The Sound of Silence

It's usually July that finds me inactive on this blog but the last three or four weeks have found me reluctant to commit anything to paper (or screen as the case is here). I've found myself coming up with three or four ideas for posts only to find that by the time I have sat down and pressed the 'on' button that they have, just like my dreams, faded and died.

It's not for the want of some decent material, Bowie's representative on earth at the Brits, West Ham claiming the most clean sheets in the Premier League this season, the pros and cons of Scottish Independence and of course the Winter Olympics. Then there are the heavier subjects such as the Ukraine, the use of Cossacks to break-up a demonstration by a pop band in Russia and the increasing, but hitherto slipping under the radar (no pun intended), tensions in the Pacific between the Chinese and the Americans each posturing and posing in that 'my Dad is bigger than your Dad' style of military muscle flexing we hoped had died back in 1989.

I could put it down to the weather, which has gone from the pre-Christmas flooding to the 'follow that tornado' (well almost) living in the windy city February. I could put it down to the problems at work, I have never worked in an office where morale has been lower as London realises that they have bitten off more than they can chew and don't know what to do with the leftovers (usual TV chefs hints on what to do with leftovers don't apply in these circumstances). But I actually think that I have briefly lost my mojo.

A week's break between the end of January rush and the start of the February slog coincided with the wettest and windiest month since January and offered exactly zero in terms of inspiration. That said if you haven't seen American Hustle yet do yourself a favour and go and see it. The remarkable thing about the film (and I am not posting any spoliers here) is that it really does look like a 1970's film, it is quite superb. I went to see it on Valentines Day with Nathalie (probably normal behaviour in some Southern States but slightly weird in the U.K) and the wind was so strong that even in the films quiet moments you struggled to hear the dialogue.