Letter from Prague | All stories

I have to confess to being somewhat perturbed over the years with the Czech system of addressing people in either the unfamiliar or familiar. The system exists in several languages, though not English – essentially in Czech, one addresses people that one is not familiar with in the plural “zdravím vás” as opposed to “zdravím tě.” As a kid visiting Prague, I would constantly forget myself and refer to people that I didn’t know in the familiar. Then, someone would later say to me “you ‘tykat’ when you should have ‘vykat’” – that is the way the two forms

For years I was able to get by fairly easily in the Czech Republic without a car – everything was close by - or close enough. But not long ago, my wife and I took the leap, deciding at last that we needed a vehicle. For me, that meant re-doing my licence after more than ten years. I thought it would be easy: I had driven in Canada for quite a while in all kinds of conditions: snow, slush, ice, you name it, but soon I learned driving here is a different experience.

Czechs, doctors and patients alike, seem to be really worried about their health care and the government’s plans to reform it. These plans which, among other things, include fees for visits to the doctor’s, emergency wards and prescriptions, might have even cost the ruling coalition the recent regional elections. Most people are apparently happy with the way things are now, and have been since the state nationalized all medical care. Well, for one, I am not.

Prague’s Pankrác neighbourhood has been a subject of many debates over the past months. Plans to build high-rise buildings on the Pankrác Plain have angered not only local inhabitants but also experts from UNESCO, who argue that the new skyscrapers would destroy Prague’s unique historical skyline.

Some goofs are so bad you just want the earth to swallow you up and if you happen to be a cabinet minister, constantly surrounded by the media, things are even worse. You are asked to explain the goof over and over again and made to look like a complete fool on the prime time news that night.

Chimney sweeps here in the Czech Republic dress all in black except for thin white caps that somewhat resemble baker’s hats, though they are smaller and fit more closely to the head. In Czech the word for sweep is kominík, which is related to the word for chimney, komín.

After years and years of holding out, and scrounging lifts from my parents, I finally took the plunge and decided to learn how to drive. This was something I had already flirted with in my native Scotland. But alas, I had made no more progress than locating where my mirrors were and stalling my way slowly around a country cul-de-sac or two. My mother has a conspiracy theory that British driving instructors can at times be somewhat ponderous when it comes to actually teaching their students how to drive. My experiences at the hands of my full-throttle

In recent years, for the first time in my life, I actually enjoy going to the bank, and not just because I have developed a rapport with the clerk who one day announced she was my “personal banker”. After a move of flat, I simply transferred my accounts to the most convenient branch – and, what do you know, that branch is housed in a masterpiece of inter-war Czech architecture with a fascinating history.

The Czech Republic is currently going through a baby boom, a fact you can hardly fail to notice when you walk the streets of Prague these days. While in the past, you would rarely bump into a mother with a pram, now they are simply everywhere. Maternity hospitals are bursting at the seams and mothers have to register six months in advance to secure a place. The last baby boom was in the 1970s and the 70s kids are now in their 30s. As a result, 2008 saw the biggest number of newborns in 15 years.

A couple of bags of rich-roasted Hawaiian coffee beans recently led me to re-discover a small family relic, which lay forgotten for years in a back cupboard, until it was needed: a small, cast-metal coffee bean grinder, produced sometime in the 1930s, a grinder, it turns out, once manufactured by my family. I had been looking for a means of grinding up beans we had received as a gift last Christmas, when my father dug up the object, still bearing my grandmother's family name and logo.