Prague clock

The Old Town Hall in Prague has housed this medieval 'astronomical' clock

for six centuries, its occult connotations and cosmological symbolism now lost

in time. When I first saw it, in 1967, it attracted only one watcher - other

than me (pic, right) - when it struck the hour and the disciples revolved on

their plinth. Now, you can barely see it for the crowd. This is a very early

morning shot, illuminated by a shaft of gold across the Prague rooftops.

In 1967, Al and I spent days trying to get the bike repaired in Prague,

having ridden up from Vienna and suddenly being exposed - behind the Iron

Curtain - to very low-octane petrol. This was death to a side-valve BSA: we

gradually lost all compression in those few hundred miles in what was then

Czechoslovakia. We limped into Prague, making a terrible racket as each stroke of the piston

reverberated around the city walls. Stripped down and leaking oil, the bike was a target, not for

thieves, but for locals who left little notes on it saying 'Good Luck Anglish' and 'Bon Voyage'. This

was a delightful touch from a people under considerable threat from Russia at the time (the

well-wishers could have been arrested for 'contact with western imperialists'). After being followed

everywhere by the secret police and at one point picked up and interrogated individually in a

padded cell as to why our visas had run out, we eventually admitted defeat with the repairs, left

the bike in Prague and came home by train via Paris. The bike was repatriated by the AA about

two months later. A year later, the Russian tanks rolled in to crush the Prague Spring.

The Old Town Hall in Prague has housed this medieval 'astronomical' clock for

six centuries, its occult connotations and cosmological symbolism now lost in

time. When I first saw it, in 1967, it attracted only one watcher - other than

me (pic, right) - when it struck the hour and the disciples revolved on their

plinth. Now, you can barely see it for the crowd. This is a very early morning

shot, illuminated by a shaft of gold across the Prague rooftops.

In 1967, Al and I spent days trying to get the bike repaired in Prague, having

ridden up from Vienna and suddenly being exposed - behind the Iron Curtain - to very

low-octane petrol. This was death to a side-valve BSA: we gradually lost all compression in

those few hundred miles in what was then Czechoslovakia. We limped into Prague, making a

terrible racket as each stroke of the piston reverberated around the city walls. Stripped down

and leaking oil, the bike was a target, not for thieves, but for locals who left little notes on it

saying 'Good Luck Anglish' and 'Bon Voyage'. This was a delightful touch from a people under

considerable threat from Russia at the time (the well-wishers could have been arrested for

'contact with western imperialists'). After being followed everywhere by the secret police and at

one point picked up and interrogated individually in a padded cell as to why our visas had run

out, we eventually admitted defeat with the repairs, left the bike in Prague and came home by

train via Paris. The bike was repatriated by the AA about two months later. A year later, the

Russian tanks rolled in to crush the Prague Spring.

Time standing, still