There is a town near Venice called Mestre. Whenever I saw the name of this town I thought to myself "what a great word - if the Italian word for 'mice' isn't mestre, it should be". (It isn't - it's 'sorci', but I still say it should be).
Talking of mice, I was in a pet shop the other week buying bedding material for Greg and Esme and I saw some hilarious white mice. These guys looked like they were having so much fun with a little game they were playing. They had exercise wheels large enough for two mice to get on at once, and they would race each other on the exercise wheels. Then one of the mice would stop while the other kept running, causing the stopped mouse to fly backwards up towards the top of the wheel while the running mouse would fly forwards up towards the top of the wheel due to the increased resistance of the wheel. Then they would start again. Sometimes they got up so much momentum that they would fly to the top and back down the other side - kind of like they had invented makeshift rollercoasters!
I want some white mice now.