The Czech Lead

Vital Stats:

Born in 1957 in Prague, Czech Republic (well, actually it was Czechoslovakia when I was born). Resident of Prague, where I returned some years ago after seven years in London. Lived in New Delhi, India  (four years), New York City, NY, US (four years), London, UK (seven years), Djakarta, Indonesia (three years) and in Prague for most of the time in-between.

Occupation:

Formerly UK Correspondent of the Czech News Agency (CTK). Formerly foreign correspondent of the CTK in New York and before that in New Delhi. Formerly also Deputy Editor of the CTK News. From Aug 1st, 2008 Director of News, CTK. From June 10th 2011 CEO of CTK.

Co-author (with fellow CTK correspondent and good friend Stanislav Mundil) of two books about international politics – Washington do uzaverky (out of print) and in 2007 Washington mezi Seinou a Temzi (out of print). Currently writing another book with Stan.

Interests / Hobbies (in no order):

Journalism of any kind, Photography, Travel, Writing, Books, Digital Media, Digital Toys, Anything that flies except for UFOs, Cooking. Anything regarding law. Movies and videos when watched and re-watched and re-re-watched with my family. Quotes from Samotari (movie), Svejk (book), and the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. They probably covery everything one needs to think about. And yes, Saturnin and Three Men in the Boat. Biographies.

What I read on paper or online:

Economist, History Magazine, Photoshop Creative, Slate, Hospodářské noviny, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CTK – of course.

Favourite Podcasts (in absolutely no order):

BBC Start the Week, News Quiz, CNN Reliable sources, Law in Action, Photoshop User Tips, Lightroom Killer Tips, Thinking Allowed.

Favourite Journalists (in no order):

Andrew Marr, Jeremy Paxman, Karel Čapek, Howard Kurtz, Mark Kermode. William Safire. Bob Woodward. Many of my colleagues in CTK.

Favourite Recipes:

Too many of those, my wife would say.

But, between you and me, bramborak, something that should not be translated into English as something as bland a “potato pancake”.  But, alas, that is what everybody does. I have yet to find a restaurant which makes them well.

For a full discussion on bramboraky follow this link.

Latest Projects:

Reconfinguring the CTK for the 21st Century.

My Camera:

Nikon 300D. Hmm and my iPhone. And my wife’s Sony.

My Computer:

Lenovo X300 or if you are not an Apple fan, here.

iPad2. Hmm and iPhone.

More about me or from me:

Facebook

Twitter

Favourite Software Programs:

Adobe Photoshop CS4, Flipboard, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.0, Adobe Premiere 2.0, MS Office 2010, MS OneNote 2010, CutePDF, Civilisation IV, CutePDF, TweetDeck, MS SyncToy, Zotero, BBC iPlayer, iVysilani ČT, ČTK iPhone/iPad/Android application, CTK multimedia editorial system MRS (…honestly).

Least Favourite Software Programs:

MS ActiveSync – it is either too active or not active enough. (This is here for historical reasons, I did not have an opportunity to use this for YEARS now… I think it is dead.)

Attempts by providers to provide me – without asking me – with relevant local information. It usualy is not relevant to what I am after.

Take Google – when I am requesting Google news from UK (by typing news.google.co.uk), what do I get? Czech news (which I know by heart, my God, we are creating them). But when I go to Google Earth to find some Czech place, what do I get as a first map? You guessed – the US. Does it suck? Yes it does.

iCloud.

Personal Motto:

Semper Aliquid Novi

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