A former Dutch Minister of Justice, Joris Demmink, is being investigated by a journalist called Wim van de Pol, here in Prague, for his affair with a Czech male prostitute called Libor Čtvrtlík, who played in a couple of gay porn movies.
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A new internet bank - mBank -, from Poland, is arriving in the Czech market within the next couple of months. It will advertise itself as the bank with the least amount of bank fees in the country. They will offer most services for free and are now doing a research about the other local banks' fees, to be able to launch with absolutely all fees lower than any other bank here. The owners are actually German, also behind Kommerz bank.
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A2 is a weekly intellectual newspaper made by former members of Literární Noviny who fled Jakub Patočka's extremisms a couple of years ago. It is a very good product, much more dense and varied than Literarky. But everybody keeps quiet about who sponsors it. Why would someone hide that is the investor behind A2? Is there anything rotten in his closet? Tip: he is French...
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The Vietnamese community in ČR is becoming much more influential, educated and politically engaged than they used to. A younger generation of Vietnamese immigrants, who have grown up and studied here, with very little connection with Vietnam itself, is taking over. This new generation did not suffer the hardships their parents did, having come to play a role in their businesses already in a later stage, when Vietnamese families had made enough money so as to leave the false brand clothes' businesses for mini-markets of medium size. These younger Vietnamese speak and think in Czech and think of this land as their only home. They count with the strict Asian upbringing, having been trained to value hard work (the opposite of the mainstream culture of their Caucasian counterparts) and dedication to studies. Last week, I was invited to a fund-gathering party, where Vietnamese under 30 years of age discussed forming lobbying groups to act in all political parties, from the Communists to the Greens. I was invited as a cultural anthropologist, specialist in Czech behavior, to help them map out the current moment.
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An American who works as a lobbyist for China in ČR often boasts to business contacts that he owns the homeless-magazine Nový Prostor, having been heard making that false proclamation by me and a few friends many times, at Café Slavia. He used to work for New York's alternative newspaper Village Voice in the 1960s and 70s, but moved to Prague about 15 years ago.
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Sophia Loren's son is in Prague. He is doing research about the possibility of shooting a film here. He was sharing a pipe with a production assistant from Barrandov at L'Infer Rouge last night. Both ended up at Neon bar on Balbínova.
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Jan Němec, who was substituted by Jakub Železný as moderator of Události a komentáře, is not very happy about being sent to obscurity to ČT24. It was especially painful for him because he was the only one substituted. If Daniela Drtinová had been changed as well, he would understand it as a re-formatting, refreshing of the newscast. He feels that the top people decided that Jakub is better than him.
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It was from Petr Dimun the idea of trying to make Paroubek more appealing to younger voters (after the CzechTech violence he became very unpopular among teenagers) by taking a soft stand on marihuana use publicly. The recycling of the idea that was used as an unsuccessful desperate last try, by the Unie Svobody party, before dying, caused a lot of negative reactions from Moravian sections of ČSSD. But Dimun stays, even if he is not liked by many because of his yuppie/noveau riche style and for his abrasive self-confident looks. The truth is that Dimun has talent, he thinks strategically and has balls, which is rare around here. He refuses to be average, which is yet another rarity, and takes risks, dares, is audacious.
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Because of his huge collection of boots, Petr Dimun is being called by a close friend "our Imelda Marcos"... A former co-worker also pointed out that he has an oddly close relationship with his sister - "as you only see in American films", she added -, while his supposed Slovak girlfriend was never seen with him.
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A reader asked me how much ČTK charges its clients, after reading an article here on Aktualne.cz about that news agency's lack of flexibility in the contracting of their services. I have a different kind of experience with ČTK. I had official meetings about the renewal of daily Metro's contract with them and they were very flexible, especially after I threatened to quit their services... They offered to charge separately for photos and they said they could produce 3 to 4 local pictures per day for each of the 12 towns we had special mutations for, and, on top of that, that they could have them before my ridiculous 16 o'clock deadline. Also, they were willing to buy foreign photos I would choose from Reuters and give them exclusively to my daily, hiding from the rest. They also made a special deal about Internet use of their products, plus a barter of advertisement in Metro (I am not sure why ČTK needs advertisement, but...) The price? For us, ČTK ended up costing about 800 thousand crowns per month.
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Lenka Nedbálková, better known as Vlastimil Tlustý's former young lover, may now be having sex (not an affair, one of her colleagues told me) with yet another older ODS member.