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September 28th is St Wenceslas Day, commemorating the Czech nation's patron saint, Prince Wenceslas, or Vaclav. He was slain by his own brother in the year 935 near Prague. But Prince Vaclav was not the only man of that name who played an important role in Czech history.

Jan Svejnar is one of the most respected economists the Czech Republic has produced. An adviser to former president Vaclav Havel for almost a decade, Mr Svejnar is a professor at the University of Michigan's business school and heads an American-style PhD programme and research centre at Prague's Charles University. I caught up with the renowned economist at a public debate in Prague this week, and first asked him what were the major challenges facing the Czech economy.

Josef Skvorecky, author of many internationally acclaimed novels such as The Cowards, The Bass Saxophone, and The Miracle Game, celebrates his eightieth birthday on Monday. A fan of Anglo-American culture, his first publication, the Cowards, is set in his native Nachod, east Bohemia, during the Second World War. Instead of fighting for their country, the town's youth prefers to listen to jazz, live life, and view the political developments with black humour and scepticism.

There was rather shocking if not altogether unexpected news this Friday when star midfielder Pavel Nedved announced he was quitting the Czech national squad, an announcement following weeks of speculation over Nedved's future. The captain of the Czech squad suffered a lingering knee injury in July at the European Championship and had refused to play for the Czechs until he was fully recovered. But, then he raised many fans' ire by continuing to play - and play well - for his professional club, Italy's Juventus Turin.

Some 50 Iraqi judges came to Prague this September for a two-week seminar on the work of judges in a democratic society. Run by the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative, the seminar was largely funded by the British government, with assistance from the Czech government, as part of the Czech Foreign Ministry's involvement in aiding the transition in Iraq. Due to security concerns, the timing of the seminars was kept quiet and the media asked to keep news of the visit under embargo.

The Melantrich building on Prague's Wenceslas Square will forever be associated with one of the most significant periods in Czech history. Leading figures in the Velvet Revolution, such as Vaclav Havel and Alexander Dubcek, addressed delirious crowds from one of its balconies in November 1989 on a day that will be remembered by Czechs for generations to come.

A book entitled "We're In Europe: What Next?" has just been published, featuring essays from a variety of politicians and commentators, all of them in favour of European integration. It has been brought out by the group Ano pro Evropu, or Yes for Europe. At the launch on Wednesday evening, I met one of the editors, Monika McDonagh-Pajerova, and asked her why - over a year after Czechs voted to join the EU, and almost six months after they actually became members - the group Yes for Europe still exists.

The 1960s Czech movie Sky Riders, the story of the lives, loves and deaths of Czech and Slovak pilots in the Second World War, became a legend. The movie was based on a book of the same name by Filip Jansky and was directed by Filip Polak 36 years ago. Now this movie is the focal point of an exhibition dedicated to Czechoslovak pilots who flew for Britain's Royal Air Force during the war.

Next week Prague movie-goers will have the chance to see a forgotten film by the Oscar winning directors Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos, who were legends of the Czechoslovak cinema of the 1960s. But this is a film that most would prefer to forget. "Unos" - or "Hijack" - from 1952 is Stalinist propaganda at its most crass - telling the story of two wicked imperialists, who decide to escape from communist Czechoslovakia to the West by hijacking a passenger plane, only to be "swallowed up in the mud of the émigré camp".

A number highly publicised dog attacks has put the spotlight on canine behaviour in the Czech Republic. On Tuesday, a special seminar on the subject was held in Prague, which brought together a number of experts, including vets and psychologists, to discuss how Czechs could enjoy their pets whilst ensuring that their dogs' behaviour did not cause problems for others.