Yesterday started late and finished late, with a few bits and pieces in between. There wasn’t much happening in the pubs and clubs but I had to check them all, one by one, just to make sure.
You know things are reaching the sticking point when you down tools go shopping and then take enormous pride and satisfaction in finally getting a shirt to replace the existing number. It was no longer the shirt I had when I left. I can’t even remember its original colour. I think it was maroon but by yesterday it was Zagrebian grey (see earlier rants for context). New organisms were developing modern communities with known weapons of mass destruction. The problem was they were building roads between colonies and forming alliances. With my socks and jocks already engaged in a low level insurgency, which I have not suppressed, one more item of apparel to rebel would take matters to condition Orange. In my shopping outing I set out to support Czech local industry, hoping to buy myself a homegrown shirt or maybe even a peasant costume so I could blend in, at a freak show at the Prague Fair. That turned out to be mission impossible and I settled on one of the multinational brands. Now I just have to watch the pants.
When they talk globalisation they should stress homogenisation. All the international brands are here, Addidas, Marks and Spencer, Gant (of my new shirts fame) etc not to mention all the international food franchises. Gawd it takes forever shopping in a foreign city. In Australia it is down to a suburban place or a shop in the city. When you don’t know where to start looking it becomes a real time pit. Once you factor in my traditional get lost time hours disappear without blinking. The prices are pretty good. Trying to figure out the exchange rate can be a bit of a challenge. The change centres are crooked. They offer about 17 krona to the dollar if you change over 2000 Oz. Less than that the rate drops to 13 or so. According to my best guess the real rate is about 17.1 to the dollar. On that basis the clothes are very reasonable bordering on cheap. All of that said a serious appointment with the laundry beckons.
I finally got around to visiting the Museum of Communism. Verdict, it was a bad thing. What a revelation, but it is worth saying it again and again. The visuals were OK in parts especially relating to the secret service. The written descriptions and panels were very detailed and a bit turgid. Then again that was communism. Curious that a musuem damning communism (or actually just telling it as it was) uses the leaden and overlong prose made famous by the the Eastern Block C grade propogandists. The short film of events from the late 60s to the Velvet revolution was fascinating. A lot of the footage was taken from official records and police footage. It gives a feel better than any prose. It really was the rule of the uniformed thug.
I couldn’t help wondering whether there was a bit of historical airbrushing going on in picturing the resistance, if that is the word, as it did. The Czechs’ resistence to Communism was not as sustained or dramatic as other parts of the Eastern Bloc. They had their Prague spring, which was effectively a top down change which ended in tears and relatively ineffectual resistence, and Charta 77, more famous outside Cyechoslovakia than effective within, and finally the Velvet revolution, which was late in coming compared with the decomposition of Communism in other Bloc countries by then. There was a lot of bullying and beatings with all that and some deaths in ’69 but a fair bit of quiet in between. Even the display acknowledges there were a huge number of informers and, from memory, over 1 1/2 million members of the Party. On the heavy lifting front other countries did a lot more, the whole of Hungary in 1956 and large slabs of Polish society on and off since 1945 but especially from the 70s onwards (and they continue to make trouble even with democracy – why break a 1000 year habit). Others did a lot less, the Balts – the easy squashability factor I guess - Bulgaria and Rumania. The Czechs sort of sulked a lot and then threw the occasional rock and bottle. Their secret service was very compliant and effective.
What I would love to know is where are all these state security thugs and secret service types now. Not all of them could be museum attendants. T’would’ve be nice to have had one Stalinist like show trial with all these gents in the box, throw into a deep dank hole and then return to a liberal western democracy. Let them get a taste of what it was like. Unfortunately a bit of collective amnesia has descended over the East and many of these crims will probably die in their beds.
I have discovered another Czech winter brew, grog. It is part hot buttered rum, part water and part something else sweet. The first hot sips can cause a shudder but after the throat is coated it is a tasty toaster for a late afternoon. Last night started with a wander into a pub near a restaurant and the big screen had a Michael Jackson top 20. The locals loved it, especially the women. Some of his material holds up very well 20 years later even if the fashion doesn’t. Czechs like their music. Most pubs have one of either a modern playlist blaring or something vaguely resembling German marching songs. The shops have a constant MTV playlist going full blast.
I continued on my slaughter of things exotic with wild boar and dumpling (dumplings of some variety is standard fair in most dishes. If not dumpling then cabbage) with too many steins of ale. Finish a stein and a new one appears like magic.
The public transport here is fantastic. The metro, built by the Communists in the 70s looks eerily like the Melbourne underground loop. I guess the governments were similar, in outlook at least, at the time. The trams cover most of the city and unlike Melbourne trams, run on time. There is not much in the old town and the surrounds that aren’t covered by public transport. Its hard to compare the Sydney or Brisbane system to Prague because I don’t think they have one.
I have been keeping up with current events through some of the on line papers. Always nice to see our government following best practice by holding an inquiry, a pro forma nod to consultation, before introducing an ID card. Gawd, Australia Card mark 2 on its way. It’s too cute for words that Ruddock makes the announcement on a weekend in mid January when it has been on the agenda since mid last year. Now isnt that bound to get the nation’s attention and generate real discussion. It’ll be old news by the time everyone has rubbed the holiday sand out of their hair at the end of month. If I had to guess the report, by carefully selected conservative law and order types, will probably be handed down late on Easter Thursday and the Governments legislation introduced in the Budget session of Parliament in May. Of course, for reasons of national security- whatever that means- it must, because the government says so thats why, be passed for enactment on 1 July 2006. It is enough to make a cat smile.
I used to remind myself that this is supposed to be a small government operation with a bent to the individual over the collective. Nothing like hiring a few more thousand Federal public servants to further regulate our lives in ways which won’t do all that much to protect any of us from any real threats to prove the point. It is just a big spending high Tory outfit. It came as complete shock to read Ruddock using the phrases “war on terror” and “cut down fraud” as bookends to the announcement. War on Terror is today’s political fairy dust. Just sprinkle it around, everyone goes into a daze and falls into line and it is blue skies all the way. Its phrase for every political occasion and what’s more you don’t even need facts to clutter up the beauty of the thing. Want to kill debate, say war on terror (“WOT”), want to get the media on side get a few braid laden military/police types to say in deep baritone WOT again and again, want to have the Federal opposition roll over and beg to have its tummy scratched say WOT to them. Its the marketing brand of the new millenium. Soon WOT will be used to promote dental hygeine and road safety (“if you drink and drive you are letting the terrorists win,” “keeping to the speed limit is necessary in the war on terror”). It will be very dreary and depressing to watch the perfunctory non debate ahead of the inevitable execrable Act. Of course it is really good practice to rush through defective legislation, spend a mozza of public dosh and build another wing on the goverment ediface all while our British cousins have backed away from this sort of monstrosity in the recent past and the yanks are likely to pare back the Patriot Act.
There got that off my chest and editorial closed (for the moment). But it is ridiculous. Thank God for beer. Reading about the quality of debate in Australia requires regular heavy doses of 12% amber intoxicant.
The plan for today is to plan the next 2 weeks and then probably see either the museum of decorative arts or museum of minatures and then have a general wander. If it was your bent you could be seeing museums all day and going to concerts most nights. I have had my fill of Vivaldi this trip and most of these concerts are aimed at the tourist market. There is a nightly 9.18 pm train to Krakow, arriving a little befor 6am the next day. Alternatively there is a 2pm train to Wroclaw. I am inclined to hop tomorrows train to Krakow on a sleeper and then see how Poland treats me- not as badly as I plan to treat it. May head to Warsaw or head off to Slovakia.