Mea culpa. I haven’t exactly been churning out the blogs recently - there’s just been too much going on plus a lot of work. Big trips nada, but lots of short ones round these isles that I know so little of. And plenty of London’s usual gourmet culture - from Juliette Binoche dancing rather brilliantly with Akram Khan, Kenneth Branagh returning to the stage in Chekhov’s Ivanov, Francis Bacon at Tate Britain, Rothko at Tate Modern to last night’s session of Mark Thomas‘ hilarious but no less forceful attack on the mighty Coca Cola giant - with some extraordinary, humbling stories of the Samson & Goliath variety.

With the rain tipping down and London snuggling down into post-christmas blues, with underground trains delayed due to suicides on the line and a surfeit of sociability, it’s the perfect moment to catch up on cinema. You can’t beat those moments of pure escapism in front of the big screen. So this last week I’ve really indulged, enjoying vicarious travel to Afghanistan (The Kite Runner), Shanghai (Lust, Caution), the American south in the 1930s (The Great Debaters) and Rumania (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days). The week before it was a quick hop to Mexico in the mesmerising Silent Light.

To most people, Mexican music means mariachis. Or even, for the spectacularly ignorant, Andean Pan-pipes (this sadly came to me recently out of a highly respected London publishing-house).

Mariachis are hard to beat, their music is infectious and the full-on harmonies and volume perfectly match the high-colour and heat of long Mexican afternoons and tequila-fuelled evenings. Their homeland is Jalisco, and a Sunday afternoon in one of Guadalajara’s big family restaurants gives the best overview. Small groups of musicians (usually a couple of trumpets, a guitar and a violin or two) move from table to table to play pieces chosen and paid for by the diners, some of whom end up shedding a tear or two in sympathy with the more soulful songs. It’s heart-rending stuff.

Somehow two weeks whizzed by without me managing to write a blog word. More Air France problems spiked my return (missed connection, delayed baggage etc) but that all fades into the far distance compared with life in Mexico. Technicolour, highly charged, incredibly warm people, endlessly varied… the superlatives are legion and oh so true.

Above all something unexpected lies round every corner, not least the weather. On the local weather-map little clouds and slanting raindrops were dotted all over, quite normal for June. The reality? one tropical downpour in Mexico City and one overnight storm in a village of Veracruz - cracking thunder followed by the chimes of the morning tortilla van, the equivalent of a wake-up call. Otherwise it was dry dry, sun sun and blue blue with temperatures creeping up into the high 30s in the Yucatan. So global warming marches on.