For the last two weeks I have been looking at an empty screen. It draws me in, as though it is a device used by an invisible hypnotist. It mesmerizes. It grips. It holds. I am a prisoner to a blank screen.
In other words I am having a bout of writer’s block.
Now that is not really fair. After all my prose do not flow with quite the same panache as those of Shakespeare. My accidental alliteration, my massive use of hyperbole and my ability to mix infinitives and split metaphors are world renowned in my home town, Manchester, England.
In a sentence, to have writer’s block, one must be a writer. Indeed I long to tell the world I have writer’s block, but somehow I do not believe I will make the grade.
So what have I contracted? What power does the blank screen hold over me? Is there a cure?
Eventually, the laptop battery died, leaving my soggy mind in need of other attractions.
And then it hit me, thankfully not like a lightening bolt.
Reporting the Middle East is dull, mind-bogglingly so.
You must be thinking that David Zev has finally lost his marbles. We always thought his grip on reality was light at best, but at long last his final outstretched finger has parted from all logic.
Au Contraire.
The Middle East is so dull, boring and repetitive. I can predict pretty much everything that will be front-page news tomorrow.
In most Arab countries, the top stories will include half-hearted praises of their leaders, there will be an ‘Id Al-Fitr story and the U.S. and Israel will be hammered.
The Israeli press will have an item on the peace process, one on economic woes and another on a poor performance in the international sports arena.
When it comes to the reports on terror attacks over the next 24 hours, and believe me, there will be, whenever you are reading this, the only questions are where did they take place? and who perpetrated them?
In other words, I am bored. Bored of writing the same copy, interviewing the same people, learning of new bouts of bloodshed.
Why can’t I write about new discoveries, ballet, soccer?
I have writer’s block, but not of the Shakespearean kind. I am blocked by blood. The bloody events of the Middle East. And if you will please forgive this English blasphemy: I am bloody tired of it.