Too Sexy For My Cat?
City Break to Prague, Czech Republic
By Peter Brooker, March 2026.
Day 1
Pete's Mum Iris, Pete's wife Anastasia and Pete enjoying an evening out in Prague
There is no love lost between the Czechs and the Russians. At least that can be said of how Czechs feel about Russians, I can't think that Russian people really care too much about what the Czechs think, it's part superiority-complex, only the Italians and the French have bigger, and part, well actually no, come to think of it, it is 100% a superiority-complex issue.
The only time Russians stop to care what the Czechs think of them, is when they're interrogated at border control at Václav Havel Airport in Prague, and asked to give every nauseating detail about their intentions for visiting this illustrious city that has been free from Soviet (Russia) control since the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Everything was picked at, the accommodation bookings, restaurant bookings, what was the name of your first pet? And so on. The wife gets irascible, and when security finally lets her through, her piss has been well and truly brought to the boil.
Once through we waited another 30 minutes for the driver who was pre-booked by the same people who were hosting us. He asks for a tip at the end of the journey which I decline to give. To his credit and dare I say his amusement, he waves me off with a smile and courteous handshake. I do admire a no-grudge, 'zero fucks given' taxi driver.
We were told to wait again to be shown into the apartment building, so nipped into an adjacent cafe where mother and wife had coffees, and I took a Czech beer. Mother, in a polite but mildly flabbergasted tone told the waiter that she couldn't make head nor tail of the menu, but that just a ham and bacon omelette would be fine before handing him back the leather bound pamphlet. The young man informed her that it was not a menu but in fact a book of prayer, and as this was a Jewish restaurant, perhaps she'd have no objections to having an omelette sans ham and sans bacon.
The apartment is impressive, warm, high ceilings, a light pine effect parquet flooring throughout and a TV that once again, Mother could make head nor tail on how to operate. The hallways were bookended with large solid saloon-esque doors to the main lounge and bedroom areas. When I entered, a huge waft of warm air cossetted my cheeks. How on earth could they afford to keep this place at sauna temperature for an indeterminable amount of time? And then I'm reminded that it's only in the U.K, which has the most expensive energy rates in the world, (April 2026) we don't fire up the boiler until the outside taps freeze over and we're told to wear all our clothes indoors and spoon our dogs for survival.
Hemingway Bar, Prague
After twenty minutes of fussing around trying to get the damn TV to play something in English and failing, we dumped our bags, and I dumped my double breakfast. Why do I feel the need to eat one both in the lounge before departure, and one in the air just 45 minutes later? Oh that's right because they're both delicious and I lack the discipline to turn down free food. After, we ventured out to the Hemingway Bar which we missed the last time we were in Prague due to not having a reservation. This time we arrived with bookings and print outs to prove it, neither were required and we were shown to our seats at the back of an ornate bar that was seemingly completely stripped of any mystique that its reputation had proceeded.
We were ushered to a small table with a view of a small empty patio that had nothing to say for itself bar a tiny potted tree that had also given up the ghost. Sure there were photos of Hemingway on the wall, but where the fuck was everybody? Last time we were here, the place was bulging. It was a one in one out policy on the door and believe me, no one was dumb enough to leave. I got a brief oblique glimpse inside the bar when some punter opened the door and then as if like a vampire burnt by the sun, quickly remembered the errors of his ways and slammed the door shut.
"This is not the Hemingway Bar," the wife protested. And she was right. Not the original one anyway. They had relocated the Hemingway Bar from its tiny speakeasy quarters, and expanded it into a rather soulless, over-lit and under-thunked cocktail bar that for all its creative menu and ornate drinking receptacles, was just like any other, but worse. The charm, the coo of being in one of the most exclusive bars in all of Zone 1, had dissipated like the ice in my Negroni.
In an attempt to salvage some semblance of purpose as to why we were in this folly, I asked the bearded young waiter if Hemingway had even stepped foot in Prague. "Probably, I mean he travelled all over right?" Came the droll unconvincing reply. Clearly he had not. Even the original Hemingway Bar was only inspired by his namesake, unlike the one in Paris, which he reputedly frequented.
After a brisk cold walk along cobbled paths, we dined at the Marina restaurant that overlooked the Vltava river that dazzled-crimson under the pink clouds that hung stubbornly in the night sky. I had the heartiest of ducks. The wife the Sturgeon and Mother the Salmon.
Day 2
There was a gaggle of Irish football supporters outside the Bond Café. Tonight is a do-or-die game for the Republic of Ireland who happen to be playing Prague in the city tonight for a place in the 2026 World Cup. Or is it the 2030 one? Oh no one really cares, not even the Irish.
Peter Brooker at the Bond Café, Prague
The game will galvanise them for sure, but there are reportedly 10,000 Irish fans that have made the pilgrimage over, and only 1,000 tickets have been allocated for the away fans.
"They love having us here," piped up one Irish youngster, his face already painted in the colours of the flag. "They'd certainly prefer having 10,000 Irish than English. No offence, like." I would like to say some offence was taken, but of course he was right. The Irish have a much better energy when drunk than the English. Although I would question why Irish people go all the way to Prague, only to watch their team play in an Irish Pub. The English would not be so discerning, invading any pub that had a flat screen TV, Stella on draught, and either a live band playing Four Lions on a Shirt on a loop and/or Sweet Caroline, and/or We Are the Champions and/or the theme to Grandstand.
We had been to the cafe before, but one can never get tired of seeing huge four by three photographic imagery of Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan tower over you imperiously as one tucks into their all day continental.
Here the sausages are small and bland, an insult to sausages really. The Europeans (with the exception of the Germans of course) have a strange relationship with sausages. In parts of Austria you'll find some stuff with cheese. But as much as us Brits get pilloried for our food, our sausage game, on its day, is one of Olympian Gold standards. There are no more joyous confluences in the English language than Bangers and Mash.
Now the 16 year old me would find the words Beer & Museum the antithesis of a joyous confluence. But a semi-mature late 40s me, with a thirst for learning about the history of beer, is only matched by his actual drinking beer, albeit at noon on a Thursday. There are a couple of Beer Museums in Prague and we seemed to stumble upon one that just promised the beer without the education. I enquired with the young Asian looking girl, 'is the museum upstairs?'
'No,' she dismissed.
'Downstairs then?'
'No.'
'I'm sorry but this is a Beer Museum is it not?'
'It's called that, but we're really just a pub.'
'I see.' It did feel like false advertising, but luckily I was more in the mood to drink beer than study its provenance. I ordered a pint of Lucky Bastard for myself and 3 tasting plates and noted that one beer in particular, Double 24, is one that must be revisited.
Czech beer tasting and Pete's Osterley Safety Razor
The Story of Prague museum is nested innocuously under an archway on the eastern side of the Vltava just by Charles Bridge. At the entrance an enthusiastic young man informs us to download an app and use the QR codes for the audio guides, which predictably failed to work. Or worse still, worked intermittently. Scan one QR code and I got the entire backdrop to how the Yanks accidentally bombed them back to the Stone-Age quite by accident during the Second World War, scan the next code hoping to learn about the Russian occupation in Prague until the liberation of 1989, and got absolutely fuck all.
Still it was an interesting if not slightly closeted museum. Peppered with small rooms and modest displays. Lots of text as opposed to artifacts, but it teased us with some pictures of fascinating buildings done up since the war. The Dancing Building being one. It had a 90s room, the walls thronged with posters of Pamela Anderson, which could have belonged to any room, in any city.
I was pleased to see a picture of Sean Connery as James Bond, albeit in Never Say Never Again as they described how he hosted a screening of his film in 2002 to aid the great European Flood, an event that killed 232 people and left €27.7 billion in damage.
I texted Remmert, my fellow Bondologist, 'what film was that one?'
‘League of Extraordinary Gentleman,' he replied.
Connery's last ill-fated film, which I have still not had the displeasure of seeing. All though I have seen his abrasive red carpet rants from the premiere on YouTube. There is no better sight than an irascible half-cut Connery in full flow scything down intern journalists, 'I'm underwriting you, how does that feel?'
Of course the story of Prague would not be complete without the telling of the chap who made the Astronomical Clock attached to the Old Town Hall. The creation was considered so good that his reward was for some unknown assailants to storm his living quarters one night and gauge his eyes so he couldn't replicate it. The rumour has it he then went back to the clock blind and destroyed the mechanics of the clock as an act of revenge which apparently took a 100 years to fix. We stopped by the clock and at noon, the figurines came out of a little window, rotated and then retreated back inside. A large crowd had gathered, mainly Irish, and when the figurines twirled it ignited a chorus of Ole Ole, for some unknown reason.
It was bitterly cold still. The walk across Charles Bridge was joyless and pointing out the spot where Jon Voight threw himself over the side in Mission Impossible as part of a ruse to fake his own death, did nothing to excite Anastasia. Although Mother has more of the English resilience when it comes to inclement weather. She stopped to study each statue with curious scrutiny, as if she had perhaps recognised each one from some other bridge in her past. Foolishly I had underestimated my dear Mother and she was in fact searching for the Statue of St. John of Nepomuk, the oldest and only bronze statue on the bridge. Visitors stroke the plaque at the base for good luck and a promise of a return trip to Prague, which Mother duly did.
We took a right on the other side and through a small courtyard enveloped by craft shops we saw two modern statues facing each other, with jets of water emanating from their phalluses. "I think I'm done stroking statues for today," Mother quipped.
Later we dined at SAVO. I had the Zander and duck pate and it was another triumph.
On a full belly, we wandered in quite by good fortune to the 'Le Fleur' cocktail bar. It was far more intimate than the Hemingway Bar, although practically empty. They had curated 13 special cocktails, the wife had aloe vera and mum a passion fruit, I chanced on a Bourbon cocktail of some description, which arrived with a small cone of popcorn attached to the rim of the tumbler. 'Wonderful,' I said, pretending that this was exactly what I expected when pointing to the drink on the menu. The walk home was short, and I had entirely forgotten about the all important Irish game, and learnt the next morning they had lost on penalties. A feeling the English know only too well, despite not feeling in the slightest bit sorry for them.
Day 3
Inspired by the story of the Prague museum visit of yesterday I've decided to dip further again into the history of the Eastern Block, and whilst going through my morning work out routine, (ten minute stretches, ten minutes of floor work). I listen to YouTube videos about the division of Ukraine and Russia. The trouble I find with learning about these foreign leaders is that their names are next to impossible to pronounce, let alone commit to memory. Every name is some kind of machination of Vladimir or Victor and the surnames are the kind of jawbreakers that put Welsh towns to shame. Instead I turn off the youTube video after a few minutes and switch to a twitter feed that shows a street fight erupt outside a London restaurant and a supposed migrant get tasered by the Police.
Rhythm Dance Ice Skating Championships 2026
We indulge in some rather disappointing eggs shakshuka in a nearby cafe before heading over to the O2 arena for the Rhythm Dance Ice Skating Championships. It's here that I stumbled upon the name for my next book, "Can we all agree on this."
I'm Too Sexy For My Cat!
All Spice Girls music is horrible. God awful. It was terrible at the time and why people need to listen to it twenty years on, let alone Ice Skate to societies-scourge, beggars belief. Every other dance was to either the Backstreet Boys, 2 Unlimited or Right Said Fred. RIGHT SAID FUCKING FRED.
Right Said Fred once claimed to be too sexy for his own shirt, his car, his hat, your party, his love, Milan, New York, Japan and his own cat. At a reach I am willing to suspend disbelief and admit the singer, Richard Fairbrass could indeed have too much sexual prowess for inanimate objects, and specific metropolitan cities with a combined population of 150 million people. But being too sexy for his own cat? Here I have to draw the line. For a start what kind of behaviour has the cat undertaken that would give Fairbrass this impression that he is too sexy for it? Does it throw rose petals in his wake as he exits the shower? I doubt it. Moreover it's my fervent belief that Fairbrass has cleverly subjugated his cat in use of a slant rhyme for the catwalk, where Fairbrass informs us that he 'shakes his little tush'.
And look, with over 30 million copies sold, one might contest whether Fairbrass is too sexy for his cat, but no one can deny the genius of such prose.
About the author
Peter Brooker is the co-author of From Tailors With Love an Evolution of Menswear Through the Bond Films and is also Editor-in-Chief of From Tailors With Love, a blog, vlog and podcast dedicated to men’s costumes and cinematic style.
Follow Pete on Instagram: @therewillbebond (over 22k followers)
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Above: Pete with his Osterley Safety Razor.
