In case anyone is still following this blog, yes, I am alive and sweltering on the Florida Atlantic coast.

Pelicans flap lazily overhead. The sound of the sea swell is annoyingly loud in our hotel room. The plastic surgery and caked fake suntan make-up on TV religious and other presenters have moved to even higher levels of gargoylitude since we were last here.

All is well, other than the fact that the tape for the canned laughter on tedious US TV ‘shows’ has not been changed in 50 years. And those restaurant tips at 15-20%. And the dank so-called bread with so much sugar in it.

It’s interesting how you fall back so easily into the American Way of Life. Large glasses of heavily iced Coke slip down, as do sprawling hamburgers and steaks. Unfeasibly large vehicles cruise blandly down unfeasibly wide roads with no obvious litter problem. Old-style politeness everywhere.  

You can’t follow world events from here, if indeed there are any. Of the hundreds of TV channels available, why not watch a reality series about Wedding-Cakes or just tune in to the evening ball-game? The TV news makes no obvious sense, pouncing on one or other Big Story then leeching it to death in a crudely partisan way. 

Wasn’t there a new war in Libya or Syria or somewhere started back in March before we left the UK? I wonder how that one went. Is it over? Who won?

In short, if you want thoughtful insights on the Eurozone crisis, protests rocking the Arab world, nuclear melt-downs in Japan or anything else of consequence, rule me out for the time being. I’m too busy hangin’ out and lyin’ low.