Anglicky in Olomouc

Milk Straight From The Tap – Three Bags Full

It's a miserable Olomouc Sunday. For much of the day the dreary rain has fallen on and off and the city has stayed quietly snoozy: without a flat to complete, dogs to walk or imagination to use then most likely it would have been a day spent in bed, doing the lazy beddish things like reading and watching the sort of films rainy Sundays permit. However, in the pursuit of final box clearing, picture hanging and bookshelf sorting much tea has been consumed – perhaps too much. By lunchtime the only thing on offer would be fruit juice or green tea. Or black coffee. Or wine. There is, therefore, only one option for the unashamed tea drinker and that is to search far and wide for something called a 'shop'.

Olomouc shops are peculiar creatures. During the week they operate in much the same way all others operate – people come in, buy stuff and leave. But for much of Saturday and Sunday they completely cease operations and remain firmly shut. If you're lucky you may find someone willing to open on a Saturday morning, but in most other cases the shopkeepers of this lush Haná region disavow weekend spending – even on their turf! It seems that here cash is not the God of all things. It's not that people don't want to go shopping: the large supermarkets are always open and mint it.

Senimo our nearest supermarket, however, is rubbish. This is probably because it used to be an abattoir – eek! The old building actually started life in 1898 as an auction hall but functioned within the meat industry from the 1930s until the 80s. Shortly after the Velvet Revolution the local agricultural cooperative bought the building, carefully restored it and to popular acclaim re-opened it as Olomouc's very first supermarket on the premise that anything is be better than nothing. It compares poorly with the Satanic Tescos and its Dutch cousin Albert, but at least you can buy an industrial-sized bag of bay leaves should the need arise.

By the time we'd walked the dogs round by the river, the store had unsurprisingly shut leaving but one option – the milk vending machine outside. This is not a device that merely drops litre packs conveniently into your waiting hand, oh no. This Italian made contraption pours – yes pours – its milk and you'd better be ready with your bottle.

There is one other popular vending machine in the town hall that dispenses the famously stinky and curiously addictive Olomouc cheese (below) – nom, nom, nom...

We'd brought an empty bottle with us (what – don't you bring empty milk bottles on walks?), put it in the steam-cleaned aperture and promptly dropped our only 50 koruna piece (about £1.67) into the machine, selected the larger of the two options (1 litre) and within seconds the ice cold milk was pouring into and all over the bottle. Great! But there was a problem (there's always a problem): no change. Seeing our remaining 30-something koruna blinking on the LED display we felt that 50 was a lot to pay for just one litre so looked around for something, anything, to put the rest in. We had a roll of poo bags.

The doggy poo bags are notoriously thin and wispish. They don't break in use, but may split in the unreeling just before picking up the dog choc drops. Being upstanding citizens with three twice-daily doggies we always clear up and usually carry one or two with us – just in case. And here was another just in case moment, although it hadn't ever crossed our mind that these polyethyline sacks could ever be utilized to fetch litres of milky goodness. Nevertheless, beneath the benign bovine on Pasteurova (honestly, that's the name of the street – he would have been proud) we managed to fill a further three bags full, leaving only 6 koruna in the machine, and proudly carried the trophy milk home to fill the freezer.

And they say the sense of adventure is dead!

St Alban's - Alone

Every day, even for a little time, we find ourselves alone – that is without the company of spouse, family or friend. That precious alone time might be planned, but is more likely to occur within a quiet work moment, a daily commute, an uninspiring grocery shop, during the hours of a sleepless night or even whilst sitting on the bog (that is, unless one is particularly and perhaps overly social).

Thus, last Tuesday with only Woman's Hour for company, I found myself driving towards the glorious utilitarian landscape of Junction 15, the sprawling M25/M4 connection. As it loomed into view a fearful panic set in. Undoubtedly life is made easier when the concrete highway designed to allow westerly ingress and egress from the nation's capital intersects with a circular one designed to ring it, but there must be many others out there who approach this motorway junction with utter dread. I cannot recall how often I have wished to skip this monotonous stretch of lane selection, speed regulation and urban/traffic planned familiarity. Would that someone else would take the wheel and allow me to take a kip, read the paper, do the crossword or complete a chapter of a book at that point. East of Newbury the M4 surely reaches the lower levels of hell, but it only gets worse after that: the whole M25 is nothing more than the ring of Satan: a terrible necessity in argument only – where would we be without it?

So today alone on this trip I panicked, turned off at St. Albans and had a lazy lunchtime in the medieval town, wandering about the olde worlde streets, taking a tour of the Cathedral and visiting the church where the Memsahib and meself were married a little over 25 years ago.

The cathedral/abbey is of course a beautiful sacred space. Originally built more than 1100 years ago, it has suffered demolition, collapse and well-meaning Victorian architects, yet remains a centre of earnest good will and utility.

The martyred St Alban may or may not have been interred in the shrine (one of only 19 such places in the UK, ya know), but the sanctimonious capital generated from this home-grown saint at the time of Nicholas Breakspeare, or Adrian IV  – the only English pope – made this abbey into the nation's foremost cathedral at the same time. This possibly unique situation allowed the abbott to also be a powerful bishop whose expected duties included the inspection of any religious house in the land... Nya-ha-haaah!!

The cathedral is also about as close as you're going to get to ecumenical heaven – on any day there may be either an Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and even Free Church chaplain, a situation that may also be unique. I wouldn't be surprised if they go on to add an atheist chaplain just to stand around pensively proclaiming the inadequacy of established religion – a bit like this. From the look of one of the west wing doors below, they've already expressed an interest.

So the cathedral and town have survived quite well into their third millennia. The surviving modest little houses display their medieval footings and sloping gabled tiled rooves with unabashed relish, although the usual ubiquitous chain stores and prime location eateries have abounded – you can even order your sausage pappadelle at a prestigious Jamie Oliver restaurant! I also espied a branch of Greggs the Bakers lurking on the high street; an evil place along the lines of Grandma's Cottage designed to harden the arteries and widen the waistlines of honest ordinary citizens to then mercilessly cook them into vanilla slices or caramel doughnuts – someone please send for the woodcutter!

On my way back to the bilious-provoking M25, I stopped to see the miserable looking little church where the Mem and meself tied the knot those many blissful years ago. The world was a different place back then, with iron curtains, cold wars and Woolworths. We were so young, impetuous, naïve and as keen as mustard, living life without money, mortgages or kiddlies. The future looked good…

You see, that's the sort of maudlin nonsense that goes on when you've got more quality alone time than is good for you. 

Iggy & The Stooges at Frýdek-Místek

We'll, it's not often see really big names appear in the Czech Republic, or so we thought. Since our arrival at the beginning of the year we've seen a few big names advertised – Portishead are playing in Prague and Carl Cox is on his way to nearby Brno for a bit o' the ole dancefastic all-night young person mixamatosis and for the Česky fans of no-nonsense rockovy Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Bon Jovi, Uriah Heep, Girlschool (who we saw and can report were truly excellent) and even Suzi Quatro! That such blasts from the past are making it all the way here tells us three things; you're never to old to go back on the road to pay taxes/divorce settlements/etc, that the Czech Republic is now clearly worth the effort, and that the Czechs, like all slavs, love rock – I mean, they really love it!

Neither of us had seen Iggy & The Stooges before but, even though the gig was in another unknwown town, decided we'd better make an effort. The online payment was easy enough and before we knew it pdf'd tickets were a-sittin' comfortably upon my desktop. Ee – Th'wonders o' newfangled e-commerce,eh?

We hired our usual cheapy blue Škoda Felicia, circa 2001, and headed off to Víceúčelová sportovní hala, Na Příkopě 3162, Frýdek-Místek. Where? We didn't know. Until the concert details popped up on the screen neither of us had ever heard of the place. Regardless of exactly where, and only conscious of exactly when, we sped in an easterly direction towards the city of Ostrava and the Polish border away from gentle light of the setting sun.

The Czech countryside really is sublime. Rolling hills covered in thick forest surmounted by medieval turreted castles, in between little ochre tiled roofs of towns eternally nestled amidst the bright green fields each with its own beautiful fat baroque church spire pointing proudly into the deep blue evening skies... the journey was beginning to take on the feel of a Peters' Holiday Tours of Out-of-the-Way Places.

One hour later we were in Frýdek-Místek. I know nothing about this town, except that's where the gig was, that we had missed the turn off to the venue and that the turn-off in the return direction was temporarily closed for roadworks. So with 10 minutes to spare, we raced up and down the hills of this rather nice town looking for a way to get to the gig beside the Ostravice River that divides the Frýdek from the Místek parts – a bit like Buda and Pest in Budapest. Eventually, more by luck than judgement (or perhaps it was my excellent instincts?) we found the road to the venue and parked within 30 metres of the entrance under the flyover being repaired.

The Víceúčelová sportovní hala is an ice hockey rink that has clearly seen better days. Ice Hockey is an intense, oft-violent game wherein two grudge-bearing testosterone-filled bunches of lads or lasses (with long sticks) beat the crap out of each other with the excuse of putting a hockey puck into a tiny net guarded by a Gundam armed robot (also with a long stick). The clientele that appreciate this sort of spectacle may enjoy the almighty collisions and frequent fights on ice a little more than the delicate ambiance of their surroundings. In that respect, this venue was true to form – a weather-worn, futuristic communist-era relic that probably needs more cash to keep it upright than the building is worth. But as an industrial, grunge-fueled rock sweat pit it was perfect.

Queuing outside the 6 pokladny (ticket booths) were occupied by patient babičky (grandmas) as the crowd drank up before being body-/ticket-checked in. The warm-up band had already begun: Tata Bojs (Tata Boys – if that really needed to be pointed out) being a reasonably successful local outfit since 1988, appeared to enjoy their moment and succeeded in winning over the audience. On top of an excellent, well-rehearsed set they had the benefit of a bit of the old local lingo to work up the crowd. Singer-drummer frontman Milan Cais did his best to shake off the obvious Phil Collins comparison by standing on his kit or running around the stage and crooning from time to time, but it just didn't work – I mean, he's got a receding hairline and everything...

 

Before I come to Iggy Pop, I should point out that this gig had 4 beer tents set up on the un-iced rink, but it took us about 20 minutes to queue for our two Radegast beers. The queues didn't diminish – in fact, they got longer throughout the evening. There's something really quite inefficient with the way Czechs serve beer: it must have a 3 1/2 inch head, but even with gentle pouring down the inside of the glass it could take anything up to 5 minutes for the frothy stuff to eventually make minimum serving level. By which time it has begun to get warm. And the queue is getting longer. And my hot little hand has been holding the change all that time. Grrr... This just wouldn't happen in the UK or America or Australia where you get a full pint (none of this fancy culturally-expected maxi-head) and you get it quickly or the customers get irate.

There's no getting away from it, Iggy & The Stooges look old, but they've been doing this stuff since 1967 and have developed a red hot stage presence that, could it be bottled, would make someone a mint. From the get-go they rock 'n' rolled at a sound level that threatened to permanently deafen. Iggy, bronzed skin taut across his 66-year old frame, rolled about in his trademark awkward gait, the result of 40 years of dangerous misuse and, according to a Rolling Stone interview, damage from "a fall I took dancing on an amplifier left me with my spine twisted and a slight limp". His abandon to the music of the Stooges ensured ALL eyes were on him as he paraded through favourites like, "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "No Fun" and so many more. "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell" and "Raw Power", older material now included on a compilation album of the same name, was carried off with unabashed rawness that stayed true to their earlier output.

At one point Iggy invited the kids at the front to climb over the barriers and invade the stage. This they duly did and all went well until one bloke tumbled off into the dark nether regions before the stage. This somewhat sobered Iggy who then ran off for about 10 minutes and left the Stooges to their abstract rock fusion thing. For all the years, the Stooges have fared worse than their famous wrinkly frontman: they looked like they'd be more at home to pipe and slippers. Their sound, however, was as rude and aggressive as you can imagine and they have amounted a huge amount of skill in doing it so well for so long.

In all, the gig was brilliant: furious, aggressive rock that brought the house down. The Česky audience was all very hezký (nice – oh, hezky česky is a bit of a local phrase) – all jiggy, toked up and calling for more and more, but we, being harcore rock n' rollers with an hour's drive ahead of us and all, ran at this point to miss the crush.

Olomouc’s Drunken Sailors

The old medieval part of Olomouc has seen its share of ups and downs, joys and miseries, successes and disasters. The good people of Olomouc have survived assassination of kings, wars and sieges, plagues and fires, religious strife and ideological intolerance. Their buildings are a testament to it all.

That there are buildings here at all is no surprise: the dry, hilltop city rises above a rich agricultural floodplain surrounding it on all sides. Man has lived well here since before Neolithic times and, whether invited or not, many visitors have often put down roots and enjoyed that which city life has offered.

Some of the more recent arrivals, our friends Roy and Sigrun, invited us over to their place in the old town to view a table they were not keeping and thought we might like. Their apartment is in a very quiet des res cobbledy street that appears to have been there forever. This part of town is undergoing development house-by-house. Those with the money are clearly transforming what could easily have been described as medieval slums into plush new residences, ripping out decaying interiors and replacing them with polished concrete floors and stylish cement stairways.

The merit or otherwise of such refurbishment is a moot point – should we preserve every particle of the past as a museum piece, or should the expectations and conveniences of modern life allow property owners to develop as they see fit? Certainly the Socialists prior to the 1989’s Velvet Revolution saw little merit in maintaining such ancient structures. Their attitude to older residential buildings was that of sufferance of the value-laden things of the past, a minimum maintenance of things of the presence and an ideological eye on the glories of the future. Unfortunately, that future was made uninspiring through political interference, with simple, cheap and angular forms that would make an ordinary architect wince – or sigh. Consequently, in 1990 many of the older properties of central Olomouc were near derelict and looked like they would topple in a stiff breeze.

This Olomouc property development bandwagon is an easy one to jump on if one has the readies. Many, however, are not so fortunate. Relative wages here are low: as living costs have risen the possibility of saving enough to put down a deposit on a flat has perilously teetered in the balance. Should the Republic’s financial position continue a steady growth then it is likely that more industrious and financially cautious Czechs should be able to purchase their homes. Others, however, are left to shrug their shoulders and carry on enjoying the sort of lives offered in the Olomouc of the 21^st century.

One such form of proletarian enjoyment widely available for humble Czech folk is to be found in the Herna-bars, the small casinos on street corners that cater for the popular dream of instant gambling success. That these places are fronts for criminal activities are undeniable: common though they may be, they rarely get more than a trickle of punters. The more respectable ones are café-like and offer coffee and drinks under parasol strewn pavements, others provide pizzas. Nearly all of them have flashing TV displays excitedly showing in graphic form the sorts of exciting activities available within: roulette, blackjack, Texas hold-‘em, and the elusive jackpot koruna total: 10,000 and rising – quick, get in there to win… It’s just as well I have never discovered nor fostered my gambling gene.

Czechs like few things more than good music, particularly modern rockovy. The town square is frequently occupied by a performance stage of one sort or another to celebrate a public festival or promote talent via a popular local radio station. Most bars have a performance space occupied nightly, but few bands of any international standing make it here – there just wouldn’t be enough return to justify the expense (and time) of a concert in the provinces. Some do, of course, and such well known names as Alice Cooper, Uriah Heep and even Suzi Quatro are set to perform in nearby Brno later this year.

Everyone smokes! It is hard to visit any restaurant that does not permit it and only the very finest shopping centres strictly prohibit it. (More on this in another post.)

And where, oh where, would the Czech Republic be without its beloved beer*? The lifeblood of the nation, the beautifully made yet comfortingly inexpensive amber nectar serves to ease a few of life’s inequities and burdens. At a Chinese Restaurant we recently bought a fondly remembered Tsingtao, much to our regret – its empty flavour and measly body a decidedly flat experience. How on earth so much of it is drunk in Hong Kong and beyond must surely be put down to pure thirst slaking and necessity.

So, last night we joined our friends Roy and Sigrun at the Ponorka bar, the local smoke-filled speakeasy. Roy, a native Chicagoan who has lived in Olomouc since the mid-90s, was giving his last performance as singer and songwriter before they move to Washington State where Sigrun takes up Chair of Mathematics and Computer Science at Puget Sound. This venue is akin to a small bierkeller in that there are long wooden tables and benches, but is fondly attended by many-an Olomouc crusty, the hazy dreadlocked citizenry who clearly enjoy turning revolving mandalas such as the one on the wall beside the performance area (quite hypnotic after a few pivos). The Czech system of paper chits was in effect whereby the efficient waitress will mark off each beer with a quick pen stroke to be easily totalled at the end of the night. Roy's excellent and intelligent songs commanded attention accompanied for some by an excellent fiddler and accordionist. Somehow the evening passed alarmingly quickly and, not long after the last song with the pub still humming with energy, we had to make our excuses. Before leaving the UK we were part of a barn dance band called Bandwagon that played at weddings, parties, functions, birthdays and anniversaries. With calling led from the Mem, we filled the night with reels, jigs, a few slow numbers and requests we could play until we were worn out, the dancing stopped or the beer ran out. One song we shared with Roy’s band last night was the last, the shanty What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? I confess to not having played it nor heard it performed for probably two decades, so recorded the last bit for posterity noting the incongruity of its performance in Czesky English in a smoky bar in a land-locked central European country by an excited young lad who would not look out of place performing festival rock within the ranks of The Levellers. Memorable.

 

*Unfortunately, beer and other alcoholic 'nápoje' are consumed with gay abandon on park benches and shop front window sills, proving you can have too much of a good thing, (although it is almost technically impossible for a Czech to admit he is an alcoholic).