Two tidbits of local interest only.

First, please come to Tulip Cafe (Opatovicka 3, P1) this Sunday afternoon and celebrate.... well, celebrate celebrating.

It's a Sunday BBQ Party and the "official" Grand Opening of Tulip's garden. (We painted the deck.) For the low low price of CZK 300 you get a whole lotta stuff to consume: All-you-can-eat tofu, grilled veggies, shrimp, oh yes and surely some beef and chicken as well (don't ask me to cook it for you, we have people for that). All-you-get-drink beer, wine and a glass of spring punch to welcome you. (Please, buy the cocktails. Beer and wine is so... unbecoming on cultivated readers like yourselves.)

In fact this also functions as a going-away party for our chef, the man behind the magic, Gavin Barber, who's putting his last shrimp on the barbie and heading back to his native Australia sooner than I care to think about.

It's a shame we didn't get our act together to announce this sooner, otherwise this event might have merited a mention someplace in the Prague Post calendar or food section (under what heading, I'm not sure). Readers, if you ever need to reach local expat readers and promote anything, plan ahead and try to get something into the Post. They devoted all of two or three sentences to Tulip's Easter brunch and the place was packed.

I mention this as a segueway into ...

OK, if this is the second time you've read this -- mea culpa. Mea summa culpa. Here's a correction:

Apparently the back page of the most recent Prague Post features a Benson & Hedges ad. Originally, somebody sort-of in the know (but not quite enough in the know) emailed me the following tale: When the Post first accepted cigarette advertising, Levy wore a surgical mask to the office in protest for several days, in fact. (We knew that much: See here for a picture of Levy with the mask, and here.) Levy swore that if the paper ever accepted cigarette advertising again, he'd quit. (I can't easily verify this, sadly enough.)

Now it certainly appeared that the Post began accepting cigarette ads just as soon as he died. But a second Postie emailed to say these ads were in fact negotiated months before Levy's death and started running before that as well. If he were around today, Levy would once again be walking around the Post offices with a mask on in protest. End of mea culpa.

As I said orignally... If I were running a newspaper, I'd probably accept cigarette advertising as well, much as I hate cigarettes. (What moral high ground could I possibly claim? I'm a vegetarian plugging my own all-you-can-eat for-profit BBQ dedicated primarily to meat consumption.) Readers of this also blog know that while I'm as guilty as anybody else of taking potshots at the Prague Post, when the chips are down I'll defend the Post over every other English-language publication in town. [But there are no other English-language rags left standing! - Ed. Precisely.]

P.S. In the comments, George Cerny has it almost right. Even when the Post had some competition to speak of -- which it doesn't anymore -- I thought it did a better job of what it set out to do than most people gave it credit for.

No more inside baseball!