Final Word from Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Czechs are in dire need of a moral authority, but Václav Havel took some knocks for using Kč 8m from Czech TV to finance his Kč 45m film. Havel is wealthy and shouldn't be getting state handouts, was one of the arguments. It wasn't very nice, because it's always possible that "Leaving" will be an international smash hit and bring ČT a hefty profit. (Okay, maybe not.) Havel took another knock yesterday, when a court ruled in favor of his sister-in-law with regard to the 50% of Lucerna Palace that Havel sold a decade ago to the Chemapol crime syndicate for Kč 200m. The court accepted the price of Kč 145m paid by Ms. Havlová as fair and stated that only Havel and Chemapol know why they had agreed on a higher price. Creditors were robbed of Kč 10bn in the Chemapol bankruptcy, and it certainly wasn't very nice for a court to confirm that the CR's chief moral authority got some of the booty.
Glossary of difficult words
to knock someone - to criticize; to speak disparagingly about;
dire - extremely serious or urgent;
smash hit - a very successful song, film, show or performer;
hefty - impressively large;
Chemapol - a former chemical and financial conglomerate;
booty - valuable stolen goods, esp. those seized in war.