When asked about her impressions of Prague, she sent us this amusing little anectode about "the lift that developed its own mind" after the floods that hit Prague in August.

When I arrived at the Hilton Hotel, which I knew had been flooded only seven weeks earlier, I was amazed to find that there were hardly any traces of flood damage left. Hotel management and Czech workmen must have worked day and night to prepare for our arrival.

Our office during the EXCO was hidden in a labyrinth of corridors two floors below the magnificent ballroom in which the meetings were taking place. The corridors and staircases between the office and the ballroom certainly kept us fit during the sessions, but you may be wondering why we didn't use the lifts...

On the first day, about to launch into the hectic preparation of the last-minute papers, Jennifer and I duly collected our files and equipment from our rooms and got into the lift to go down. The button for floor 00 lit up, went out, as did the lights, the lift set off - but it was going up - then it stopped half-way between two floors. Finding ourselves in the dark, with no buttons working, we rang the emergency bell. A charming Czech gentleman asked us to keep calm and wait for help. Suddenly the lift started to move again, stopped at floor 02, shot uncontrollably up to floor 8, travelled down to 3, soared up to 6, back down to 01, zoomed up to floor 5, and then at last came to a smooth halt down on floor 02 (which was where we had originally intended to go!). The slow opening of the doors had our hearts beat even higher and when finally fully open, to say we "got out as quickly as we could" would be an understatement, we shot out, but managed enough calm to advise the waiting crowd against entering the lift. Most of them looked at us curiously with expressions of 'strange foreigners', and nevertheless got into the lift... only to get out again, because by then it wouldn't work at all!

During a hectic and interesting week in Prague among the friendly Czechs, I saw that their qualities include beautiful singing (besides the Czech workers repairing the hotel, Mrs Smolova sang beautifully at the ExCo gala dinner), excellent Pilsner lager, Bohemian crystal, and the loveliest string-puppets that can be made to dance to traditional Czech folklore music. So I've promised myself to return one day - with my family - to spend time as a tourist to further explore the beautiful sights of Prague, which, as indeed I saw, is well-named as the "beautiful city of spires", and to discover the many other qualities of the Czechs that I was not able to see in the short time I spent there.