The guide books all say that Venice has bad food. But, hey, how bad can it be? This is Italty after all. Well, it can be very bad. I did a bunch of research to make sure we only went to traveller recommended restaurants, and the food still blowed. So it you are planning to visit Venice, take enough food with you to last the duration.

Apart from that it was a great experience. Imagine the most Londonny parts of London all merged together - a Beefeater, red buses, the royal family and some knife crime. Put them altogether and you have an intense tourist experience.

Venice is like that, not just in one street, but in every square inch. It is a theme park that wasn't created by a marketing weasel. I am not sure whether that is good or bad.

Anyway,it is well worth a visit, but don't do more than 2 days. And take your own food.

Photos to follow.

I visited Venice as a child, on a day trip from a beach resort we were holidaying in. It rained and I was of an age where Venice would have been boring whatever the weather. I do remember being told that the city was sinking by 3cm a year and was figuring that it wouldn't be a bad thing if it sank faster.

This time around I am slightly more cultured and, travelling independently, I can avoid the worst of the tourist trail and try to find the real Venice. If such a thing still exists.

Back Monday.

Last weekend was Marlow Regatta weekend, which is generally a time to steer well clear of Marlow. However, on the Sunday morning they have dragon boat racing, so we headed over to the river, armed with champagne and pastries to take a look.

Verity enjoyed it greatly, cheering on all the red boats, which were apparently all called Puff.

Pascal came too and has one of those fancy cameras that take a good picture even when the subject matter is traditionally nonphotogenic...

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Police are investigating a spate of gruesome rabbit killings which has left more than 40 pets dead.

The victims have been attacked in their cages and many have been decapitated and bled dry.

One theory is that the animals, which all lived in Germany's Ruhr district, were targeted by Satanists.

Sabine Riede, head of a group which monitors religious cults, said: "The fact that blood appears to have been deliberately drained from the dead rabbits could indicate that Satanists were gathering material for a deadly ritual."

The killing spree is thought to have started last summer and gathered pace in the spring.

In the latest case in Witten near Dortmund the owner of two rabbits went to their cages on Monday morning to find that one had disappeared and the other was headless.

The local police have set up a special task force in an attempt to track down the assassin.

Five officers are working on the case full time and have interviewed more than 300 people so far.

"We have a number of officers working on the case and we are carrying out exhaustive investigations," said Oliver Peiler, a task force spokesman.

But he admitted they had little to go on.

"We have no idea who is doing this. We are still in the dark."

Animal rights groups have put up a reward of EU2,500 (£2,000) for information leading to the killer.

The techies don't know what caused it, and I certainly don't, so it might happen again.

I guess it's my own fault for not posting for a couple of weeks.

Sam Hawthorne, 14, was 'attacked' when he sleepwalked into a long-dead souvenir shark hanging on the wall, reports Metro.

He was left with the creature embedded in his cheek and blood pouring from a wound.

His mother, Susan Hawthorne was woken by her son's screams but arrived too late to fend off the holiday souvenir.

She said: "It was like something out of a horror film. The shark must have been embedded in Sam's cheek for about 15 minutes and he was in a lot of pain."

Sam, who escaped with just a small scar, added: "It was the most frightening experience of my life."

Blacky was held in the prison for three days for biting and kicking two men near a ranch outside Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas state.

He was freed after his owner, Mauro Gutierrez, paid a fine and hospital bill for the two men injured, reports ITN.

Mauro said: "This issue has been already paid for and fixed, so I'm no longer involved in this."

Mauro must also pay £244 to each man to compensate for loss of wages.

Buckinghamshire Fire Service said one of the women was visually impaired, and a spokesman said it appeared the dog made a mistake.

The incident happened on Wednesday in the River Great Ouse near the Millfield Flats, Willow Lane in Stony Stratford.

Three rescue crews helped the women and said one of them had sustained injuries during the ordeal.

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I am wondering how the police have decided this was a mistake on the part of the dog. How about acid in his breakfast put there by a scheming cat? How about malicious intent? Maybe the blind owner was nightmare to work with. Maybe it was a simple suicide attempt by the dog and he forgot his owner was shackled and committed to follow. And what about the other woman? Did she just watch while Doofus led his owner into the drink?

The finding helps explain why many flowers waft in the breeze, and reveals a hitherto unknown trick used to attract pollinators.

Scientists made the discovery while studying common wildflowers known as sea campion on the Welsh coast.

Mobile flowers are visited more often by insects and also produce more seeds, they report in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

Moving flowers also attract a wider variety of insect species than more static blooms.

For years, biologists have known that flowers use striking colours, fragrances, elaborately shaped petals and nectar to attract pollinating insects such as bees and flies.

Yet no-one had ever seriously considered whether wafting in the wind acted as a similar signal.

"I was lying on the beach watching flowers wave in the wind at my daughter's birthday party, and I wondered why they have stalks and risked getting damaged in such an exposed habitat," recounted John Warren from the University of Aberystwyth.

So he looked at what research had previously been done, and found very few answers.

"The only reference I found to motion in attracting pollinators says it's unlikely to be important, because insects are not good at detecting movement; which is clearly rubbish."

To find out more, Dr Warren and colleague Penri James experimented with sea campion (Silene maritima) growing on an exposed coast within a Site of Special Scientific Interest in Cardigan Bay in west Wales.

They observed 300 specially grown flowers of varying stem lengths, recording how much each flower moved in the wind, how often it was visited by insects and for how long, and how many seeds it went on to produce.

Their experiments reveal that flowers mounted on long, thin stalks move around more in the wind.

This acts as a powerful signal to passing pollinators, allowing the plant to attract more insects than less mobile flowers growing atop short, thick stems.

"We found wavy flowers are more visible to insects, and thus attract more pollinators and set more seeds," said John Warren.

But flowers ultimately face an evolutionary trade-off, he believes.

"Short, fat-stalked flowers don't wobble enough and are less attractive to pollinators; yet very wobbly flowers are just too wobbly for the insects to handle, as the insects cannot land on them.

"Only flowers that wobble the right amount are successful in setting seeds."

Martin Bauam's updated version of Hamlet reveals: "Dere was somefing minging in de State of Denmark."

The Danish prince, who is re-named 'Amlet, asks: "To be or not to be, innit?", while Romeo pines for his "fit bitch Jools".

Mr Baum's other titles include Macbeff, Much Ado About Sod All, De 'Appy Bitches of Windsor, De Taming of de Bitch, Two Geezas Of Verona and All's Sweet That Ends Sweet, Innit.

Mr Baum, 48, says his versions of the Bard's classics, while abridged, remain true to the originals, retaining "the important sexist, duplicitous, cross-dressing and violent moments that made William Shakespeare well wicked."

Mr Baum's version of Romeo and Juliet sets the scene for the star-crossed lovers with: "Verona was de turf of de feuding Montagues and de Capulet families.

"And coz they was always brawling and stuff, de prince of Verona told them to cool it or else they was gonna get well mashed if they carried on larging it with each other."

If the Bard was living today, Mr Baum writes on his website, he would "still be writing in the Globe turf, getting loads of respect from the Stratford-upon-Avon massive and producing works of pure genius."

I am still in the French Alps, in Peisey-Vallandry for those who know the region. And... I can ski!

It transpires that snowboarding last year will a bit of a silly idea since it is near impossible, while skiing is a piece of piss. That I could ski after one two-hour lesson is testament to the sheer ease of it. Five days in I can now do fancy stuff like zig-zag down a hill, ski backwards and stop on a sixpence.

The only problem is that my knees aren't up to it. After an hour they hurt. At the end of a 2.5 hour lesson I am crippled. I recover overnight, but I think I might have to rethink my new ski-bum career.

Other than that all is well.

Oh, Verity hates skiing. We booked her a one hour private lesson and she lasted ten minutes. Looked cute in all the gear though. Photos to follow.

On Saturday we drive home.

Anyway, having, er, mastered boarding I will try skiing this year. Skiing is supposedly easier and is better suited to old folks.

Tomorrow we drive the France, with a bit of help from a boat, and on Saturday we mess about in the snow and then on Sunday I learn to ski. Simple, surely.

My boss said I could only have next week as holiday if I was online, which I will be, so there will be updates and medical bulletins.