Beer Makes Beautiful Bodies

Are the Communists still in charge?

Looking at the above tower, it could easily be mistaken for a Warsaw Pact watchtower. Frighteningly it looks remarkably similar to some of the new Affordable Housing being built in the North of England as well.

But it's not.

It's just some local politician in the Czech Republic's attempt to encourage tourism for the region. The main problem, regardless of the design is that there is no huge benefit to climbing the tower, as the view is not much different from that on ground level.

It has had the desired effect and tourists flock to see it.

It's mid-winter and the apple trees are still laden with fruit. It is warm. Unusually warm and therefore it is  consoling to find that climate change is not just confined to the UK. What is refreshingly different is the peace of the place. Here is a village where little stirs. The smells of the countryside are not spoilt by traffic polution. You can walk along the roads without fear of some idiot deliberately driving at you.

You can go to get fresh milk at anytime. Just take a jug to the dairy farm and they will fill it up - fresh from the cow.

We arrived at four o'clock at the local bar. On the gravel outside were laid out two dead and gutted wild boars and a badger. The hunting season was in full swing. Inside the bar sat the hunters, next to the poachers, next to the local policemen. Everyone knew everyone. They had obviously been there for most of the day.

In the middle of the beer and Becherovka drinking males sat a local farmer's wife who was a collector of anything to do with cows. Having passed around the Christmas presents she had received, varying from playing cards to key rings, she stood up and said:

'Now boys, you've gotta see this,' (in Czech) ... at which she stood up, took her jacket off and revealed a new t-shirt. Her front was covered with the head of what looked like a smiling Guernsey cow on a blue background.

The associated throng seemed to be more interested in what lay behind the cow's head. Time for another piwo.