Rome under water, Todi under cloud.

It is still raining here.Some poor soul drowned in Rome last night when she drove her car into an underpass that had filled with 4 metres of water. There is a lesson there about making sure that you can open the windows and doors should the electrics fail. In the days when most European cars had wind-up windows we had a friend who bought a Jaguar with some of the first commercially available power windows and door locks. He was so suspicious of them that he always carried a hammer in the glovebox of the car in order to break the windows should they jam shut - we used to think that this was a sign of obsessive/compulsive disorder - but in light of the tragic accident perhaps he was right. In Rome this evening the floodwaters on the Tiber are at their highest level in 40 years and are reaching the top of the arches on the Ponte Milvio. The poor tourists flying into Fiumicino tonight face a wet weekend.