Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

cynic
How long in Venice? Did you see my earlier post about Venice? I had a superb meal in the garden at La Favorita on the Lido. In the corner of the garden was Mel Brooks just eating salad by himself. We were there at the same time as the Venice film festival and Mel Brooks apparently eats at that restaurant by himself almost every evening during the festival. We stayed at the Grand Hotel des Bains where Death in Venice was filmed. The kids spent all day on the beach and in or on the water. It was so hot, like bathwater. The hotel supplied sailing boats and the kids were whizzing along parallel to the beach for hours. They are both normally used to sailing in freezing cold water in UK on lakes and in the sea.

Stable , who would have thought that little old Yeovil would become the pride of the West Country :-)

Dil, especialy with an old City manager in charge , they are really peed off across the city as they have had quite a few managers since he left.

yes hays, i did thanks ..... we're actually staying at a very quiet hotel, excellently located just behind san marco, so easy to walk almost anywhere (except on water!) .... i did a lot of research on restaurants (my raison d'etre i fear) and have eaten well without paying the stupid prices that are all too easy to spend in venice ..... top of the list so far are ostaria da robia (cannaregio and quite near ghetto nuovo) and trattoria rivetta (5 minutes walk almost due east from san marco) ..... taverna san trovaso near and just on the south side of accademia bridge is also well worth a visit ..... tonight is alla testiere (sort of north east from san marco) which comes very highly recommended

high tides, including this morning, meant wading across or even around san marco, having taken off shoes and socks and rolled up trousers!

"high tides, including this morning, meant wading across or even around san marco, having taken off shoes and socks and rolled up trousers!".

Not forgetting knotted hanky.. Can't take the English anywhere -):

i tried it with a paper one but it fell apart after 2 minutes in the rain :-)
hoping that we'll finish dinner and get back to the hotel before the next high tide inundation, but not too optimistic ..... weil's disease threatens seriously :-)

Weils disease? oh for christ sake that's a killer.. make damn sure that your properly scrubbed down before you post on this board again me lad... wouldn't want to catch that -):

ah there's already a number of rats here already, though most are pretty toothless even if rabid :-)

I suppose the ghetto would be of interest to you (historically).

The restaurants on the Lido are better value and often better food as they are less touristy. It is just a few minutes by water bus across to the other side.

ghetto is indeed interesting, and would have been even more so had any of the synagogues been open today

as so often, the jews controlled banking and lending, but i need to find out what then happened once they were banished to the ghetto - "foundry" in venetian dialect, which came as a surprise

the centre for banking (and insurance) was by rialto, so whether or not the jews were allowed out for "business hours" i do not know ..... assuredly most of the top doctors and many of the best musicians were jewish and often got "dispensation", but then these things are nearly always ruled by pragmatism

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should any of you ever visit venice, i heartily recommend one of the private guided tours (euros 210 for the two of us for 3 hours) ..... the people who do these go through some very tough exams are are seriously knowledgeable

The Jews lived in the ghetto and they were locked in every night behind large doors, which I believe are still there. They came out to work. The name means casting or foundry, I think because they ran the gold business.

nowhere near accurate i'm afraid!
i won't give a history lesson, but the area was known as the ghetto because it was previously the area (island) where small scale iron work was carried out

the jews were only "banished" there in 1516 and entry to that island was via a single bridge which had a couple of guard houses on the land side and thus easy to control exit and entry

OK, but they did lock the doors at night from outside. I just read that when outside, they had to wear badges.

quite possibly .... even when "tolerated" the jews had to pay higher taxes than others, but such was the price of being "enemies" of the catholic church ..... from time to time, imposed political persecution outweighed pragmatic necessity, but often ways to circumvent were found - e.g. the venetian ghetto and "special licences" for doctors, musicians and (i guess) key bankers

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nothing from the village idiot
i wonder if he has been sent to the "naughty step" or even banished entirely

Apparently, most of the foreign trade in Venice was controlled by the Jews. I was reading that when the ghetto was at its most crowded, some Jews were allowed yo live outside the ghetto. As in England, Jews were not allowed to own property, so banking and money lending were often their careers. I have many friends who are Muslims It is unislamic to pay interest and even worse to charge it. In the time of the ghetto the same applied to Christianity. This was to do with Jesus overturning the tables of the money lenders in the temple. All interest was regarded as usury. These restrictions did not apply to Jews in the ghetto and in England. This meant that the Jews were a necessity for trade and businesses to expand. I suspect that this reliance also caused much resentment and especially that Christians could not be bankers and make money that way. It is interesting that the Christians soon saw the error of their ways,

riots in stockholm
i'm afraid that, rightly or wrongly, this adds fuel to the more rabid views in the current uk debate, making it ever more difficult for parliament to make logical and sensible decisions

"Due to its liberal immigration policy, Sweden has in recent decades become one of Europe's top destinations for immigrants, both in absolute numbers and relative to its size.
But many of those who have arrived struggle to learn the language and find employment, despite numerous government programmes".

cynic

Maybe Tanker has beenn'picked up'

A 22-year-old man has been charged on suspicion of making malicious comments on Facebook following the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby. Benjamin Flatters, of Lincoln, was arrested last night after complaints were made to Lincolnshire Police about comments made on Facebook, which were allegedly of a racist or anti-religious nature.

He was charged with an offence of malicious communications this afternoon in relation to the comments, a Lincolnshire Police spokesman said. A second man was visited by officers and warned about his activity on social media, the spokesman added.

hays - that view is a bit muddy and in part makes opinion or whatever fit the facts ..... one natural reason for the jews to be "hated" was the very fact that their enforced profession of banking and money-lending made them obvious targets for opprobrium .... if you were a borrower and could beat up or even murder your creditor with impunity and thus escape your debt, whose side would you be on?

malicious communications, mmm maybe now they'll start to do the same with the preachers of hate.
2517

cynic

I am sure the main reason was the leaders of christianity fostering such hatred. The concept that the Jews killed Jesus is still in existence today. If they did then I would say, "not a moment too soon". He was a pain in the arse.