I am sat here listening to the soundtrack to a Russian film called The irony of fate.

The film in fact was a television series spread over three episodes of an hour each. It was made in the late Soviet era and the plot twists around the fact that across the Soviet Uninion identical apartment blocks were put up. The blocks had the same names, the street names were same and unbeknownst to the occupants the keys were same.

On day before New Years Eve a man gets drunk with his friends. Through a combination of bad luck he ends up on a wrong plane. When the plane lands he is still drunk, stumbling a taxi he gives his address and so ends up in a apartment that is identical to his own save that he is the wrong city.

The apartment is owned by a woman who is surprised to find a strange man in her bed when she comes in from having been working the previous night. It transpires that both the man and woman are due to get married to people they don’t love.

The man can’t get home until New Years Day so he is forced to spend News Years Eve with the woman. The irony of fate intervenes and the inevitable happens.

The music is by a renowned Soviet composer, Mikael Tariverdiev. Although renowned over there until recently his music has been unknown and unavailable over here. It is now started to filter through now.

It is beautiful and beguiling and probably quite romantic.

Some of the irony of my fate hit me half way though this afternoon as I was sat at my desk staring at a flickering screen and either trying to write emails, letters and all the detritus that passes through my day. There must be more to life I thought.

What I would have preferred doing was be staring at slightly different flickering screen and trying to finish off the book about mackerel, the book of recipes inspired by the grocers or even make a start on the book trying to fathom how I ended up wanting to listen to so much music from my first single being Gimme Dat Ding by The Pipkins.

I put all aside briefly this evening and made pasta with creamy sauce flavoured with garlic, powerful blue cheese and spinach.

Having polished it off I may just curl up on the safe and press play again.