To my dauntless readers:  The situation to which I refer above does not involve Venice, though as you know, every day there are more situations here than anybody has room for.

I know that there has been silence from me the past few days.  This silence does not represent either laziness or lack of desire to load you up with all sorts of news and views.  Au contraire, as the man said in the Bay of Biscay when asked if he had dined.  (Credit to Dorothy Sayers.)

The thing is that I have been hit by a rogue wave of technical issues concerning my blog which have seriously slowed me down.  I must resolve at least one or two of them before getting back to posts as before.  I may be able to publish something without a photograph — humans did manage to communicate somehow before photographs, I seem to recall — so I may do that to keep you up on at least some of what is going on out here.

In any case, I am on the case, and will be back to you as quickly as the technosphere will allow.  I think I must have made it angry somehow.  I probably insulted it by acting as if I knew what I was doing.