Letter from Prague | All stories

About a month ago, a number of public opinion polls suggested that the Communists enjoyed second place on the popularity ladder in the Czech Republic. When the results of the first poll were released, they were not given much importance but confirmation from a second poll conducted by a different agency, resulted in heated discussion and public debate. The country's politicians, sociologists and independent commentators were asked to analyse the situation, trying to find a logical reason why ever more Czechs would want to support a party that was

Czechs are in the throes of a shopping fever. Fourteen years of a Western lifestyle have not sated people's urge to buy and buy some more. Few people need an excuse but if you do there is always some reason - the Christmas shopping season now starts in October - then come the New Year sales and then Easter is just around the corner.

My Letter from Prague today is going to be about Christmas or rather the ever earlier occurrence of signs indicating that the great holiday is coming. If you expect now a traditionalist bashing of consumerism... you are partly right.

Regular listeners will remember a recent Radio Prague report about singing mushrooms. Let me explain to those of you who missed that programme. Vaclav Halek is a Prague-based composer and also a mushroom expert. Not only does he pick mushrooms and cook those which are edible but he also says he can hear them sing. Each fungus, Mr Halek says, has a distinctive tune which he can hear and write down. An unusual talent, you may think.

Over the last few years here at Radio Prague I've developed a professional (some would say unprofessional) interest in a town in North Moravia called Sumperk. Sumperk lies in the foothills of the Jesenik mountains, about half an hour's drive from Olomouc. I've never actually been there, but photos show a regular Czech town with the obligatory medieval square and sprinkling of baroque churches. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think. Well, think again.

Regardless of how it may have gone out of fashion elsewhere Prague remains a city of smoking and smokers. If it is the city of a hundred spires it is also a city of a thousand pubs - and in every one the bluish-brown smoke wafts close to the ceiling as you enter. Say you don't smoke? In Prague, friend, you will. Hell, this is the only city - the only city - where I have ever seen a bicycle courier lighting up. A bicycle courier.

Recently a Prague court convicted but did not sentence four players from the Northern Ireland international football team who two years ago were involved in a fight with staff in a "strip club" off Wencelsas Square. Now what's interesting to me about this case is that the establishment in question, named Atlas, is not just a strip club but is also a brothel. How ironic is that? The members of the Northern Ireland football team, who famously can't score, getting arrested in a brothel.

If someone were to ask you to list five national symbols of your country, would you be able to name them? Of course, the most common are the national flag and the national anthem but what else represents your country? I attended a discussion on this topic the other day and realised that the very thing that Czechs have always been known to be proud of - their nation - is losing its defining symbols...

There's not much in the way of consumer protection in the Czech Republic and believe me that thirteen years after the fall of communism the consumer still needs a lot of protection. Most of us are still so impressed by the incredible variety of goods available that we are happy to overlook a buy that does not quite meet our expectations.

The last few days have been marked by various events here in the capital Prague, all of them in some way connected with road transport and traffic, as the past week was designated European Week of Mobility. One of them was a race - with people trying to get to the city centre from various places by car, bike and public transport. On each occasion public transport and bikes proved faster than the car, although some drivers complain that the race fixed and the result was a foregone conclusion. In another event, mothers with prams and buggies raced