APPROACHING VENICE on the excitingly speedy vaporetto (No 4.2), which has a pointed prow and leans backwards when it accelerates, so that passengers in the open air in the stern are below the water level of the kicking wake as it makes miniature rainbows in the January sunshine – approaching Venice like that, I was reminded of something by a prominent brickwork campanile.

It was too much like an industrial chimney to appeal straightforwardly, but the shape at the top resembled the beloved British telephone box, the K2, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott.