By Ricky, on June 28th, 2016 The River Elbe in Dresden with the Frauenkirche beyond © Ricky Yates
Last Sunday evening, one week later than usual, I officiated at the English-language Anglican Service of Evening Prayer, hosted by the Frauenkirche in Dresden. At the beginning of the service, I welcomed all those attending, explained who I am, and then made three announcements.
The first was to apologise that, once more, my troublesome front crown, having managed to stay in place for the three previous months, had again become loose and then fallen out on Sunday morning. Besides making me look goofy, this also meant that speaking publicly was difficult as numerous speech sounds are made by putting your tongue to your front teeth and it is therefore somewhat difficult to be articulate, if there is a big gap 🙁
Secondly, I thanked everyone for attending, being very . . . → Read More: Last Sunday evening in Dresden
By Ricky, on May 8th, 2015 Marshall Ivan Konev, surrounded by floral tributes © Ricky Yates
Today, I have been struck by the irony of David Cameron and his Conservative Party, ‘winning’ the UK General Election by over 63% of the electorate NOT voting Conservative, coinciding with the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War – VE Day. The reason for the Conservatives ‘winning’ the election by gaining less than 37% of the vote, is because of the antiquated, absurd and completely undemocratic ‘first-past-the-post’ (FPTP) electoral system under which the election was conducted. The irony of this I’ll explain shortly.
Although I live in the Czech Republic, as a British citizen, I had the right to register to vote in this election but I chose not to do so. My reason for not participating was purely the FPTP electoral system. If I had chosen to register . . . → Read More: The British General Election – a view from the Czech Republic
By Ricky, on March 9th, 2014 The Vltava River & Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates
I hope my regular readers will forgive me for tackling a current political issue. However, as Ukraine is almost on the doorstep of the Czech Republic, I thought it appropriate to reflect on how the current crisis is seen here, and the impact the crisis may have in the near future.
Before proceeding any further, I should point out that it is not quite as close as one American TV news channel tried to illustrate. MSNBC successfully reinvented Czechoslovakia, a country that ceased to exist on 31st December 1992, and showed it as bordering Ukraine as can be seen in this link. Just to confirm, whilst Slovakia does border Ukraine, the Czech Republic does not.
What may surprise many people is the fact that Ukrainians are by far the largest group of immigrants by nationality, living and . . . → Read More: The Ukraine crisis as seen from the Czech Republic
By Ricky, on October 30th, 2009 The Dardanelles – Europe on the right, Asia on the left © Ricky Yates
It is a month and a day since I’ve published a blog post and I’m sure some of my regular visitors will be beginning to think that I’ve disappeared off the planet. Rest assured – I haven’t! However, I have been absent from Prague for 23 of those 31 days only returning to the Chaplaincy Flat on the afternoon of Tuesday 27th October having left on the afternoon of Monday 5th October. Over the next few weeks I’m going to write about what I’ve been up to, hopefully making up for the lack of news during most of October.
As the title of this post says, Sybille and I have travelled to Asia and back and we’ve done the whole journey by car! I’ve driven 4,500 miles/7,200 kilometres and we’ve visited twelve countries in . . . → Read More: Travelling to Asia and back
By Ricky, on July 25th, 2009 Dalmatian islands seen from the coast road between Senj and Zadar © Ricky Yates
On Monday 6th July, we drove right across Austria via Linz in the north to Klagenfurt in the south. As we did so, the rain got heavier and heavier so that, as we headed towards the steep mountain pass that would take us into Slovenia, it was positively tipping it down. The weather was no better on the Slovenian side of the border. However, as we joined the motorway to head south towards Ljubljana, (having purchased an expensive vignette to travel relatively few km of motorway), the rain slowly started to ease. And having bypassed Ljubljana and travelled on to Postojna where we left the motorway for the somewhat windy road that leads to the Croatian border, the sun came out as though to welcome us to our holiday destination.
At the . . . → Read More: Mistaken Identity
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