With only a month to go before Radio Prague's fate is decided, the station's existential problems have made headlines in Tyden Magazine. Part of a media campaign to draw attention to the station's plight, the article takes readers back to the late summer of 1936 when the station first went on the air addressing readers in Slovak, German, English, French and Czech for more than 6 hours every day. Thanks to an overwhelming response from around the world Radio Prague eventually added transmissions in Portuguese, Serbian and Italian, with irregular programmes in Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and Persian. It may seem too large and expensive an institution to foreign ministry authorities today, but the fact is that after repeated reductions and streamlining the station is a shadow of its former self, the author of the article notes. At the present time Radio Prague broadcasts in five languages - Czech, English, German, French and Spanish, but if the foreign ministry has its way by next year it could be reduced to a bi-lingual service offering only Czech and English shortwave transmissions, with programmes in the remaining 3 languages available only on the Internet. The article is accompanied by a snapshot of an editor of the German section in the act of reading an appeal to readers to help reverse this decision by writing directly to the Czech foreign ministry. "Our listeners cannot comprehend why the German short-wave service is to be abolished . Germany is the country's biggest neighbour, its economic influence is considerable not to mention the fact that the two countries only recently signed a declaration settling their SWW differences and agreeing on close future cooperation, Jitka Mladkova, the head of the German section is quoted as saying. Well, as the author of the article points out Radio Prague itself has been left very much in the dark as to the whys and wherefores of this unexpected decision, but the head of the foreign ministry's cultural section Jan Lorenz has stated the following: the foreign ministry is dissatisfied with the technical quality of Radio Prague transmissions, which worsened after it lost a transmitter in Slovakia. To quote Lorenz' own words " This service is costing us 50 million crowns annually. And to what effect? What is the present audience contributing? Our target groups are business and scientific circles and those are to be found on the Internet" Lorenz says in a merciless assessment of the worth of Radio Prague's present listenership. The article entitled "A radio for a select audience" reveals that the ministry is not really interested in improving short wave transmissions -which would improve with digitalization anyway - on the contrary it wants to save the cost of one of the two transmitters currently used by Radio Prague, leaving it with one only. "This would put us on par with a gospel radio station" says Radio Prague's director Dusan Palka. What's more once we vacate those frequencies we'd never get them back, he notes. And it seems a waste to produce programmes in those three languages and not transmit them. Jan Lorenz shrugs his shoulders to these arguments, maintaining, " we are only trying to use the funds we have in a manner which will best serve a select audience".

So much for that subject -now moving on to happier things - Vitezslav Dostal is back -safe and sound - from a three year round-the-world cycling trip, the Prague Post reports affording readers the enjoyment of one of the first interviews with the former triathlete. He survived three earthquakes and a heavy sandstorm, battled wild dogs in the Sahara and dodged bullets in Colombia. He was robbed four times and was knocked down by a truck in Argentina. And- he liked it - telling the weekly it was " a priceless experience". Dostal undertook the trip with 25kg of luggage that included two cameras an English language dictionary three passports and a Bible. He didn't carry any weapons apart from his knife and his fists, the weekly reports. So how does one win a fight with a pack of wild dogs ? " I escaped by riding as fast as I could for approximately 30 kms while waving a ski pole at them " he says. An engrossing read, and those who care for more details will have to look into the first October issue of the Prague Post for them.

In it's short-takes section the same weekly mentions that the Pilsen magistrate is attempting to get citizens to take a break from the hectic pace of life, slow down and enjoy their surroundings - in other words to enjoy life. For that purpose numbers on public clocks have been replaced with letters forming messages such as " Slow down" "Don't Rush" "Take it Easy" and "Don't Walk So Fast" .

This week's Tyden magazine carries a marvellous example of how to get away from the formalities and everyday pressures of our existence. The Indian settlement in Sokolov , West Bohemia, celebrated a unique wedding recently in which backwoodsman and trader in beaver skins Bandy Song married Masa of Trebic . The wedding guests were called together by jungle drums and the chief rain-dancer and medicineman rolled into one pronounced the couple man and wife in a colourful wedding ceremony . Contrary to Czech local ritual the bride was not abducted but was treated with every consideration. She was re-named Takanka Shookanka and awarded the title of Indian princess. Her happiness was marred by a single event- a group of cowboys, indians and backwoodsmen fortified by Whisky and Pilsner beer locked the groom into a massive chastity belt and threw the key into a nearby well.