He looks up, berating God, calls him 'a feckless thug' and lights a cigarette then draws heavily before grinding it out on the floor. It is a profoundly disquieting moment of iconoclasm.
This week I watched the New Amsterdam, a ship of the Holland American line, all 12 stories of it and all 2000 or so passengers, bullying its way slowly into Venice. At the top of the Campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore we were pretty well eyeball to eyeball with the topmost passengers. The ship felt out of place - a feckless thug. It was a profoundly disquieting moment of iconoclasm.
What makes Bartlett's behaviour and that of Venice similar is that both in their actions betray their core principles. His belief in and love of God. Venice in renouncing their respect and reverence for the sea, ships and beauty, and respect most of all for their historic and fragile city. It's a bit like discovering La Serenissima (as Venice was called) has been going out with Johnny Rotten all along.
The lesson for me is about what a person, place or institution's 'red thread' is. The point beyond which it would not go whatever the incentive.
Apart from the feckless nautical thugs Venice is beautiful and - surprising to many - has fewer people milling around than there would have been in 1500.
Then it was the centre of the world because it knew precisely what it stood for and what it was doing. Now it's in danger of just becoming a parking lot for obese pleasure boats.
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