Tributes to Havel

I had to go to Václavské náměstí today anyway, so I stopped to take a look at all the tributes to Václav Havel that were displayed around the statue of Svatý Václav (the Saint that Havel shared the first name of) at the top of the square.  I overheard one kid ask about why it says svatý Václav above the tributes and if that's because Havel is a saint, so he was rather confused.  The Mum just told him that it's a coincidence that the saint shares his name.   

Two of the famous pictures of Havel with the Rolling Stones:

This one says, "Thank you for everything you did for us":

And on several billboards on the way home, a photo of Havel by Tomki Němec with a quote of Havel's I've referenced before:

,,Naděje není přesvědčení, že něco dopadne dobře, nýbrž jistota, že něco má smysl, lhostejno, jak to dopadne."

["Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."]

A Sad Sunday

Ex-president Václav Havel has died.  It's the end of an era.  It was a shock to discover it as I signed out of my seznam account.  I went straight to the Czech national paper's site at www.idnes.cz to read the full report.  It bothers me that this means Margaret Thatcher has outlived him.  (Unless she died years ago but it's been a well-kept secret ever since.  Either that or no-one could tell the difference.)  That just seems wholly unfair.

In other, far less important, news I've just had the worst tummy bug of my life and I'm only just slowly recovering from it.  Sipping peppermint tea is just becoming possible without severe pain as a consequence.  I'm recovering.  Slowly.  Very slowly.