bigbluemeanie

Navigation

Home | Links |

About This Site

About | Bluemeanie | Scarlett
A personal weblog with photographs and comments. Quiet ramblings, quite rambling...

• You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life - Albert Camus

Members

Login | Register | Why?

Most recent entries

• Artificially green
• Watching the traffic
• London Mayor
• Wet and muddy
• Looking Greenwich up and down
• On my bike
• Making Hay
• The previous cycle route
• Back to Woldingham Viewpoint
• The nasty way to travel
• Heaven and hell
• Berlin cycle lanes
• Kurbelstange (deformiert)
• Ebbsfleet International Railway Platform
• Police incident in Tandridge

Recent entries with comments

• London Mayor - (1)
  
• Looking Greenwich up and down - (2)
  
• Police incident in Tandridge - (2)
  
• British War Criminals - (2)
  
• Checkpoint Charlie - (3)
  
• Oxted from the “Woldingham Viewpoint” - (5)
  
• A figure of defiance - (1)
  
• What really happened in Croydon? - (3)
  
• Bike hire in Berlin - (1)
  
• Brandenberg Gate - (1)
  
• Three Way Chess - (1)
  
• Gamelan instruments - (2)
  
• Oh no! John! - (2)
  
• “Bells and Smells” Mass - (1)
  
• Turn cash into less cash - (6)
  

Feeds

• RSS 1.0
• RSS 2.0
• Atom

Categories

• Europe
  • Czech Republic
  • England
  • France
  • Germany
  • Ireland
  • Luxembourg
  • Netherlands
  • Scotland
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Wales
• Asia Pac
  • Australia
  • Indonesia
  • Japan
  • Middle East
• Americas
  • Cuba
• Africa
  • South Africa
  • Swaziland

Monthly Archives

• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005
• May 2005
• April 2005
• March 2005
• February 2005
• January 2005
• December 2004
• November 2004
• October 2004
• September 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• June 2004
• May 2004
• April 2004
• March 2004
• February 2004
• January 2004
• December 2003
• November 2003
• October 2003

Links

• Full linklist
• Bluemeanie.org
• Scarlett's weblog
• GeoURL
• Blogflux
• LS Blogs
• Blogwise
• Wikablog
• Technorati
• Blogarama
• Oxted Frappr
• Bloggernity.com
• The Blog Directory
• 
  
• 
• 
• 
• The Green Providers Directory

Lately listening to

Site Statistics

• This website has been viewed 365507 times
• Page rendered in 0.8245 seconds
• 49 queries executed

Site Credits

• Powered by: ExpressionEngine
• Based on a design by:
  BlogMoxie
• 
  The original content of this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Czech Republic

I found this Leeds United Matrioshka in Prague recently. I left it there.

Meanwhile the football team returned to training recently and they play their first pre-season match tonight against York.  Here’s the 2008 season’s fixture list.

This is the famous astronomical clock of Prague. The oldest working parts of this clock were built in 1410. There’s some information over at h2g2 (BBC):

The main dial of the clock looks nothing like a modern clock. It is packed with information, giving not only the time but the positions of the Sun and Moon as well. This dial is the original one, built in 1410 by the clock maker Mikulas. The clock was originally intended purely to provide astronomical information. The rest of the clock was added much later. The dial features the following:

• Around the outside of the dial are two circles of numbers. The inner circle is in Roman numerals; the hours as we know them are marked around the circle. All 24 hours of the day are marked, with 12 noon at the top and 12 midnight at the bottom. An hour hand points to the current time. There is no minute hand - people didn’t worry about such small units of time in 1410. The pointer on the hour hand is in fact a golden hand, with fingers and a thumb.
• The outer circle is inscribed with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc up as far as 24). These show ‘Old Bohemian Time’. This is the number of hours since sunset. Since the time of sunset varies during the year, this circle of numbers rotates relative to the fixed Roman numerals, a fact which is not obvious when one is looking at the clock.
• Mounted on the hour hand is a smaller dial that displays the 12 signs of the zodiac. A golden Sun and a silver Moon show the positions of the Sun and Moon against the stars. The Moon is painted half black. It rotates so that it always shows the correct phase of the Moon.
• The main dial is painted in blue, red and black, representing day, twilight and night. The position of the Sun against these painted areas shows the current state. Also on the main dial are lines dividing the day into the hours of ‘Babylonian Time’. These lines divide the daylight into 12 hours. Because of this, the hours themselves vary in length with the seasons.

The calendar dial is directly below the main dial. It was added to the clock in 1490. Around this dial are the 365 days of the year. The days rotate so that today’s date is on top, indicated by a fixed golden pointer. The centre of the dial is purely decorative. In 1865 the clock was refurbished and the present decorative panel was added. It was painted by Josef Mánes and shows scenes from Bohemian peasant life. These scenes represent the 12 months of the year and the 12 signs of the zodiac.

A collection of stickers seen around Prague, which may or may not be linked to some of the following:

1. No US bases initiative
2. The Cobra Snake (party photos website)
3. Pluck (Social media products)
4. Pluck (Comedy string trio)
5. Tall Black Girls (band)
6. The Darling Cabaret (strip club)

When I was young my parents had an oval dining table and we used to put up a net and play ping pong on it. (It requires more skill to master those corner shots).  Now I read it’s the next big thing.  In Prague I discovered that they already apply this approach to chess. Perhaps chess is to Czech Republic as ping pong is to China?

Close to the No bases initiative is a memorial that is a reminder to an earlier protest against foreign military intervention.

From Jan Palach’s wikipedia entry:

The Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 was designed to crush the liberalising reforms of Alexander Dubček’s government during the Prague Spring. Palach died after setting himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in Prague, Czechoslovakia on 16 January 1969 in protest. He was the first of a group of students to sign a suicide pact, but most of the others did not go through with their part, after the well-publicised pleas Palach made on his deathbed about the degree of pain they faced.

The funeral of Palach turned into a major protest against the occupation, and a month later (on February 25, 1969) another student, Jan Zajíc, burned himself to death in the same place, followed in April of the same year by Evžen Plocek in Jihlava.

See also Jan Zajíc’s wikipedia entry.

This is the permanent stand of the No to (American) Bases Initiative on Wenceslas Square in Prague. It has been a permanent feature near the Wenceslas/Horse statue since Tuesday 17 June 2008, and claims that nearly two thirds of the public (in the organisers “unofficial referendum") oppose the plan to build an American military radar base in the Czech Republic.  The stand has gathered an additional 4000 signatures on a petition which demands a referendum on this issue. The organisers have said the permanent stand is a victory against the repressive measures of the Czech government (which has suppressed demonstrations, such as that by Greenpeace).

Here is closer-up photograph of the stand:


The organisers have published 10 reasons to oppose the American base:

1. There is no substantial difference between a radar base and a missile base. They are two integral parts of the same system and they can’t be separated either technically or politically. The whole system can be used both in defense and in offense.
2. If our country plays host to this extraordinarily powerful and technically advanced U.S. radar base, we will become a tool of the unilateral U.S. foreign policy, which is aimed at military hegemony and the so-called war against terrorism. This war has thusfar succeeded only in increasing terrorism, destroying Iraq, destabilizing the region and giving rise to the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
3. Our membership in NATO places no obligation on us to accept the radar base. The construction of the radar base is a unilateral action of the United States.
4. The base will not make us more secure. On the contrary, it will place us in greater danger. At the present time, the Czech Republic has no enemies among states. And missiles and radars are not effective in combatting terrorism.
5. Just as in the case of a missile base, the Czech Republic would have no say in what happens at a U.S. radar base on our soil or what would truly be installed there. The base would be completely under the control of U.S. Air Command in Europe.
6. Such a base whether with radar or missiles will increase international tension, particularly in relation to Russia, and intensify an international arms race, which could spark a serious conflict.
7. Such a base is a potential target for attack. In the event of a conflict between states which own medium-range ballistic missiles, a radar base would be a first priority target.
8. The construction of more bases threatens to spark new cycles of armament around the world. In developing countries, this results in the deepening of poverty for already desperate populations. In Europe, it could mean the end of state ensurance of social security.
9. The effects of such a high-power radar system on nearby residents are not known. The only similar systems are located in remote and unpopulated areas.
10. Effective defense against the threats of terrorism and war requires a decrease in international tension. New bases, which increase tension, will certainly not help in this regard.

Information is also given about the forthcoming demonstration against the planned arrival of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is supposed to sign the treaty on radar on 8 July. There are also posters plastered around the city such as this one in the Old Town.

The demonstration will be on 8 July at 18:00 in Wenceslas Square.

See also George Monbiot in the Guardian on this topic.

This is the famous Charles Bridge, oldest and longest bridge in Prague, named after Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor. The bridge was built on the site of the previous bridge, Judith Bridge, which was not as high above the water level and collapsed in a flood in 1342.

The bridge (seen here from the water) is lined with statues. If you touch one particular statue it is supposed to bring luck. If you touch another it means you will return to Prague. What this precisely means if you happen to live in Prague is anyone’s guess.

Our guide informed me that most of the statues are replicas, in order to protect the original. So all that touching was not very lucky for the poor statues.

Also no definitive word on whether the replicas confer the same blessing as the originals.  It would be somewhat of a bummer if they conferred some other power, such as “You will get stuck in the rain without an umbrella and catch a cold”.

On a lamp post on Wenceslas Square, Prague. There’s a message in here somewhere (and I suspect it’s an advertising one). The lamp pole also reminds me of a World War II bomb. Not that I am familiar with bombs, World War II or otherwise.

This is the view down Wenceslas Square from behind the statue of the king.

It was here that the events of the Prague Spring unfolded 40 years ago. On 21 August 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into the square and two young men were killed in the protests that followed.

This is the St Thomas Catholic church in Prague where Pinkie and I came this morning for a serious morning service at which the Wadham College Choir, Oxford, sang. You can see the lingering evidence of the incense in the photo above. After the service we had lunch at a nearby street cafe with Bluemeanie. We then went back to the church this afternoon for a concert by the aforementioned choir, the last of their tour of Poland and Czech Republic.

The museum of Medieval Torture can be found on the South side of Charles Bridge in Prague. There is a review of this museum over at Anti-War.Com:

Upon entering one of a series of gloomy, cave-like rooms, filled with the implements of the dismal craft that had its heyday from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, you would notice a range of mechanical devices and iron tools (also illustrated in drawings galore), all once meant to pierce, prod, or otherwise drive some poor heretic into the agony of confession. Often in those years before video cameras were available, all this was done in public sight.

And then, as you wound your way through the exhibit, you would come upon one of its centerpiece displays – the “water torture table” to which Bradbury [the head of the US Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel] alludes. After you’d checked out the period drawings of prisoners being tied to the edges of the flat tabletop or read about the interrogation method in which the water-filled abdomen was struck repeatedly with heavy blows, you might stop for a moment to consider the more detailed explanatory text nearby.

It would inform you that, over the course of these centuries, several water torture techniques were developed, one of which involved “inserting a cloth tube into the mouth of the victim [and] forcing it as deep as possible into his throat. The tube was then filled slowly with water, swelling up and choking the victim.” This is, in fact, an almost exact description of what has been described as CIA-style waterboarding.

Bonus link: Links to various torture museums around the world.

This evening I received a short email from a woman working at Service Canada, headed “YAY!” and advising me that we could relax as she was not pregnant, as her period had arrived.  I was obviously very relieved not to have made her pregnant, especially as I don’t even remember us actually meeting…

I may not understand Czech but I can see that something in this warning message (in the hotel lift) has been lost in translation.

This is the Old Town Square in Prague with the Týn Cathedral in the background. This square dates back to the late 12th Century and contains some beautiful historic buildings.

Link: Quicktime panorama of the square at Christmas time.

This is the Charles 4th statue which stands near Charles Bridge in Prague.

It was built in the 19th Century and depicts the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles 4th, (1316 to 1378). He had 11 children by four wives, and one of his daughters (Anne of Bohemia) married Richard II of England in 1382. She died of Plague 12 years later and is buried in Westminster Cathedral.

I spent a couple of hours wandering around the city after work this evening. I was struck by the number of smokers who were out and about on the streets.

It’s a beautiful city of friendly people but there are also an awful lot of tourist shops selling the same old tat, and a great many Irish pubs.