It seems incredible that Venice is built on a foundation of timber poles driven into muddy marshland – old and natural technology – wood and mud - and it works. But Venice is very slowly sinking under its weight.
Saving Venice is proving difficult. It is not only sinking, it has crumbling and flooding to deal with, and climate change, and there are no guarantees that very expensive modern technology will work.
We wait watch and see what happens! Added later…maybe old technology and natural materials and processes will come to the rescue. And, modifying human behavior.
I had a gondola ride around the canals some years ago and it was an eye opener and very shabby with dead animals floating in the water and we were warned to be careful not to fall in or would get something nasty! Saying that, it was an experience and a disappointment too and very very expensive with sitting down not allowed unless in a cafe terrace. Wouldn’t go there again but still find this sort of programme interesting to see how they can solve problems.
She has the face for it. but really, yes, both her and Kate Adie.
Was Orla Guerin related to that other Irish journalist was was mudered in Dublin by gangsters objecting to her too close reporting some years back?
I fear that might have been a bit unkind, what I meant was that she always had a rather grim, even miserable, expression on her face. I didn’t mean that she was ugly, and of course, the places and events she was forced to see would certainly excuse such an expression.
I remember going to some sort of Sunday school church hall meeting with a Billy Graham sort of character. You had to go forward if you were “converted”. Not sure how old I was but I knew it was all wrong. In fact creepy, manipulating children like that. It put me totally off all religion for ever.
Well this amazed me - the other day a friend came round and I did my usual which is to go outside, walk a few metres down the drive, and ping the remote to open the gates, as I don’t want a switch in the house for security reasons, and the range isn’t quite long enough to operate from within the house.
Seeing me come out of the house, my friend asked why, so I told him the gates are over 50m from the house and the remote range isn’t quite that far. He said there was a simple solution for that…….ummm I thought. So we went inside the house, looked out of the window at the gates, he then put the remote to his head and clicked it. Hey presto the gates opened . By doing this you can apparently increase the remotes range. I could not believe it so tried it myself several times and it indeed worked. Not particularly comfortable putting the remote to my head, I looked on the internet and you can also do it with a bottle of water. Touch the remote to a plastic water bottle full of water and that also works. Still can’t quite believe it actually, but is now incredibly convenient not having to walk part way down the drive to open the gates, especially if not already outside how do folks discover these things:thinking:
. By doing this you can apparently increase the remotes range. I could not believe it so tried it myself several times and it indeed worked. Not particularly comfortable putting the remote to my head, I looked on the internet and you can also do it with a bottle of water. Touch the remote to a plastic water bottle full of water and that also works. Still can’t quite believe it actually, but is now incredibly convenient not having to walk part way down the drive to open the gates, especially if not already outside 
how do folks discover these things:thinking: