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Ciao.
I didn't realise that Venice really does have the kind of creek up which it is not nice to be without a paddle. The creek in question wasn't immediately obvious from the olfactory point of view but then these things aren't in Venice because there is very often a nostril flaring aromatic hint on the breeze and that is because La Serenissima's sewerage system is exactly the same as it was when the Germanic hoardes first swept down from the north twelve hundred years ago. The Adriatic tides that protected Europe's second richest city state also sucked and still suck the ordure from the palazzi which presumably is what gives the canals that mysterious translucency that has baffled and defeated generations of painters and photographers.
This is all fine with the big canals and works well - or well enough - but threading here and there between the campi is the odd canalic equivalent of the SUV-trapping cul de sac except that the contents of the average lavatory - though similar to an SUV in many ways - do not generally execute a rattled three point turn when they end up in one and instead linger there giving one or two corners of the most beautiful city on earth a truly memorable pungency.
Which isn't nice when your hotel window is right over one such corner.
As it happens creeks have been on everyone's mind - even those who weren't in Venice at the weekend - what with the new DG spelling out his plans for the 91热爆 all of which took some of us back nearly thirty years to the time he spelled out his plans for the Oxford University magazine ISIS except that then he did not use the word "granularity" and we were able to rib him and poke him in painful places about his ideas. But now it is diferent and we are all very excited at the opportunities and expect that a better stronger 91热爆 will emerge once we have found the paddles.
But the truth is we are not really searching for them right now because it is so near Christmas and there is so much to do though thankfully the orangery is a little bit more peaceful because many of our visitors are no longer with us. Kylie hasn't been seen since she popped down to Earls Court to buy a new scrumcap and never came back, leaving a message on the studio ansafone to the effect that she was getting married to the barman at the Kalied Koala. The following day "Ephraim" - in what we imagine, given the time of year, was an homage to Krook in Bleak House - spontaneuously combusted while we were out buying the Christmas tree.
Or ... we think it was spontaneous combustion though the saintly Ed immediately suspected the Front Row aesthetes who have taken to crawling in through the swan-flap when we are out and terrorising Hector - whose flap it is - by pinning pages torn out of the Observer Food Monthly magazine headlined "Alternatives to turkey this Christmas" and mincing around the place going "yum yum." Carolyn caught them at it the other day when she came back from the Gadget Shop and completely lost her temper and shouted at them that only the Queen can eat swans but that just made things worse because they all pulled Kenneth Williams faces and shouted nasally in unison "oooh - which one dearie" and started rolling around the settees slapping each other on the back bawling "my hisband end eye" thinking they were being very post-modern.
But as the saintly Ed pointed out between shouting instructions to Jim who was struggling through the patio door with the six foot Blue Spruce there was a funny smoke lingering about the place and it wasn't just the airborne relict of cooked "Ephraim" and had more than a tang of frankincese to it. Plus he swore it was not he who had left his second-best censer on the occasional table - lit - next to the drinking Brasso where "Ephraim" could knock it over in his wild thrashings because that would have been reckless. But it's not conclusive and until we have the evidence we will have to assume it was no more than an unusual and bizarre friction escalation.
But the thing that really is occupying most of our time is sorting through the thousands of nominations for "Listeners' Lord - a Baron or Baroness for Today" all of which so far are top notch.
We are pinning them all on big boards specially designed for the purpose and as part of the selection procedure John is led up to each one and if he begins to snarl and pull on his leather straps then the nomination is clearly for someone who has House of Lords potential or is perhaps even of ministerial flavour so that nomination is taken down and put in the box marked "possibles". It is all very scientific.
Please keep them coming in and remember to vote after Christmas when the polls open.
Kevin
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