The first of the cars I got to test drive for FishHead magazine, the $170,000 BMW M3.

It has been nearly four months since I pos­ted some­thing oth­er than a pod­cast to this site and two years since I pos­ted one of my “Best of the Year” film roundups. I haven’t seen enough this year to jus­ti­fy one of those but, see­ing as the year is reach­ing its con­clu­sion, I feel I ought to prove to myself that I can still pro­duce a few words every now and then.

If all you knew of me was my out­put here at F&S then you could be for­giv­en for think­ing that I had gone off the boil a bit. After all, the site became pop­u­lar for my reg­u­lar film reviews and the audio con­tent that now dom­in­ates was simply an added bonus. I have taken to call­ing 2014 a sab­bat­ic­al year, a pal­ate cleanser, but that means that at some point I need to get back on the horse and start rid­ing. I have every inten­tion of doing that in 2015 but — if it proves any­thing like the last 12 months my wishes might not mat­ter a damn.

So, what have I been up to? How do I jus­ti­fy call­ing 2014 a great year?

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