Letter from Prague | All stories

Every cloud has a silver lining, so they say. But the many clouds that have constituted the Czech summer so far have a sort of golden-yellow hue for me. That is the colour of the chanterelle mushroom or liška in Czech.

As always there was plenty going on at the Karlovy Vary film festival this year. Alongside the marathon of movies, there were bars and beer tents, swanky soirees and grotty clubs. There were also a number of live concerts, with perhaps the most unlikely the appearance of Boney M in a nite spot in the basement of the festival’s centre, the Thermal hotel.

I had two subjects readied for this letter. This time round you get a dog’s life in Prague - or maybe more accurately a dog and dog owner’s life in the Czech capital.

A little over a week ago, my wife and I were able to get out for the first time in ages to see a concert, none other than Depeche Mode at the Slavia football stadium. The tickets were a Christmas gift and we had family babysitting our boy we were as giddy as school kids that we would finally, after a long while, be able to go out.

Never having been inside a courtroom or seen a real court case in action it was something of a shock to find myself watching the most notorious show trial of the communist era – the “H Trial” that sent democratic politician Milada Horáková and two others to the gallows in 1950.

With a deadline for Letter from Prague’s completion fast approaching, I find myself up at the crack of dawn and in front of a computer. At university, this became something of a weekly ritual, as the dreaded ‘essay crisis’ invariably kicked in. But since graduation, with the exception of a few mornings on which I have set alarms to catch obscenely early, bargain-basement flights, I haven’t really risen to see the world at five.

Reading the recent reflections of my colleagues has cast my mind back to the first time I came to Prague.I think it was the start of March 1992. I am vague on the date but remember that there was some special airline promotion to fly anywhere in the European Community for about half the normal price. I hit on Dresden and looked for a railway link to Prague.

While English resounds in the offices of Prague’s hoity-toity, Czech is the international language in the halls of Radio Prague. Here you’ll find a Spaniard deep in discussion with a German and a Frenchman with an Englishman in Czech. Sometimes this occurs to the mingled delight and anguish of native listeners. Czechs are not yet accustomed to their language going global.

Much of Prague’s main train station Praha Hlavní nádraží currently resembles a building site, albeit one with thousands of commuters streaming through it every day. A much needed and extensive renovation job should be completed next year. Part of the platforms section has already been reopened, and quite impressive it is too. It’s bright. There are elevators.

During the first weeks of May I often slip into Wellington boots, tough plastic gloves and a seemingly out of place heavy raincoat to wander about a slice of the Czech countryside with a spade and large plastic bag. I hasten to add that is not some kinky fetish wear, some stealing mission or that I am burying a corpse or two. No, May days are bolševník days.