Careful what you wish for

I had a birthday recently. A significant one which means I am now very old.

It’s not all bad though. My wife took me on a trip to Venice which was extremely enjoyable. If you haven’t been there before I would certainly recommend a visit before it disappears. It may not disappear in my lifetime because I am so old now, but perhaps in the lifetimes of my children.

While we were there we visited the Doge’s Palace in the Piazza San Marco - an amazing place dripping with a history a shamefully knew very little about. The biggest room in the palace is the Chamber of the Great Council. An absurdly ornate hall 53 meters long and 25 meters wide.

All around the top of the room are a series of portraits of the first 76 doges of Venice, from the year 804 to 1556. I read this with interest on one of those information boards they have in these places, to inform ignorant tourists like me. It also gave detail of a man named Marino Faliero. He was the 55th Doge of Venice and in the year 1355 he plotted to murder all of his peers, attempted a coup and was sentenced to death as a result. But not just death. His portrait on the wall in that room had been scrubbed out. This is because chopping off his head wasn’t deemed enough. It was also ordered that he should be forgotten and erased from the history books. A fate worse than mere death.

The most amusing thing was that on this information board, it only mentioned one Doge by name.

Not sure what made me think to put this on The Cycling Website… I’m off to check who the 55th winner of the Tour de France was.

Don’t be a bollocks. Leave a comment.