Cheung, chastity and cheongsams

Wake up late and resign myself to going into the office to deal with the backlog. The only one there, it's a relief to be able to half-clear my inbox with no distractions. Back home, missing Liz, I finally get around to watching Won Kae-Wai's In the Mood for Love, ten years after its original release. It's a fabulously sultry, stylish film. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are brilliant as the couple living on the same floor, their respective spouses forever absent, always on the verge of entering into an affair but - this being socially conservative '60s Hong Kong - never quite allowing themselves to do so. Leung wears sharp monochrome suits, forever smoking a cigarette; Cheung ridiculously beautiful in an endless series of high-collared, multi-coloured cheongsams. Never was ennui and unconsumated passion so alluring.