is a great Czech word covering all kinds of saussage-like products and uzenář is the purveyor or producer of such meat products (you will often see 'maso a uzeniny' on Czech butchers' store fronts or supermarket sections).  read more »

The divorces and planned re-marriages (to their respective mistresses) of premier Mirek Topolánek and ex-premier Jiří Paroubek have been in and out of the news for quite a few months now; below is one report among many from Paroubek's saga. Overall the Czechs' attitude towards the sex lives of their politicians is quite "European," that is, much more forgiving than the Americans'. There is the occasional columnist who thinks otherwise, though. I'm undecided, myself.
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Yet another Czech (mostly) pre-war artist's painting was sold this week for  a record sum. This time it was the abstract artist and cubist František Kupka.  read more »