Glittering Prices

I’ve just got back from Prague, where I accompanied Bert who was performing in a concert of the Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band, in which he plays the cymbals. And sometimes the triangle. The KNOB, as it is known back in the homeland, was formed when they were all at school doing their Abitur, or A-levels, and Kurt Nachtnebel was the founder and bandleader. Kurt unfortunately met an untimely end as a result of a blackbird falling down his tuba. But 40 years later the old comrades like to get together once a year for a bit of a trump. Most of them have not moved far from their origins and still live in and around the Neanderthal Valley, in more ways than one. This explains a lot about Bert. Charming and gallant he may be, in a Prussian sort of way, but a Neuer Mann he certainly ain’t.

My only previous visit to Prague had been with my late husband Harold, for Easter weekend 2001, when it was freezing cold and snowing and we had spent the weekend huddled in warm taverns, stoking up on dumplings and recovering from hangovers which felt like Kafka's giant beetle sitting on your head. At least the weather was more pleasant this time. The British influence was in our face all the time, from the presence of M&S and Debenham's on Wenceslas Square to the many groups of stag and hen parties we encountered dressed in team colours or fancy dress. A particularly British concept, the stag/hen citybreak, apart from one group of Americans, no longer in the first flush of youth, who had dressed as the cast of "Cocoon" ! How inventive. Bert thought they were just a group of OAP's from Florida "doing" Europe.

Prague has overtaken Paris and Venice as the most romantic city in Europe, and the clement weather and full moon would have added to the atmosphere, if it hadn’t been for the band. After a communal dinner with the KNOB, which of course ended up with singing of old German favourites such as “Roll out the barrel” and “Show me the way to go home,” we had a brisk march back to our hotel over Charles Bridge, serenaded by three-quarters of the percussion section in 6/8 time. Hardly romantic. I nearly put Manfred’s head through his big bass drum.

The Hotel Leonardo, supposedly a four-star, is in reality a good 3-star with pretensions. The public areas are very “design” and the rooms somewhat quirky. Mine was a little studio with the sleeping area and TV up a ladder on a mezzanine. And the telephone. Which made it a bit tricky if the phone rang while you were sitting on the throne downstairs. The bathroom had no bathtub but a shower big enough for two or even three. The towels however were on the Eastern European Towel Model. Thin and scratchy.

We had planned to see a “Black Light” theatre production, which I remembered from the good old days of Sunday Night at the London Palladium, when there was only one Black Theatre of Prague and it was all done with puppets and very original. Nowadays there are about 50 black theatres using real people (one hesitates to call them actors) with luminous costumes performing tableaux based on such fantasy literature as Alice in Wonderland and Frankenstein, or – scraping the barrel – a “rock extravaganza” based on the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”. We didn’t bother, and in the end went for dinner instead at “Square” on Malostranske Nam., which was excellent. A bottle of wine costs more than a 3-course meal in Prague, but the food and service were excellent, and a special mention to Karol, the delightful Young Man who managed our unruly group with good humour and professionalism. Vi Hornblower would have salivated at the sight of him.

Prague, especially the old town, is full of Pretty Things. To Bert this meant the willowy Czech gels, although to my mind they can’t hold a candle to the young Polish lassies. To me, much prettier were the shiny and sparkly things to be found in every other shop window – amber, garnet and crystal. The jewellery shops were still open at 10 p.m., no doubt hoping to catch the tourists with a skinful of Pilsener Urquell and the spirit of romance. No such luck with Bert, who was more interested in the military surplus stores knocking out fake Red Army fur chapkas, officers’ caps and even weirder headgear such as MiG pilot’s helmet and even an astronaut’s helmet. Puppets, Russian dolls and hand-painted woodcarvings, Mucha posters, as well as Arsenal and Barça T-shirts, made-in-China beer steins and the ubiquitous fridge magnets lure the tourists in droves. I fear Prague has sold its soul to Mammon. Kafka would shake his feelers in despair.