Krpáčovo
Scrabble a 'drug', say players
Seventeen-year-old Martin Krakovský from the southern Slovak town of Komárno won the fourth annual Slovak scrabble championships, participants of which described the game as "a way of life" and a "drug".
The championships took place in the Low Tatras holiday resort of Krpáčovo with 32 participants from all corners of the country, all of which had passed qualifier matches in the run up to the championships.
The players said they like to compare scrabble to chess, as they believe scrabble requires an equally well-trained logical and quick mind.
"It's a drug," said Viera Košaľková, one of the participants.
"Scrabble is a way of life. It's often part of my everyday routine," said Peter Modranský, adding that even in regular conversations with friends he tended to listen closely to unusual words, automatically calculating their scrabble values.
Vysoké Tatry
Slovak climbers launch Himalaya club
SLOVAK climbers, who in their careers have reached the summits of the world's highest mountains, have launched a so-called Himalaya Club 8,000.
The club has 26 living members and nine dead ones, who received posthumous membership of the club.
Ivan Fiala, the first climber from the then-Eastern bloc to climb to the top of Nanga Parbat, was voted the honorary chair of the club.
The club was barely a week old, however, before co-founder Karel Jakeš, 49, was killed in an avalanche in the High Tatras on November 12. Jakeš was one of former Czechoslovakia's best-known climbers.
Košice
Long live Lenin
FANS remember Leninphoto: TASR
IN A MOCK carnival celebrating the 85th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution that catapulted Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (Lenin) to power in Russia, a number of eastern Slovaks kissed the cheek of a man pretending to be the mummified Lenin.
The Košice-based GES club, which organised the carnival, said the event was sold out two weeks ahead of time, and the celebrations of the influential socialist figure took place until the early morning hours of the following day.
The scene was decorated with inscriptions in Russian reading: "Bread and peace to the people" and "Socialism is our future".
Representatives of the local branch of the Slovak Communist Party participated in the event, as did a reportedly large number of people of various ages. All those present are said to have taken a light-hearted approach to the occasion, which was once the largest communist festival.
Dolný Kubín
Police almost hit by flying hammer
A MAN who threw a hammer at police was charged with attacking public officials after the police came to rescue a woman the offender had locked in his flat.
Police said that the 38-year-old man from Dolný Kubín, a former convict who had already been tried for 13 criminal offences, locked his 34-year-old partner in his flat on Monday November 4, refusing to let her out until the police came on November 6.
When the officers arrived he opened the door and started shouting obscenities at the officers. He then threw a hammer in their direction, hitting the front door of the flat opposite.
The man was placed in police custody.
Okrúhle
Thou shalt not steal
BREAKING the eighth commandment, a former convict stole various golden objects from a church and damaged a statue of St. Peter.
Peter Pleva, spokesman with the Interior Ministry, told the media that the 22-year-old offender is now facing charges of theft and damaging private property after stealing from a church in the eastern Slovak village of Okrúhle, Svidník district.
Pleva said the man broke into the church by smashing the windows on the side of the church and then stole from a cabinet underneath the altar, taking golden implements used during masses. He caused damage estimated at Sk47,000 ($1,100).
Trenčianska Teplá
Phone rage causes damage
UNABLE to call a taxi from a public telephone, an aggressive man took revenge on the telephone booth, kicking the glass out.
The 22-year-old man from Dubnica nad Váhom admitted to the offence, which took place after midnight at a railway station in Trenčianska Teplá.
He told the police he was enraged by his inability to call a cab and smashed the glass in anger, causing Slovak Telecom an estimated Sk500 ($12) damage.
Bratislava
Thief surprised by haul of cash
A PETTY thief struck lucky when he grabbed a woman's handbag that contained Sk220,000 ($5,300) in cash.
Police said a 28-year-old woman reported that she was getting out of her car on Bratislava's Miletičova Street on November 6 when an unknown man approached her and put an unidentified metal object to her head.
Peter Pleva from the Interior Ministry's press department said that the man then stole the woman's handbag, which, apart from the cash, contained a mobile phone, credit cards and personal identification documents.
