Kafkaland - straight from radio.cz

I know, I know, you're not supposed to really swipe other people's words, but here it is... made me smile -

Even at a time of economic crisis, when saving is the order of the day, Kafka’s legacy is alive and well. Czech bureaucrats are currently waging a war over zebra crossings in Prague and the inhabitants of the Czech capital find it hard to believe their eyes as pedestrian crossing appear and disappear again without warning. After dozens of people called the media and the city hall to demand an explanation for this strange phenomenon an unbelievable story came to light. The Prague City Hall decided that dozens of zebra crossings in Prague went contrary to a regulation introduced by the Transport Ministry –namely that a zebra crossing across a street with a tram line must have street lights. And it ordered road maintenance crews to remove 79 zebra crossings in places where they are vitally needed. Removing them cost 800,000 crowns. Showered with complaints the Transport Ministry ordered them to be put back, pointing out that in Prague the regulation could not be taken so literally. The city hall says it will have them re-painted but insists on regulations being adhered to, so in some places it has painted the zebra only half way up the street – skipped the tram track - and painted the rest, producing broken up zebra crossings. The solution has pedestrians shaking their heads in disbelief at the games bureaucrats are playing. Surely changing the regulation would be the obvious solution. But that would be much too simple and Czechs would no longer be able to crack jokes about living in Kafkaland.

The humor - well the absurdity, but actually, yesterday on the bus we were driving along the road and had to stop for the guys doing the zebra and I was really curious about what they were doing there right then... usually there are signs in advance, etc. but there'd been nothing. And then I was fascinated by how they were doing it - standing fully upright, bent at the waist, and spreading this thick goo on the street with a plastering spatula - it was like they were putting 3 inches of this viscous frosting on the street... a little odd.