The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

In Venice I wondered about reading something really good set in Venice - but not Death in Venice - and I decided to re-read the Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke. It's a book for children which I read to my son. We liked it.

She has taken a number of Venetian marvels : mythical beasts, the islands, the rich families, pickpockets, treasures of gold and silver, dealers in treasures, and some of the usual items in children's stories - orphans, a gang, hiding, fending for themselves - and put them all together in a wonderful story. She also illustrated it, and I love the pictures.

But I am still thinking about what else to read that was set in Venice - maybe something historical.

Here are some of my pics.

In Venice there is something everywhere that's so beautiful it hurts.

I have to share my new favourite song/ singer

Lake Street Dive's Rachel
This is a slow bluesy track - a bit like Amy Winehouse vocally

Rachel Price

And she wrote it! Blimey!

My cruise

We went on a great cruise in the Mediterranean and took in Venice, Kotor in Montenegro, Corfu Town in Corfu, Civitavecchia (gateway to Rome), Ajaccio in Corsica, Genoa, Pisa and Naples, Dubrovnik and back to Venice. It was amazing and remarkable because we had no way of seeing all those places, in such a short time and in so much comfort, by public transport. Ah cruising! It really was lovely. Great food and very good entertainment too.

The line was P & O and the ship had a large Union Flag painted on the front, and there were 800 crew. The officers were mostly British, the crew was from the Philippines (I think) the waiters were from Goa, the housekeeping staff were from the Philippines (again). Very charming and hard-working people. The entertainment staff were Australian, English and Scottish. Interesting - historically, P& O gave many working class people the chance to escape from Liverpool, etc., and see the world. Now the opportunities go to the Indians and Philippinos. That must be because of unionisation and the low pay given. But it does remind me of something I heard after Brexit, trying to understand what had done wrong. I found some video of a very unsmiling Scottish professor who said: "The government has no plans for the lowest 30% of the population, except to police them". Possibly he does not smile because he takes the sad mess of the decline of the western world to heart, and that's a good thing.

Actually he speaks more colourfully than that (no concessions to non-native speakers). The Americans subtitle him. Do have a look at this five minute explanation of Brexit.