Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader’s thoughts continue to be dominated by Venetian floods. He isn’t sure what it is that is creating this idee fixe in his mind. It is what it is he supposes…

Here is a link to a 1 minute video courtesy of the Guardian of London. It shows a guy surfing in Piazza San Marco. That is disturbingly cool.

Also from the Guardian an interesting piece by Tanya Gold. A highlight your Maximum Leader found interesting:

So I am looking out of my second floor window at the Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal – normally seeing a street, but today a canal – watching carrier bags float past. Ah, Venice! City of Casanova, Titian and the floating carrier bag. Some of the designer shops on the alley are actually open, although they all have high metal boards at the entrances, keeping the water out. Pucci and Gucci are open. Harry’s Bar is sort of open. I watch, amazed, as a woman in waders stops outside a handbag shop and demands to be shown a handbag. The shop girl shows it to her across the board. She touches it, debates with the seller, and eventually buys it. Three foot of floodwater, and still she shops. She must be Italian.

Your Maximum Leader likes the imagery there. A woman shopping in three feet of flooding for a designer handbag. Your Maximum Leader knows a few women like that… He might even be related to one or two… (NB - they are not Mrs Villain.)

Carry on.