Czechs & Slovaks

The nation of Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 overthrowing the Austro-Hungarian domination. Czechoslovakia was occupied and effectively wiped off the map during World War 2, but re-emerged as a sovereign state in its aftermath. The state remained intact until it partitioned into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic on 1 January 1993. Cynics might suggest that the momentum for the change came from leading Czech and Slovak politicians. Disgracefully, despite widespread support for a referendum, the public were not given a say in this carving up. As I have intimated in the past my girlfriend is Slovak.

A major difference between Czechs and Slovaks is the level of religiosity. The 2001 census in the Czech Republic reported that 59% of the country are atheists or non-organised believers. On the other hand, Slovakia is one of the most religious countries in Europe. Close to 70% of Slovaks are Catholic and there are significant other religious minorities (Greek Orthodox, Lutherans). I know of a Slovak village of 60 inhabitants which has its own church. I know a Czech village of about 1,000 people with its own brothel. Yesterday was All Saints Day and we attended a mass at a chapel in the side of St Thomas’ church(pictured). Nice church, isn’t it? It's 800 years old. Despite yesterday's service being in Czech the majority of attendees were foreign. How do I know? Well, Czechs and Slovaks typically take Communion directly into their mouths whereas others tend to use their hands to accept the bread.

Becoming Registered To Vote From Abroad

Last Friday I had a meal with the Chairman of Prague Conservatives James Woolf. James is a long-standing resident of Prague and a big mover and shaker in Czech business circles. Based on our chat, I reckon that if he had the time or inclination he could put together a "Big Red Book Of Czech Sleaze" to put the "Little Red Book Of Labour Sleaze" into the shade.

I'm weighing up what role I should take in the Czech branch. Social secretary and membership co-ordinator match my interests.

We discussed the low numbers of expats registered to vote and agreed that one of the most important roles of our branch is to boost these numbers. Anyway, even though I may well be in the UK by the time the next election comes around, I've decided to make a move and register, so that I can help others if they are struggling. Please see this link in my sidebar for government guidance. I'll let you know how I get on, later.

Flying the Union Jack

From a Tory-leaning friend in Prague



I wander whether Labour are preparing any laws to deal with jokes such as these?

Financial Illiteracy At The Top Of The Prisons Service

The report into the prison murder of Zahid Mubarek was presented to the Commons at the end of June. Now, the Home Office has set up this website which contains far more information than the report itself. I recommend a viewing if you have an interest in the UK criminal justice sytem.

I wanted to share some extracts from the main body of the report that highlights financial illiteracy at the top of the Prison Service. At Feltham, where the murder took place, the governor from December 1998 to April 1999 was Clive Welsh. From May 1999 to October 2000 Niall Clifford was in charge and Nick Pascoe was governor from October 2000 onwards. The report states that

"Mr Clifford did not regard Feltham’s budget as a constraint on the incurring of such expenditure as he thought was necessary. He regarded keeping within the budget as a secondary consideration. His policy was to spend what was needed to improve the regime. He did not think his job was at stake if he exceeded his budget. Mr Pascoe said much the same thing."

The following table shows the cost per prisoner at Feltham in three consecutive years.

£18,992 in 1998/99
£24,030 in 1999/00 (Zahid Mubarek died on March 28th of this year)
£37,507 in 2000/01

The spiralling spending corroborates the comments on Mr Clifford's and Mr Pascoe's financial priorities or lack of them. I'd like to contrast this with the situation before their tenure;

"In the late 1990s establishments were having to make efficiency savings. Their annual budgets were marginally lower in real terms in the financial year before Mr Clifford arrived at Feltham than in previous years"

Not that the authors of the report itself seemed very financially literate. For example take this quote -

"Such was the paucity of funding that the Inspectorate noted in 1997 that Feltham actually had the largest cost per prisoner of any young offender institution in the country." Source

Of course, the report highlighted other serious failings, but I thought I would bring out this example to demonstrate the financial illiteracy at the top of the Prison Service. Finally, it is noted that Feltham was considered a failing establishment so it jumped the queue for funding. Rewarding failure?

Czech English Words No 3 and 4 - Esej & Reality

I was a little amused when the better half sent me a document to print out with title esej. J is the Slavic equivalent of the letter Y hence Borat’s famous greeting jagshemash (pronounced yag-sh-masch), so I assumed a cute spelling mistake. Always the pedant, I pointed out the proper way to spell essay - only to be told esej is the Czech (and Slovak) way to spell essay. Naturally, I didn’t bring this up with the girlfriend again, but I asked a colleague of my age when she started using the word essay/esej. She said that she first heard the word essay/esej at high school and then also at university and that she considered it an import. Before that (pre 1989) they would invariably use the term slohova prace. You can see why the word essay was stolen and naturalised.

Another good example of Western words mutating into Czech is the word reality. If someone was trying to sell you reality in Prague what do you think would be on offer? Don’t google Czech reality because that’s dangerous. Instead check this Czech reality website. As an American friend from Birmingham, Alabama reminded me, realty means property in the US. I am fascinated how this word was assimilated into the Czech language with a pointless addition of a letter and how that idiosyncrasy stuck. Call me a saddo, but I’m going to see if I can get any answers over at the Czech expats portal.

MyBlogLog - A Tory Bloggers Tool?

I like MyBlogLog. I’m signed up for a year with them and it’s my only sites stats instrument. Many of the occasional visitors to my site use it and get listed on the recent readers sidebar, which is an interesting feature. Yesterday evening, the blogfather himself Iain Dale popped up – the only thing is I’ve no idea how long he stayed. It’s also handy for marketing my site as my visits to other sites that have the sidebar are shown whether or not I want to post a comment. One thing I’ve noticed is that although the mybloglog is extremely popular with right-wing bloggers, Tom Watson and Political Hack are the only Labour bloggers that I’ve noticed using it – and they don’t use the sidebar on their sites. I wonder why it hasn’t taken off in the same way with the Lefties. Or maybe I'm being myopic?

Beautiful Morning In Prague South

Here's a few pictures of Prague. October has been a pleasant month in Prague with plenty of blue skies. This morning is particularly nice and from my living room the view of the St Peter & Paul church is better than ever now that the tree foliage has mainly fallen. This church is located on the site of an old fortress although the "castle walls" that surround this attraction are apparently relatively recent. Should you visit this site, you must pay a visit to the cemetery. As well as being the resting place of luminaries from the arts world such as Capek and Dvorak, the beauty and symbolism reflected in the various shrines provides an insight into Czech culture over the years.

Looking down my street across the Vltava river shows the amount of greenery near Prague centre - although this is mainly due to steep hillsides unsuitable for construction. In the far distance, you can just pick out the Strahov Stadium which is the biggest stadium in Europe and dwarves the international football pitch that is next to it. In 2002 there was an Ozzy Osbourne concert at Strahov. Apparently, a crowd of over 20,000 was in attendance, but it seemed like maybe 10% of the space was being used.

From our bedroom windows you can see the historic Prague castle although as it is several miles away from here the view with the naked eye isn't as clear as this photo implies. Some say it takes three days to do a tour of the Prague castle and surrounding attractions properly. The gardens at the foot of the castle near Malastranske (Little Bank) tube stop are nice at the moment.

MPs Costs Out-strip Inflation

The cost of our MPs has massively out-stripped inflation.

MPs claimed £86.7m in expenses and allowances last year which is 7.3% higher than the previous 12 months. I find the £87,276 that can be claimed for salaries for researchers, secretaries and other staff excessive. I suggest this is reduced significantly and then capped year on year for productivity gains in a similar way to government grants to local authorities.

The £20,000 that can be claimed by MPs with constituencies outside of London for staying in London is ridiculous, too. A single person should be able to arrange annual accomodation in the capital for a fraction of that. Clearly not enough is being done to rein in costs. Any more ideas?

Another Use For Blogs

My girlfriend is currently studying at the University Of New York In Prague. She's getting lots of essays to do as homework. I was thinking that using a blog would be an excellent way of submitting, marking and archiving essays. The other day the girlfriend sent me her essay to print so that she could go to school to submit it the next day. If a blog was used, she could upload the essay at the appropriate time (no question about whether the deadline was met) and the tutor could provide comments and a mark in the comments to the post. As the submissions grow, the tutor and pupil can at a glance check on the progress of the student.

Maybe this has already been done, but I'd be interested to hear of any other innovative ways that the blog template can be used.

Phonics, Streaming and Paying Teachers Properly

Setting higher education to one side, on education we can expect the following things from a Conservative government. Less paperwork, guidelines, initiatives, target-setting and dogma. More decentralization, choice, freedom and flexibility. That’s all about instinct, not policy. The levels of literacy amongst our school-leavers are a disgrace and so are the levels of achievement. I have a large degree of respect both for David Willetts (Education Minister) and Nick Gibb (Schools Minister). Reading the runes the empirically successful techniques of phonics and streaming are likely to be implemented in the early years of a Conservative administration. Even if we were in coalition with the Dems this is an area where I would expect a lot of progress from what I consider to be a standing start (i.e where Labour will leave us). Although more contentious another expectation is that the status of the teaching profession will be enhanced. This means paying teachers more – I would expect something in return. I would like to see tough competition for teaching jobs. I want to see a time when the top reason for teachers leaving the profession before retirement is because they are not good enough, not because of unruly kids or too much paperwork. Does the above go far enough? Is this a platform we can run on?