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A very special Sunday morning

Silvia (Slovak), Karen (American), Ata (Iranian), Yours Truly (English) Jack (Irish) © Sybille Yates

To worship at St. Clement’s, Prague on any Sunday is always a great joy, with the possible exception of a few occasions in the depths of winter when coping with the cold can be a little difficult 🙁 But our worship yesterday morning was particularly special for two reasons.

Firstly, my good friend and ministerial colleague, Rev’d Dr Karen Moritz, was our preacher. As I have explained in two previous blog posts, ‘Welcome to another Karen‘ and ‘Pentecost in Prague‘, Karen is an ordained minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and since September 2010 has been a Mission Co-worker with the Ceskobratrská církve evangelické / Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, (Lutheran – Presbyterian), working in the Ecumenical Department at their denominational headquarters. The CCE / ECCB, are the largest Protestant denomination in the Czech Republic and are also the owners of Kostel sv Kliment where we worship.

Karen is licensed under the Ecumenical Canons of the Church of England, to preach, help in the administration of Holy Communion and to lead non-Eucharistic worship. She is a much loved member of the St. Clement’s congregation and a great support to my ministry. As always, it was wonderful to be spiritually fed by her preaching, rather than to always be giving out myself. You can listen to her sermon from yesterday by following this link to our Church website.

The second reason that this morning’s worship was so special was because I conducted the baptism of an adult young man named Ata. Ata is an Iranian Christian who, because of his adoption of the Christian faith, has had to flee his home country and is currently seeking asylum here in the Czech Republic. He has been worshipping with us for several weeks, supported by two female friends, Darina (Czech) and Silvia (Slovak), both of whom also speak Farsi.

It has been a privilege to spend time with Ata, preparing him for baptism, aided by Silvia who has translated into Farsi when Ata has had any problems in understanding my English. One of the many things that has impressed me about Ata, is the way he brings his Farsi New Testament with him to Church, so he can follow the Epistle and Gospel readings and improve his English at the same time. Ata also has a most engaging smile as you can see in the photograph at the beginning of this post.

It was very moving to hear Ata publicly declare his Christian faith before the multi-national St. Clement’s congregation yesterday morning – by my calculation we had at least twelve different nationalities present. Following his baptism and Ata receiving his baptism candle representing the light of Christ, the congregation burst out into a spontaneous and long round of applause. He also received many warm greetings at the Peace.

Ata and Silvia added one final nice touch to a very special Sunday morning, by bringing various Iranian specialities which they shared with us at Coffee Hour following the service. May Ata continue to ‘shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father’.

FK Dukla Praha vs. FK Teplice

On Thursday 20th February, my son Phillip and his girlfriend Lisa, flew into Prague for a four day visit. Yours truly paid for the flights as a birthday and Christmas present 🙂

Their visit fortunately coincided with the resumption of the Czech football season following its mid-season break. Like many leagues in Central Europe, the Gambrinus liga, (the top tier of Czech football), cease playing during the period when harsh winter weather is most likely to occur. There had therefore been no matches since the very beginning of December. It is ironic that this winter has been so unusually mild in the Czech Republic, that matches could have continued to be played right through the mid-season break.

Immediately behind where the Chaplaincy Flat is located, is the stadium of FK Dukla Praha, one of the four Prague football clubs currently playing in the Gambrinus liga. Phillip and I have often talked of going to see a Dukla home game together and the evening of Friday 21st February, finally gave us the opportunity to do so.

FK Dukla Praha were playing FK Teplice, a clash between two teams respectively fourth and third in the league. Not surprisingly, it was one of the weekend round of matches chosen for live television coverage, meaning the kick-off was at 20.15, rather than Dukla’s normal starting time of 18.00 on a Friday evening.

A most entertaining game resulted in a 3-1 win for Dukla with all their goals being scored in the first half. The Teplice consolation goal came near the end of the second half. It was an ‘own goal’, the ball coming off the head of Dukla defender Marek Hlinka. He had previously scored the third of Dukla’s goals and so had the dubious distinction of scoring at both ends 🙂 The result meant that the two teams swapped places, with Dukla moving up to third and Teplice dropping to fourth.

As I’ve previously highlighted in a blog post from October 2011, there are numerous contrasts between attending a top flight football game in the Czech Republic, and attending a similar game in the UK. My ticket cost 130k? (just over £4.00) which is about 10% of what an adult might pay to attend a Premier League game. And for 30kc (just under £1.00), you could buy 0.5l of Gambrinus beer and take it with you to drink whilst watching the match! One nice touch was the beer being served in strong plastic ‘glasses’ on which a deposit of a further 30kc had to be paid. But this was reimbursed when the ‘glass’ was returned at the end of the match.

There was a small police presence outside the ground but none within it, so far as I could see. Inside the ground, there were a number of stewards who had very little to do except watch the game, bearing in mind that the total attendance was only 1958. And whilst there was a band of more enthusiastic fans singing and chanting in a group well below us in the main stand, nearer the pitch, there was no foul and abusive language to be heard.

Instead, during the match, I could not but help listen into a fascinating conversation going on behind me as a Czech man explained various aspects of the game, to the young lady sitting alongside him, doing so in second-language English. I eventually discovered, (once I let on I could understand every word they were saying 🙂 ), that the young lady was the Czech man’s Armenian girlfriend. He not speaking Armenian and she not speaking Czech, second-language English was their means of communication.

Altogether, it was a most enjoyable evening with the added bonus that it only took ten minutes to walk home with the whole route being either downhill or on the level!

Phillip & Lisa enjoying the game © Ricky Yates

Is Prague safe?

The centre of Prague from Letna © Ricky Yates

This is a question which I get asked from time-to-time, and in various forms, is one many of my congregation also get asked by their family and friends. So for anyone contemplating a visit to the delightful city of Prague, or thinking of coming to live in the Czech Republic in the near future, here is my answer to this question.

There is an inevitable tendency to think that where I normally live is safe, and to question the safety of anywhere else. This comes about because of familiarity – I am familiar with where I live and therefore I think it is a safe place. The worst offenders in this regard are Americans, partly because roughly two thirds of the American population, have never set foot outside the borders of their own country.

The reality is, that of all the nations in the developed Western world, the United States of America is actually one of the least safest places to live. It has one of the highest murder rates per head of population – 4.7 per 100,000. Compare this to the United Kingdom, where the rate is 1.2 per 100,000. And the Czech Republic? The most recent figures from 2012, show a murder rate of 0.8 per 100,000. So in simple terms, there is the answer to the question in the title of this post.

As in any major city, there is a certain risk of petty theft which any visitor or resident needs to be aware of. This usually takes the form of pickpocketing in busy places, such as Charles Bridge on a sunny summer’s day, or in crowded tram and metro carriages. Simple precautions, such as making sure your handbag or rucksack is closed properly, and not putting your wallet in your back trouser pocket where a thief can easily access it, are the best ways to avoid becoming a victim of this sort of crime.

Petty theft used to be a far bigger problem in Prague some years ago, than it is now. Because petty theft was giving the city a bad reputation, there was a major police effort to crack down on it, before it caused further damage to the important tourist trade. The effects of this is born out by my own experience which I do accept may not be statistically accurate 🙂

I have now lived in Prague for nearly five-and-a-half years. During the first eighteen months of my time here, two members of my congregation were victims of petty theft. One had her shoulder bag slashed whilst on a crowded tram, and various bank and credit cards stolen. The other had her mobile phone taken from her pocket whilst travelling in a crowded metro carriage. Since then, I’m only aware of one other congregational member who has suffered in this way – another female who had her iPhone stolen, though she admits she was rather careless with it.

One other way in which tourists can become victims of street crime, is to respond to shady individuals in the streets, who offer to ‘change money’ for you. Just ignore them and instead use a bank. Or draw Czech currency from an ATM using your bank debit card. You will get a far better exchange rate, without the risk of having your wallet snatched or being given counterfeit notes.

Quite honestly, the greatest risk to life and limb in Prague, are trams and motor vehicles. In simple terms, do not have an argument with a Prague tram – you will always lose! Except where a pedestrian crossing is controlled by lights, trams to do NOT stop for pedestrians. That is the reason the words ‘Pozor Tram‘, are painted on the tarmac before crossing tram lines!

Officially, all motor vehicles are meant to stop and give way to pedestrians at zebra crossings. Unfortunately, there are a proportion of Czech drivers who either ignore this law or believe that their urgency to reach their destination, is vastly more important than your right to cross the road in safety. Just be aware of this and exercise your right of way with caution.

Even late at night, Prague is a very safe city. I know from personal experience that I would much prefer to travel on the Prague Metro late at night, than on the London Underground. Several other people that I know, have expressed similar sentiments. Of course, there are a few areas of the city which are best avoided late at night, in particular, several streets off Václavské námestí / Wenceslas Square. This is where certain of the more unsavoury aspects of city life can be seen, and young ladies are best advised not to walk through there wearing short skirts, or there is the risk of being mistaken for what they are not!

However, with that one proviso, and by taking simple precautions against petty theft, Prague is a very safe city both to visit and in which to reside. A place with far less dangers than many other cities in the developed Western world.

Happy Fifth Birthday to my blog

A rare sight - Charles Bridge with hardly any tourists! © Ricky Yates — A rare sight – Charles Bridge with hardly any tourists! © Ricky Yates

Tomorrow, Tuesday 4th February 2014, this blog will be five years old. My first ever blog post, entitled ‘Episcopal Taxi Service‘, was published here on 4th February 2009. Five years later, this is post number two hundred & fifty eight.

In some respects, I’m a little disappointed with myself. Two years ago, I set myself the target of publishing fifty-two blog posts in the year – an average of one a week. As I explained twelve months later, I eventually only managed fifty. This year, having set myself the same target, I have again fallen short as, with this post, I have only managed to publish forty-six.

On the positive side as I look back over the past five years, I am quite pleased with what I have achieved. For example, if you scroll down and click on ‘Select Month’, under ‘Archives’ in the right-hand side bar, you will discover there isn’t a single one of the past sixty months, when I haven’t published a blog post. And in fifty-nine of those sixty months, it has always been more than one!

Without blowing my own trumpet too loudly, I do contrast this with several other blogs I’ve followed over the time that I’ve been blogging, which have gone well for a while and then have quietly died. Or those that start out very well-intentioned, and then have failed to manage more than two or three posts. If you are going to first build and then maintain interest in your blog, it is essential to add a new post at reasonably regular intervals which is what I have always tried to do, even though I haven’t done so quite as frequently as I would have liked to have done.

In some respects, my blog has become far more widely read and appreciated, than I ever could have imagined when I started writing it five years ago. As I’ve previously explained, the original aim was to update family, friends and former parishioners in the UK, about my new life in Prague and my role as the Anglican Chaplain. But I now seem to have gained a following amongst English-speaking Czechs, both those living in their country of origin and others currently residing elsewhere. Additionally, I appear to be read by other English-speaking expats living in the Czech Republic and by both current and former members of my Prague and Brno congregations.

One very satisfying result of my five years of blogging is that it has brought people to Church. Just a few weeks ago, I was standing at the door of the Church, shaking hands with members of the congregation following our Sunday Eucharist. A British couple who were visiting Prague, introduced themselves and told me that they had decided to come and worship at St. Clement’s simply because they had read my blog!

Another reason why my blog attracts as many visitors as it does, is that a small number of posts, rank highly in Google and other search engines, for the topic they cover. An enquiry as how to register a British or Irish right-hand drive car in the Czech Republic, will promptly highlight my two posts from 2009 – ‘Driving on the ‘right’ side of the road‘ and ‘Check this Czech car out!‘. Consequently, I’ve several times generated business for my friend Adrian Blank, who was so helpful to me in getting the ‘Carly’ through all the necessary hoops nearly five years ago.

I also really ought to be on commission from the Czech Tourist Board as my post from January 2011, entitled ‘Why I like living in Prague‘, remains as one of the most popular landing pages for new arrivals to my blog.

A major change in my blogging practice came at the end of May 2012 when I started using a brand new laptop computer, one on which I still work. This, together with the ever-increasing availability of wifi internet connection in restaurants and hotels, has allowed me to both write and published blog posts, without being located in the Chaplaincy Flat in Prague. Thus in June 2013, when flooding caused us to lose our internet connection for seventeen days, I was able to publish a post using the wifi provided by Bar-Restaurace U Topolu. Later that month, I both wrote and published a blog post, whilst on holiday in the Orlické hory.

This fifth birthday for my blog, has come immediately following the events I described in my previous post – the publication of an abbreviated and very poorly translated version of one of my blog posts, by the the online Czech tabloid Prásk!, both without any link to my original or seeking my consent. I have written to the Director of PR and communications of the offending media company, seeking a published apology, but have yet to receive any reply. However, without condoning the behaviour of the Nova media group, I’m increasingly taking what has happened to me as a back-handed compliment.

It has resulted in a massive increase in visitor numbers to my blog, with numerous English-speaking Czechs leaving interesting and appreciative comments. And the number of Facebook ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ for ‘How to be Czech in ten easy steps‘, yesterday went past 8,000! Twelve days after the offending article was published online, my blog which normally has around fifty or sixty visitors each day, still had well over four hundred. Clearly I had better take full advantage of my new-found fame 🙂

So as ‘Ricky Yates – an Anglican in Prague’, enters the sixth year of publication, I shall seek to continue to write and reflect upon my experience of ministering to English-speakers from around the world and living as an expat myself in this fascinating city and the wider Czech Republic. Hopefully, those who have recently discovered the blog for the first time, will continue to visit.

Whilst I have a number of plans for future blog posts, if there are any particular topics my regular readers would like me to tackle, please let me know your thoughts. In the meantime, join with me in raising your glass to celebrate the fifth birthday of ‘Ricky Yates – an Anglican in Prague’.

I must be a good writer – my blog has been plagiarised!

An example of Prague architecture to brighten a dark winter day © Ricky Yates

By far the most popular post on my blog, is one I wrote in February 2013 entitled, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps‘. As I explained in a follow up post last month, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps – revisited‘, the original post almost immediately went viral resulting in the blog getting 2,040 visits, the day after it was published. And as explained in that follow-up post, there was another major surge of interest in the first half of December 2013.

But all of this pales into insignificance in the light of what has happened in the last few days. The reason – an online Czech tabloid ‘newspaper’ Prásk!, has published in Czech, a completely plagiarised version of ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps’. To see it, follow this link .

It is one the worst examples of tabloid journalism I have seen in a very long time. The headline reads in translation, ‘Shocking instructions from an American website: Ten Steps on how to become Czech’. I presume that, purely because my blog has a dot com domain, the ‘journalist’ has immediately assumed that the author is American and the website is based in the United States. Wrong – the author is British and has lived in Prague for over five years. Incidentally, I do have great difficulty calling the creator of this article a ‘journalist’ – his activities are a complete denigration of an important profession.

What follows is a completely plagiarised version of my blog post. In places, what I wrote has been abbreviated. In other places, in particular under point seven, there are additions which are not part of my original text. Nowhere is there any acknowledgement of the source of the original article.

The article is illustrated with five photographs. Three of them are from microstock sites to whom I assume, the publishers have paid for the rights to use them. However, the other two photographs have been pulled directly from my blog post. One of them, the photograph of the lady in skin tight black jeans and knee-high white boots with serious heels, is from a free image site. It was found by Sybille for me to use, hence it appears in my blog without acknowledgement. But the other, of various pairs of shoes outside a door, is my own photograph and appears on my blog as © Ricky Yates. Yet, in total breach of the law of copyright, the publishers of Prásk! have decided they can use it without permission or acknowledgement.

Prásk! is published by the same media company who own TV Nova, a major commercial television channel here in the Czech Republic. Imagine that I made a video of one of their popular programmes, put it on DVD and started marketing and selling pirated copies. Their lawyers would be down on me like ton of bricks in no time at all. Please note CET 21 spol. s r.o., who claim copyright to the whole of the prask.nova.cz website, including the plagiarised version of my blog post, the law of copyright, also applies to you!

I am extremely grateful to Igor, someone who I do not know, who kindly left a comment on my blog late last Thursday evening, alerting me to the plagiarised version of of my blog post that had been published by Prásk!. He asked, ‘Did you give them permission?’ followed by a smiley. I think he already knew the answer! Thank you again Igor!

Fortunately, the publishers of Prásk!, allow people to leave comments. Within an hour of publication, one person had already left a link to my original blog post. Several others had also pointed out that I was British and not American and that I lived in Prague. Of course there were others who took no notice of this information and instead left rude comments about Americans.

Very late on last Thursday evening, I left the following comment.

‘As several commenters have already pointed out, the original article can be found here https://rickyyates.com/how-to-be-czech-in-10-easy-steps/ & I am the author. This is a shortened & plagiarised version of it. Clearly prask.nova.cz have not heard of the word ‘copyright’. In particular, the photograph of shoes before the door is my photograph which I have not given permission to be used. prask.nova.cz could also spend a few minutes doing a little research – I am British, NOT American, & have l lived in the Czech Republic for over five years. However, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’.

I am pleased to say that this comment, despite being written in English, rather than Czech, at the time of writing, has received 48 ‘likes’.

But the most amazing outcome of this act of plagiarism, has been the impact on visitor numbers to my blog. On Thursday 23rd January, the day the Prásk! article was published, this blog had 5,272 visitors. On Friday 24th January, it was 8,695 visitors, more than four times the previous highest total of 2,040. Today, as it is just approaching midnight, the total has passed 4,000. I suspect that this proves the old saying that, ‘All publicity is good publicity’.

Likewise, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps’, now has over 6,400 ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ on Facebook and has been ‘tweeted’, forty-seven times. As Sybille keeps reminding me, I need to get on and finish writing my book, ‘How to be Czech’, ASAP! It seems that plenty of people will want to buy it.

In the meantime, whilst I cannot afford a copyright lawyer, via this post and in any other ways possible, I shall seek to embarrass the publishers of Prásk!, their ‘journalist’ who does not even give his name but only his initials ‘pul’, and the management of TV Nova and the media company CET 21 spol. s r.o.. As another of my commenters has remarked, ‘The behaviour of Prásk! tabloid is unacceptable and repugnant. I concur!