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Prague witnessed its biggest fire since 1974 on Thursday evening when the art deco Industrial Palace at the 19th century Výstaviště Exhibition Grounds burst into flames. Firemen were still dampening the burning embers on Friday morning, and won’t be able to properly examine the wreckage of the building until Sunday. An investigation into what caused the fire is still ongoing, and all sorts of conspiracy theories are flying around.

Regular listeners to Radio Prague may remember us reporting on Bohemians 1905, the venerable football club that would have gone bust had it not been for its loyal fans who held a collection to save their beloved "Kangaroos", as the team has been known since they went on a famous tour of Australia in the 1920s. Now, a new documentary has been released which celebrates the quirky life of some of these dedicated Bohemians fans.

Early Thursday morning, Brigadier Stanislav Hlučka, a revered Czech pilot who served in the RAF during the Second World War, died aged 88 in a military hospital in Prague. We take brief a look at the life of this much-decorated anti-Nazi resistance fighter, who found himself imprisoned by the communists after the 1948 coup.

Allegations that the Czech writer Milan Kundera informed on a suspected western agent in 1950 have dominated the news all this week, and on Wednesday there was a new twist: an 81-year-old literary translator named Zdeňek Pešat came forward to say it was not Milan Kundera who had gone to the police, but their mutual friend Miroslav Dlask. Earlier this week Milan Kundera broke a 25-year vow of silence to categorically reject the “informer” claims.

The number of suicides in the Czech Republic has dropped to the lowest level since 1875, when the data were first collected. Psychologists say better health care and more effective drugs have helped bring down suicide rates. But elderly sick people are still the most endangered part of the population.

The Czech national beverage is unquestionably beer but, more and more Czechs are taking a fancy to quite a different liquid – tea. Not only does the Czech Republic have the highest number of tea rooms per person in Europe; Czechs have recently become the first Europeans to join the prestigious World Tea Union, an association joining tea experts from all over the world.

Wooden Solo safety matches – made in the Czech Republic – have long been respected worldwide. Many are familiar with the famous design of match box covers which include protected trademarks such as The Three Keys or The Scissors. But the tradition, at least in part, is now set to end. Citing worsening economic conditions, representatives announced on Tuesday that as of next year the company’s production plant will move abroad.

This year’s Music on Film Film on Music festival kicks off at three Prague centre cinemas on Thursday. Called MOFFOM for short, it’s now into its fifth year, with the focus this time out on New York, as I heard from MOFFOM’s founder and director John Caulkins.

Peter Greenaway, the noted British director behind such films as A Zed and Two Noughts and The Draughtsman’s Contract visited the Czech Republic this week to promote the Czech release of his film Nightwatching.

The activities of Czechoslovak armed units on the side of the Allied powers during World War I helped Czechs and Slovaks win consent to form their own state when the conflict ended in 1918. The legions that had been fighting in Russia, however, became embroiled in that country’s civil war, and didn’t get home until two years later. Their fascinating story is the subject of a new exhibition in Prague.