The sofa floating in the middle of Rome's Tiber River

ROME, according to Titus Livius, was a city overwhelmed by its own greatness.

Well, it looks like a few things have changed since Livy choked his last in AD 17…now it’s just overwhelmed by crap.

This shocking picture of the supposedly beautiful Tiber River in the city has sparked a national outcry in Italy.

The country has been painstakingly slow to confront its environmental problems with the nation’s rivers and coasts polluted by industrial and agricultural contaminants – and its lakes contaminated by acid rain.

Italian Environmental groups have long criticised the failure of central government and regional authorities to tackle the problems of pollution have now used this photo to highlight the scandal.

Green campaigner Tito Longo, 36, from the association ‘Biciroma‘ that wants more people to use cycles and dump cars said: “The bizarre image of this dumped sofa in the middle of the Tiber River and against the background of Rome should highlight people that this is a problem on our doorsteps that will not go away unless we act.”

The sofa is surrounded by other floating waste

If you're interested in manhole covers the museum will provide you with hours of entertainment

THIS is the most boring museum in the history of the world - unless you’re inexplicably interested in manhole covers.

The International Manhole Cover Museum has opened in Farrara, Italy to widespread public disinterest. 
 
Creator Stefano Bottoni claims the manhole is an underrated art form that should be celebrated.  
 
Bottoni, who studied at the Academy of Arts in Bologna, said: “Manholes are not often regarded as artistic creations yet they are rich in tradition, culture and history.”
 
The museum has an enormous collection of manhole covers from all over the world including Amsterdam, Havana, Helsinki, Prague, Rome, Bucharest, Sarajevo and Vienna.
  
Bottoni is hoping to get his first manhole cover from the UK this year, and has appealed for anybody with access to British manhole covers to get in touch.

TVs are being dumped in the streets all over Italy, much to the frustration of drivers Pic: Europics.at

DRIVERS in Italy are furious that they can’t get up enough speed to crash properly – because the country’s streets have been littered with thousands of TVs.

It is traditional for Italian drivers to plough straight into pedestrians or other vehicles shortly after leaving home.

Many Italians even consider extensive damage on their cars to be a ‘badge of honour’, with most vehicles badly battered within minutes of leaving the showroom.

But their mission to cause constant pile-ups has been made harder since Wednesday, when the government ordered the switch-off of analogue TV signals across the country.

Rather than recycling their old sets, Italians nationwide have simply been dumping them in the streets – causing traffic chaos.

Drivers in one district of Naples, in southern Italy, have complained they even have to change their daily route because of hundreds of old TV sets thrown on the streets after the new law.

One said, without a hint of irony: “It’s become like an open-air scrap-yard.”