A War on Trees

Having now spent four weeks in Prague, I feel like I know the place fairly well - not only am I no longer lost in the streets of Stare Mesto, but I can even tell my knihkupectvi (bookshop) from my kadeřnictvi (hairdressers), vaguely understand menus in Czech, and recommend nice restaurants and bars to perplexed tourists. I must admit, however, that there are still things that still have me a little mystified, and foremost among them is the question of what the police in Prague are actually paid to do.

Before I start, I must admit that compared to some of the other police I've encountered around the world, the Prague force are shining beacons of competence and moral rectitude. When I was doing my Spanish course in San Andreas, Guatemala, the balcony of the police station was everyday filled with about 20 fat drunkards who spent their day leering at girls, and despite this rather sizeable crime-fighting force for a large village, every day you'd hear people discussing last night's tally of murders and shootings. In Kenya, the police basically operate as a bribing racket - once you've paid your way into the force, you can spend your days at the side of the road happily accepting bribes from matatu drivers to 'overlook' the fact that they are driving hideously overloaded death-traps apt to crash at any moment.

I should not, thus, complain, but what does confuse me particularly about the Prague police is the fact that their job seems to primarily consist of wrapping inanimate objects in police tape. Real criminals don't seem to bother them unduly; there is a drug dealer, for example, who every night you can find on the same street just off Old Town Square. He is not a particularly discreet drug dealer, his general greeting invariably being 'drugs? You want some drugs?' Nor is he particularly fearsome, being around 5'4" and having the physique of a limp stick of celery. This rubbish drug dealer, however, is allowed to operate unimpeded, for the police are far too busy dealing with the scourges of misbehaving chairs and left over Christmas trees.

Our apartment is opposite a police station, and for three weeks there lay on the pavement outside a growing pile of broken chairs, all lovingly wrapped up in police tape. This confused us; were they saving a parking space? Had the chairs misbehaved in some way? Were the police just really, really bored? The chairs are evidently benign, however, compared to the threat posed by another type of evil object: Christmas trees. A few days ago we were walking across Namesti Republiky - a big square near to where we live - when we saw about three police vans show up and stop at the side of the road. One even had its sirens on. Thinking, naively, that the police were doing standard police-type things such as catching criminals, we continued on our way. When we walked back through the square half an hour later, however, all that was left of their presence was a poor, abandoned Christmas tree, left in the middle of the tram lines and covered in reams and reams of police tape.

People, I am at a loss. Has President Klaus become bored of the war on terror rhetoric and instead declared war on trees? Is there a war on wood and all objects made from it? Are the police just trying to use up their tape after an over-zealous clerk put in a bumper order? I have no clue whatsoever. Any suggestions, of course, are muchly welcomed, for I would hate to leave Prague without having solved this crime-fighting condundrum.

(Sadly I didn't have my camera with me when we came across the tree, so Slanty Santy, our fondly-remembered tree from this year, has had to substitute).