Andel hearts Turecko

May 15 – 23, Raphael & Michela


Bosphorus cruising

June 3 – 11, Erik


From Ephesus with love

June 18 – 25, Jenny


Jenski in Istanbul!

It was agreed what you could do on a lazy Saturday afternoon when the belated summer in Praha has finally started and the spirit of sport is in the air: Ultimate Frisbee. The park up the hill behind Nove Smichov was a lovely new discovery, too.

More photos here.

So last Saturday was a chilled out sun bathing day, just so we can be prepared for the party tonight. Ah, two players are going away, but new people are coming, as always. Come get severely cheered up. The more the merrier!

Guests next week:

Hey Jenny!

Thank you for the address and telefone! We have heard great things about Club Andel and, specially, about you! Seriously, more than 3 people wrote me telling how nice you are!

Hmmm, should we tell them the truth, or let the lies be believed in so they can live with hope until next week? Ah, what a difficult decision... Whoever wrote them, thanks, thank you all for universally conspiring to lure more victims over to Andel. I guess someone has to do the dirty job to tell them the world is uglier than it looks but maybe not me this time. I mean, I’m nice... and shy.

Specially for Gokkie and Michela: "Alcohol is good for your heart."

For Gokkie who called me and spent half an hour telling me that he decided to change to become a better person by drinking less and working out; and for Michela who doesn't drink and thinks I poisoned Africa with Absinth, well, just to crash your world!

An alcoholic drink a day can significantly reduce the risk for heart disease in men, a new study finds, but women get almost the same benefit with only one drink a week.

The report, which appears online in the British medical journal BMJ, suggests that for women, alcohol intake is the primary protective factor, while for men, it is drinking frequency.

For men, the more they drank, the lower the risk. One drink a week lowered the risk by about 7 percent, two to four drinks by 22 percent and five or six drinks a week by 29 percent. Those who drank every day had a 41 percent lower risk of heart disease than those who did not drink at all. Even among men who had up to 35 drinks per week, the protection persisted.

With women, the trend was different. One drink a week lowered the risk by 36 percent, but daily drinking lowered it by 35 percent. In other words, for women, alcohol consumption had a significant protective effect, but the frequency of drinking had none.

The researchers also stressed that their data said nothing about binge drinking or about the number of drinks per occasion, and Dr. Gronbaek said that drinking was not a substitute for exercise or good diet. "You shouldn't avoid exercise," he said, "and then try to compensate by drinking." (NYT)

Excerpt from the BMJ’s “Prospective study of alcohol drinking patterns and coronary heart disease in women and men”:

Conclusions Among women alcohol intake may be the primary determinant of the inverse association between drinking alcohol and risk of coronary heart disease whereas among men, drinking frequency, not alcohol intake, seems more important.

Cashingout

The CNB is replacing 50 Kc bank notes with widely unpopular coins to prepare for euro adoption.

Planned euro adoption may still be three and half years away, but the Czech National Bank (CNB) is taking its first step to prepare for the transition by removing 50 Kc ($2.23) bank notes from circulation and replacing them with coins.

The CNB introduced the 50 Kc coin in 1993. It won a few international design awards but never caught on with the public. People preferred bank notes because they were lighter and easier to differentiate from smaller coins. Banks also found them easier to deal with.

As a result of their unpopularity, the CNB withdrew most of the coins from circulation.

"The CNB minted dozens of millions of 50 Kc coins, but most of them actually never made it to circulation," said Evzen Sknouril, a currency expert. "People never liked them because they were easy to mix up with the 10 Kc coin." (The Prague Post)

Funny how lots of new comers actually like the 50 Kc coins. I still remember being totally excited when I saw a 50 Kc coin for the first time several months after I arrived:

“…What? Are you going to use that coin? Dude, keep it as a souvenir… you don’t know when you’ll find another one… they are rare!” :)