Final Word from Monday, May 13, 2013
When President Miloš Zeman suffered from a "weak virus" last week and had trouble standing straight, his office said that he would sleep it off over the weekend. Sure enough, he bounded back yesterday looking fit and ready to conquer the world. Without anyone realizing it, the permanent answer to the president's bouts with "social tiredness" has been staring us in the face. If Franz Joseph taught Czechs to wake up early, Zeman could teach them to knock off early. All official presidential duties should be scheduled for the morning, when the full effects of the virus are still in remission (unless, of course, there is a heavy viral hangover from the day before). Scheduling an official event for the early evening last Thur. was asking for trouble, esp. when it was preceded by a noontime event at the Russian embassy. Such viruses are of course contagious, and all medical professionals know that they spread especially quickly when the transmission agent is vodka. Some non-Russians have been known to succumb after just 5-6 glasses.[Czech Republic alcohol alcoholism]
Glossary of difficult words
bout - an attack of illness or strong emotion of a specified kind;
Franz Joseph - Austrian emperor from 1848 to 1916;
to knock off - to stop work;
remission - a diminution of the seriousness or intensity of disease or pain;
hangover - a thing that has survived from the past; a severe headache or other after affect caused by drinking an excess of alcohol;
to succumb - to fail to resist to some negative force.