Trabant, Traband

The Trabant was a cheap car made in the German Democratic Republic. In German the car is known as Trabi, and it's now a collector's item. You can make your own (miniature) Trabant by downloading a file that you can print, cut, and fold. Here's the site: http://www.trabi-freunde.net/download.htm
Look for Trabant Bastelbogen near the bottom of the page, under the category "Sonstiges" (various). Or just click here to get the file "bastelbogen.zip"



Traband is a Czech Folk/Experimental group, featured on this week's Magic Carpet (from Radio Prague). They also have a page on Myspace where you can listen to a few samples.

EuroBureau for May 30, 2007

A couple of fun items today that deserve an entry on this website.

First, from Radio Prague's "Magazine" is an item about the Czech prime minister visiting Pakistan.

Is that a Czech flag or a checkered one? Sometimes it's hard to tell. The controversial exhibition showcasing preserved human bodies is turning out to be a hit in Prague - and, a Czech student invents an automated fishing rod! Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarova.
One of the diplomatic skills a prime minister needs to wield is keeping a straight face when one's hosts commit a gaffe. Now the Czech Prime Minister's manners leave a lot to be desired here in the Czech Republic - where he has been known to raise a middle finger at the opposition benches in Parliament, but abroad Mr. Topolanek is tact itself. On an official visit to Pakistan recently his motorcade went past large banners welcoming the Czech prime minister and sporting - wait for it - checkered flags - instead of the blue, red and white Czech flag. Obviously someone who was trying to ascertain what the Czech flag looked like misspelled Czech and got the checkered one instead. If the Czech Prime Minister noticed the goof he never lifted an eyebrow or cracked a joke. His hosts may have got the Czech flag wrong but the banners stated that the Pakistanis were praying for Czech progress and prosperity and like any well-mannered guest Mr. Topolanek acknowledged the spirit of good-natured hospitality. Moreover with a crucial vote on tax reform coming up, the Czech prime minister needs all the prayers he can get.

Here's the link to the Magazine website (of course the contents change each week, so look at it before June 2nd if you want to see the checkered flag).

From Insight Central Europe comes this item about an exhibition at the Bratislava City Gallery, it's called "The Pope Smoked Dope"

Switzerland's largest retailer Migros has been giving one percent of its turnover to cultural activities for the last fifty years. Here's the story on swissinfo. For instance, many of the music festivals held every summer throughout the country are partly financed by the "Kulturprozent".

While browsing swissinfo I found this image and link:

Listen to alphorn music and yodeling and classical music written with parts for alphorn, read up on alpine traditions, you can even create your own alphorn tune and send it to a friend. I think I may have to do a special about this site sometime soon.

We'll also have the last, the very last edition of "The Week Ahead" from Radio Netherlands.
And we'll include a commentary by Perro de Jong. He starts his talk with Bokito, the gorilla that broke out of his enclosure at Rotterdam's Blijdorp Zoo.



Last week we played some of the finalists in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki. If you want to know more about the artists, or the whole contest, check out the Eurovision website. In the Eurovision Shop you can listen to snippets of songs and buy the whole thing.

Swiss Christian Party Attacks Eurovision Song

from swissinfo:
Christian fundamentalists are calling for Switzerland's Eurovision Song Contest entry to be banned because of its allegedly satanic content.
On Tuesday the Federal Democratic Union (FDU) handed in a 49,000-signature petition to the government condemning DJ Bobo's "Vampires Are Alive" as an affront to people's religious convictions.
more

Guide to understanding rude Parisians issued

PARIS (Reuters) - You don't need to speak French to understand the Parisians. You just need to know how to gesture. Or so claims a new guide issued by French tourism officials to help foreign tourists understand Parisians with a list of commonly used gestures with meanings like "shut up".

"Blend in by using them the next time you're in Paris. People will start mistaking you for a native in no time," says the online guide issued by the Ile-de-France regional committee of tourism at www.cestsoparis.com.

Complete article from Reuters

Scots dump 40m poo in Edinburgh field

Giant Poo as seen from space

Oslo hotel bans Cuban guests

January 5, 2007
Associated Press

Oslo — An Oslo hotel owned by the U.S.-based Hilton Hotel Corp. faced protests, a boycott and a police complaint this week after refusing to book rooms for a Cuban delegation because of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

The Cuban delegation, set to attend a travel fair in Oslo this month, planned to stay at the Scandic Edderkoppen Hotel in the city centre, as they had on five previous visits.

However, the 140-hotel Scandic company was bought by Hilton in March, and the Cubans were informed in December that they would have to find another hotel due to the American boycott.

On Friday, the 300,000-member Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees announced that it was boycotting all Scandic hotels in Norway, joining a wave of protests that started when the ban on Cuban guest became news on Thursday.

Micheline Calmy-Rey elected Swiss President

Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has been elected Swiss president for 2007, only the second woman to hold the office in the country's history.


The joint session of the two parliamentary chambers on Wednesday also named Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin vice-president.

Calmy-Rey will keep her foreign ministry portfolio when she takes over the ceremonial one-year post from Moritz Leuenberger, on January 1.

The 61-year-old Social Democrat received 147 votes (out of 192 valid votes), the poorest result in presidential elections for nearly 70 years.

However, she enjoys a high level of support among the public and regularly tops popularity polls for Swiss politicians.

more

Man-made tremor shakes Basel, Switzerland

from Swissinfo:

Drilling work for a planned geothermal power plant in Basel triggered a small earthquake on Friday that caused minor damage to buildings.

The canton Basel City prosecutor has launched an investigation to find if the company behind the Deep Heat Mining project should pay for repairs.

The tremor was felt shortly before 6pm and measured 3.4 on the Richter scale according to the Swiss Seismological Service. Normally, there are three or four earthquakes of this size annually in Switzerland.

Local police and fire departments received hundreds of phone calls from worried citizens, and some buildings suffered from cracks and broken tiles. Nobody was injured.

Basel is one of the areas in Switzerland most prone to seismic activity. In 1356, the city was almost entirely destroyed by a 6.5-magnitude earthquake.

more

Too warm in your house?

Why not stay at the Ice Hotel in far northern Sweden?

from their website:
"Over the past seventeen years, we have built a new hotel of snow and ice every winter. It sounds like a fairy tale, but in fact, it is a dream – a dream turned into reality year after year.

ICEHOTEL is situated in the village Jukkasjärvi, 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden. The heart and backbone is the River Torne flowing freely through the unspoilt wilderness. Covered with a meter thick ice layer winter time the river is the source of all our art, architecture and design. The pure water and the steady movement of the river creates the clearest ice possible."

A Christmas Goat?

from Radio Sweden:

A town north of Stockholm is hoping this year to protect its annual giant Christmas goat from vandals.

Every year the town of Gävle sets up a 13 meter tall version of the traditional straw Yule goat. And almost every year the goat has been destroyed, usually by fire, but once run over by a car, and another year having its legs cut off.

But for the 40th anniversary of the custom Sunday, local officials had this year’s goat doused in fire-resistant chemicals usually used on airplanes.

In the past, resourceful vandals have proved ingenious in outwitting guards and security cameras. Last year two vandals disguised themselves as Santa Claus and a gingerbread man and ignited the goat by firing burning arrows at it.

external link

Oslo gay animal show draws crowds

From BBC News:

Curators say a Norwegian exhibition on homosexuality among animals has been well received, despite initial indications of strong opposition.

The Oslo Natural History Museum opened the show last week and says it has been well attended, not least by families.

Organisers reported early criticism of the project, and being told by one opponent they would "burn in hell".

But there has been strong interest in an aspect of animal behaviour the museum says is quite common.

Rest of the article

Buy Nothing Day

Renaissance masterpieces found behind bedroom door

LONDON (Reuters) - Two lost paintings by Italian Renaissance master Fra Angelico have turned up in a modest house in Oxford in a discovery hailed as one of the most exciting art finds for a generation.

The works -- two panels each painted with the standing figure of a Dominican saint in tempera on a gold background -- are expected to fetch more than 1 million pounds at auction.

They were discovered behind a bedroom door in a terraced house when art auctioneer Guy Schwinge was called in to carry out a valuation after the owner of the house. librarian Jean Preston, died in July.

rest of the article

Spanish gays blast "old-fashioned" dictionary

From Reuters UK:

MADRID (Reuters) - A gay rights group on Tuesday blasted the top authority on the Spanish language for failing to recognise same-sex marriage in its latest dictionary.

Marriage continues to be defined as a union between a man and a woman in the Real Academia Espanola's Essential Dictionary of the Spanish Language published this week, ahead of the appearance of the full version in 2013.

"Marriage now in Spain and other countries is no longer just a contract between a man and a woman ... It is a reality and the academy should include it", Beatriz Gimeno, spokeswoman for The Federation of Gays and Lesbians told Spanish radio station SER.

rest of the article

The Mugs Have Arrived!

The EuroBureau mugs (see a couple posts down) have materialized and are awaiting dispatch to your domain. All we need is a $50 pledge to KMUD.
Who would want such a mug? You could literally be the only one with a EuroBureau mug in your entire state! How's that for individualism?

KMUD certainly could use your support, and the EuroBureau crew would be happy to send you one of these mugs.

Thank you,
Merci,
Dankeschön,
Grazie,
Děkuji,
Kiitos,
Tack,
Spasibo

etc.

P.S. Have we mentioned that there are only 36 mugs total?

Tomatino: The world's largest tomato fight

You heard about it on the EuroBureau:
The Tomatina -- a picture gallery from cyberpresse.ca

The Royal Mail's New Christmas Stamps

The Royal Mail's 2006 X-mas Stamps
London - Santa looks like he has stopped for a toilet break on one of this year's Christmas stamps.

The collection, on sale on Tuesday, shows Santa sitting on top of a chimney.

The collection has upset the Church of England, which claims they contain no Christian message.

There are snowmen, reindeer and a Christmas tree but no Three Wise Men, no manger and no baby Jesus.

A church spokesperson told the Mirror: "We regret the Royal Mail have decided against continuing last year's welcome return to Christian-themed designs."

Royal Mail said its stamps swapped between religious and non-religious themes each year.

The EuroBureau Mug

Finally something for the closet EuroBureau fan, too shy to advertise his or her taste for the program with the bumper sticker, yet capable of sheltering their coffee cup from surprise visitors, in the intimacy of their own home, keeping their 'penchant' for the exotic private.








So how do you get one? Make a pledge for a regular membership ($50) with KMUD and this cup can be yours!
Truth is: KMUD needs your support. If you enjoy EuroBureau, and you haven't contributed to our radio station, please do so now. Call (+1) 707 923-3911, in the US you can call 1-800-568-3723.
We, JJ and Simon, had the mugs made at our cost and we give them to KMUD so you, dear Listener, can have something to sip your soup from, or to lick that latte foam off.

Nice day for a cream wedding

from www.metro.co.uk
Friday, October 13, 2006

Viktoriya Shtefano, in puffs
Valentyn Shtefano, a baker in the Ukrainian town of Uzhhorod, gave his fiancé a wedding to remember- when he made her wedding dress out of 1,500 cream puffs.

Shtefano – rapidly gaining fame for his confectionery creations, which have included a 2-foot-long 1920s-era Cadillac made out of caramel and cream puffs, and cakes shaped like a pair of breasts – made the dress for his bride-to-be Viktoriya to wear at their wedding in August.

The finished creation weighed 20lb.

After initial attempts at sewing the (empty) cream puffs together failed when the dress crumpled, he instead opted to build a wedding-dress shaped frame. He then delicately attached the individual puffs to the frame, and Viktoriya model the dress and frame every night for several hours so that he could add more puffs.

Caramelized sugar was employed to create Viktoriya's bouquet, necklace and crown.

After some initial scepticism, Viktoriya came to think the dress was great: 'At first, it was even a little embarrassing, - cameras, interviews - but after a couple of hours, I didn't even want to take it off.'

Wanted: Boobs

EuroBureau reported on this a few weeks ago. Original article from www.metro.co.uk

A German plastic surgeon hunting women who never paid for their operations has produced what may be the greatest 'wanted' poster in history. He's published pictures of their enhanced breasts.

He hopes that publicising the pictures of the breasts will help police track down the women, who absconded from the clinic where the surgery took place without paying.

One of the women - who gave her name as 'Tanja' - asked to go out to get some 'fresh air' after the £5,400 (€8,000) was completed. She never came back.

Michael Koenig, the Cologne surgeon after the women, said: 'The women registered under fake names. After the operations, which lasted about an hour, they just ran away,' he told Germany's Bild newspaper.

Bild also published a very large picture of two of the breasts in question.