Fat cats

Back from Venice and all I bring you is a photo of  a weird-looking cat sitting in a ceramics shop. Oh well, the internet needs more photos of cats.

I think this will have been my last visit to Venice, mainly because I never want to see a piece of Murano glass or a painted carnival mask again for as long as I live. I always say that holidays are harder work than working, and this trip was no exception. Getting lost has become a tradition in my immediate family - even in towns with large, well-signed streets - but in Venice I do not have the fall-back of taxi cabs when my legs won't work any longer.

We had a daily routine to follow H.I.'s itinerary of unguided art tours (Carpaccio being my favourite) which was to eat very early for Venetians at a cranky little ristorante which happened to be bang next door to our hotel on the Grand Canal, then go back to our room and listen to The Archers as usual. I made the amazing discovery that BBC iPlayer works very well on my phone even in Italy, so I don't need any catch-ups.

I occasionally scanned the blogosphere, but only the ones who are easy to find via their comments on my own pages. Cro's was the easiest and so he got most of the attention. In reality, I only wanted to read the comments by Chloe and Ursula before he deleted them. I now know enough about food and immigrants for yet another lifetime.

Even out of season, Venice's income must be colossal compared to most Italian tourist towns. I know that the Grand Canal is Venice's main road and supply route, but even in the bitterly cold weather (and wonderful Canaletto light reflecting up from all that water), the vaporettos - which run extremely frequently all day and half the night - are rammed with tourists from all over the world.

So why, with all this income, is Venice constantly battling with the floods which threaten to submerge it at every alto aqua? The Mafia steals all the money, that's why.

Venice set about constructing tidal barriers each end of the canal some years ago which would have greatly relieved - if not stopped - the potentially catastrophic flooding which threatens to sink the whole town for good, and they used international grants from many countries who love the place almost as much as they do, but the construction has come to a halt long before being finished.

Why? Because the Mafia has creamed-off most of the money for themselves.