Letter from Prague | All stories

There was plenty going on on Prague’s Wenceslas Square this week – and a lot at stake. While at the top end of the square people were signing petitions against the siting of a US radar in the Czech Republic, at its lower end a sausage vendor was fighting his own battle against the town hall’s decision to get him evicted.

Recently, a couple of friends visiting from England opened up a Pandora’s Box when they asked a seemingly innocent question. “What is the stereotypical image of Brits in the Czech Republic?” I sighed, knowing that this was a tricky subject. Stereotypes are obviously an inherently prejudiced way of making generalizations, usually negative, about certain groups of people. Yet, political correctness aside, and taken with a pinch of humour and self-deprecation, it is hard to say that at least a grain of truth can’t be found in many of them. So, being

Some may say 2008 has been a good year for sport and all in all I’d have to agree all except for one thing, one small niggling detail, one small unfortunate item: every team, every professional sportsman or woman I’ve set hopes for has done either outright badly this year, or worse, done well but stumbled on the final hurdle.

I felt like a bit of a pioneer to be honest. Well, I mean, it wasn't exactly swimming the Channel alone, but at least I wasn't just another expatriate working in an Irish or American sports bar. I am talking about my second job here in Prague, that of a waiter and barista in a well-known coffeehouse just off Old Town Square. Up until now, no foreigner has worked there apparently.

You may not be familiar with the name Josef Koudelka, but there is a very good chance you will know his work. And we’re all sure to see a lot more of it as the August anniversary of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia draws nearer. Koudelka’s striking black-and-white shots of tanks in the centre of Prague and other images from that turbulent period are regarded as some of the most important works of photojournalism of the 20th century.

Until not long ago, Czechs used to ride only two or three types of bikes: either the Czechoslovak-made Favorit or Eska, or the legendary “Ukraina” bike, produced, as the title suggests, by our eastern neighbour. With the establishment of the free market, however, Czechs have gone wild about bikes and cycling has become a big business…

One of the odder things I have found myself doing in recent weeks is an auction on a boat, halfway up the river Vltava, in the assembled company of government employees, policemen, sex workers and feminists. A delegation of anti human-trafficking campaigners came to the Czech Republic from the Netherlands, and yours truly was drafted in to translate. Not into Dutch – I’m afraid my linguistic skills don’t stretch quite that far – but into English… or at least so I thought.

Anyone who has visited the Czech Republic before and after the Velvet Revolution will have noticed how much the country has changed. Although it was always hauntingly beautiful, Prague has now become a fast-paced, Western-style metropolis that offers both the locals and visitors everything they could possibly want. But more interesting are the changes within, which require a deeper knowledge of the Czech mentality and a discerning eye.

I sit and write this letter from Prague on my balcony, hoping that that grey cloud looming large at the end of the street comes no closer for fear of my laptop's survival, and indeed so that I avoid an electric shock. My view from up here consists of a tram lurking at the end of the road, waiting to wind its way back across this city along route number four to Kotlářka, if I'm not very much mistaken. And of course there are the neighbours, who I try to pretend that I can't see in their flats at all, and in return I hope they do the same to

The Colorado potato beetle is a pernicious and resilient crop pest. Also known by the colourful name of ten-striped spearman, it has an interesting history in this part of the world. In fact, the beetle was one of the most visible elements of communist propaganda in Czechoslovakia in the dark days of the 1950s.