Returning home from a café on Broad Street in Reading I cursed my luck with weather, as I do a bit more often than I would wish. It is truly abysmal in this part of England around Christmas. It is rarely cold, and it snows only every two or three years, but it is wet most of the time, and it is often dark even around noon. The dejected, pasty faces bobbing wearily through the murk complete the picture. “Old boy,” a boisterous and chummy voice popped in out of the blue, “where would you rather be?” The answer was hardly novel, but it still surprised me by its clarity and alacrity: “Venice! Venice!” “But,” the first voice stalled a bit, “Venice and Reading are not that different in the winter!” “Nor are the faces,” it added in the same breath. “I know, I know,” the second voice sighed, “but the sounds, the smells, the sights are different enough—in fact, they are as different as they can be!” “Well,” the first voice began to falter, “maybe one day, with some luck…” When the dialogue petered out, I began wondering again about this absurd nostalgia of mine, if this is what it actually is. To wit, how can I feel so blue about a city in which I have never even lived?