LA Not So Confidential

The Bitches of Beastwick 1/24/12

2012-01-24T06:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Lord, please save us from Karissa and Kristina Shannon, the ex-Playboy mansion twins currently contaminating our TV screens in the UK.

The pair – well, both pairs, courtesy of Hugh Hefner’s compulsory plastic surgery for his girlfriends – are appearing in Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother, an entertainment show that brings “celebrities” (D-Listers – no one in the UK has ever heard of the twins) under one roof for three weeks and subjects them to all sorts of humiliations.

The twins are no strangers to reality TV and know what to do to get camera time. They have flaunted their bodies since day one, wandering around in skimpy outfits and bikinis, extolling their own beauty, and believing that every blonde and, indeed, every woman in the world, is jealous of them.

The reality is that they have revealed themselves to be spiteful, bitchy, stupid and, yes, gullible, when they were fooled into thinking they had become big stars in Japan. Their interview with the fake Oriental TV host will (one hopes) be on YouTube for decades to come.

This week, Karissa blew a gasket when Denise Welch, a terrific actor and one of the wilder women in the entertainment industry, pulled at her trousers during a “Girls Night Out” session in the house.

Initially, there was no reaction, but then you could see the “Ker-ching!” on Karissa’s face, and off she stormed to the diary room, where housemates receive not only instructions but vent their grievances, to declare that she wanted to leave.

She claimed that she was the classiest woman in the house and felt disrespected. Really? The social network was immediately awash with pictures of the twins, happily bearing their backsides for the world, and, presumably, getting paid handsomely for it.

There is a bit of a debate going on about the incident, the pro-Karissa lobby (albeit a very small lobby that you could fit in an eye bath and still have room for a multi-storey car-park) having one line of argument: just because you take your clothes off for a living, that doesn’t give anyone the right to show your private bits on national TV, is the general gist of it.

I get the point.

But anyone with any savvy (and, let’s face it, the twins’ management presumably has it by the bucket-load – or so they never tire of telling us, anyway) will have checked out the show and seen that nudity, drunkenness and lack of respect for anyone’s personal space are at the heart of the format.

The twins have used Denise’s behaviour to “up” what is, to me, bullying of the older woman. Denise is 53 and should, said the twins, act her age. I suspect they never said the same to their octogenarian boyfriend who funded their lavish lifestyle and made them the ghastly stars they have become.

No, taking your clothes off for a living does not make you fair game for every grope and lewd comment, any more than being a prostitute makes you fair game to be raped. But the twins have put up with far worse on the other side of the Atlantic; the only difference in the UK is that they are in an uncontrolled environment that, quite frankly, their management should have checked out more thoroughly beforehand.

Ex-Page 3 girl Nicola McLean has joined the twins in their bullying of Denise, and it is playground behaviour of the worst sort. Nicola’s attempts to manipulate the voting by getting the twins onside - and they have done the same with her – has turned this threesome into The Bitches of Beastwick. Yes, Denise drinks and, under the heat of TV lights, the effects of alcohol are heightened – as is the pressure.

The twins’ ageism also extends to Frankie Cocozza, a young singer who was recently thrown off The X Factor after going off the rails. The twins attack him for what they call sexual harassment but, just days ago, thought he was just like any 18 year-old kid.

Again, they changed tack and decided to go down the “We’re going to sue” route. Now, they attack him even for opening his mouth but, well done to him, he ignored their bullying on Monday and went off to comfort Denise.

In that one action, he revealed himself to have more maturity than those two airheads could ever conjure up on their deathbeds.

Here’s news, girls: you are not, as you think, going to win this. You are the very worst Los Angeles has to offer and, in the three years I lived there, trust me, I am placing you right down there with the worst of them.

You are not beautiful; you are not clever, funny, talented or interesting. You have ridden on the back (literally or metaphorically, who knows) of an old man who has financed your very dubious stardom.

You may be able to fool LA but it doesn’t wash in the UK, where the concept of fun (which is clearly anathema to you – get your management to look that word up) rules, in what is essentially a game show.

Come Wednesday, I hope that the British public, who are voting for the winner (what a waste of time your nomination scheming has been – Duh!), get your tight-arsed personalities out of the house.

And while we’re on the subject, Karissa . . . My arse is SOOOOO much better than yours.

And I’m 53.

Hollywood Goes to Frankie 1/7/12

2012-01-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

A small slice of Hollywood has turned up in the Celebrity Big Brother House on Channel 5 in the UK.

Reservoir Dogs actor Michael Madsen is in there, along with the famous twins who once shared Hugh Hefner’s bed – and they’re all looking a bit baffled.

Unbeknown to Madsen, who was second in, the first housemate - actor Natalie Cassidy - had been given secret tasks, one of which was to tell Madsen that she was his greatest fan and loved him in the movie Free Willy. He looked as if he had been hit over the head with . . . well, a wet fish.

Later, she had to go to the twins and speak with an American accent and then tell them she had done a lot of modelling. Lovely and talented as she is, Natalie is no Playmate bunny, and the twins could not hide their incredulity. It was hilarious.

As the show was being broadcast, the whole country of Wales was in shock, too. Grown men sobbed. They shook their heads in disbelief. They clutched their foreheads and held on to each other as if clinging for the last moments of life on a sinking ship.

What could possibly have happened? Who had died? Which national hero had passed away, who might be capable of eliciting such outpourings of grief?

The reason for the national tragedy quickly became apparent: Gareth Thomas – the Welsh international rugby player who came out as being gay in 2009 - had entered the house.

For those not in the know, the Channel 5 show (bought from Channel 4, who dropped it last year) returned on Thursday night and introduced us to the 13 celebrities who will spend the next three weeks holed up together. As each one mounted the fateful steps, Twitter went into overdrive as people began the predictable round of complaints.

These were B list celebrities, Channel 5 is awful, why do people humiliate themselves like this – on and on and on. My voice was a very small one in the wilderness of criticism because, quite simply, I think this series promises to be brilliant, and Gareth Thomas is 100% right to be there.

From the outset, it was inspired, and Cassidy just got funnier and funnier as she completed each task with seemingly relative ease – and none of them were easy, as they had to be performed “immediately”.

She even managed to kiss sacked X Factor contestant Frankie Cocozza on the lips - twice (poor Frankie was totally intimidated throughout and reduced to a rare humility in the presence of Madsen). By the time she completed the last – getting everyone to join hands, delivering a motivational speech and subsequently crying – I was helpless with laughter.

It was an award-winning performance and I suspect her agent is already inundated with offers for when she returns to real life.

The decision for anyone to participate in a reality show is one not to be taken lightly. I criticised Welsh rugby international Gavin Henson for taking part in The Bachelor because he did so at a time when all his energies should have been directed at training for the Rugby World Cup. The Bachelor – a US format - is a desperately tacky show that requires great acting, a fantastic personality and an ironic wit to carry off the central role successfully – and Gav . . . Well, bless him.

Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing on Ice in the UK are shows that are almost foolproof in their ability to resurrect celebrities’ careers, because they have self-improvement at the heart of their formats. Similarly, I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! which reveals quite astonishing levels of endurance in the most unexpected individuals.

Celebrity Big Brother is a tougher nut to crack because, in the essential task of “just being”, the housemates’ weaknesses are more exposed.

Gareth will do brilliantly. I have no doubt. He has overcome the biggest obstacle he will ever face – having the guts to come out in the macho rugby world.

Having endured an embarrassing interview by ruthless TV commentator Eddie Butler on TV, he subsequently declared his homosexuality (although I am not suggesting that Eddie has hidden powers as an outer of gays) and transformed himself overnight. Suddenly, here was an articulate, witty, immensely likable person and a fantastic role model.

His performance on the Ellen de Generes show in the US was breathtaking and brought him immense support on that side of the pond – no mean feat for any personality. There is a film, starring Mickey Rourke, being made of his life. And he will never be short of shoes, having impressed Christian Louboutin so much, he was given a pair of slip-ons embroidered with his tattoos.

"Alfie", as he is known in Wales, is being spectacularly managed and his arrival in the Big Brother house should be greeted not with derision but with encouragement and praise (and please get behind him to win by joining my Facebook page, “Alfie to Win Big Brother 2012”).

The man inspires nothing but pride.

Wales has conquered yet another little piece of Hollywood.

Go, Alfie, go!

What A Difference A Daylight Robbery Makes 12/5/12

2012-01-05T06:41:00.000-08:00

31ST DECEMBER 2011

New Year’s Eve is my most hated day of the year. I can count on one hand the number of remotely good New Year’s Eves I have ever had, and this year looked like being another damp squib as I continued to ponder where I might go.

When I was a child, I loved waking on the first day of the New Year to find the pile of hats and whistles at the foot of my bed – the cache my parents brought back from the dance they had been to the night before.

My sleepy eyes stretching to take in pink crepe streamers dangling from the top of a shiny purple cone; red and blue plastic nursing waxed coils of inflatable whistle; jewels of sweets in a nest of tinsel – the glamour of a world I didn’t know but imagined, as I sifted through the evidence.

Sometimes, my parents had a New Year’s Eve party. Before the guests arrived, I would watch my mother prepare the food – creamed chicken in vol au vents (French food, no less! I thought Mum and Dad could speak a second language), sausage rolls and, my favourite, deep-fried fish balls. My brother and I were allowed to choose a small plate of food to take to our rooms to enjoy our own private party. And I thought I was the luckiest child in the world.

When did New Year’s Eve go so wrong? Was it when alcohol became part of the equation and aspirin replaced paper hats as the main fare of New Year’s Day? Or was it when I found myself without a date when all of my friends were sifting through a mountain of invitations? Maybe, as with most things, the shine went off it when I simply grew up.

By far my worst New Year was Millennium Eve. I had broken up with my boyfriend ten days before Christmas after I discovered he had gone off with a nurse when I was away. We were in Soho Pizzeria in London and, upon my suspicions being confirmed, I left the restaurant with great dignity. Halfway up the street, I changed my mind, ran back and gave him a “How could you do this to me!” rant in front of the whole place. Every nurse in Casualty and Holby City got a bad review from me after that. Sluts, the lot of them.

So, on the biggest New Year’s Eve in my lifetime, I was alone in front of the television, listening to bagpipes. Quite why anyone has the nerve to call that portable windbag a musical instrument is beyond me, and much as I love Scotland, the bagpipes make you understand why God chose to put the country so far away from everyone else.

As a single, older person, your New Year’s Eve choices are limited. Billboards in town are advertising late night drinking and DJs, which is a euphemism for glass in your face and a noise level that will make it impossible to phone the police and report said glassing of face.

Formal dinner dances are no fun on your own and come second in loneliness only to going away and staying in a hotel, where you then end up paying for the privilege of couples ignoring you.

We have huge expectations of New Year’s Eve, yet most people hate it. Far from feeling like a new beginning, for most of us it reinforces how little we have accomplished since the last one; and as the recession continues to bite, these days it also reinforces how much less money we have than we did a year ago.

But I still made the effort and went to the Cameo Club, which continues to be my favourite haunt in the city. Why change the habit of every other day for one night? And, at a mere £5, as a bagpipe avoidance solution, it was a snip. Shame the loud music drove me out shortly after midnight, but a small group reconvened in my house for charades.

Bring on 2012, I thought, waking with an optimistic song in my heart.

1ST JANUARY 2012

The New Year did not start well. After a very enjoyable Christmas catching up with family and friends, I was looking forward to 2012 with renewed optimism after what had been a difficult 2011 (after a difficult 2010 and 2009, come to that).

On New Year’s Day, I went to two of my local pubs to bring in the New Year with a few more people, and I returned home ready to start real life again on January 2nd (yes, a Bank Holiday, I know, but I figured I had already had enough time off).

I worked through the night in my living room, reviewing TV and contacting colleagues in LA, which I have to do during the early hours because of the time difference.

Suddenly, I became aware that the house had become very cold and went to check to see if I had left any windows or doors open. Everything appeared secure, and when I went to bed, everything seemed in order.

I awoke to a freezing house the following morning and noticed my kitchen window flung open. There were black footprints over my kitchen floor and dining room carpet. Then, I noticed footprints on the clearly destructed window.

I could not immediately see anything missing and called the police to report the break-in. But suddenly I noticed that my handbag was not in its usual place. Running hysterically through the house, I soon realised that it had been taken, along with several valuable possessions and a lot of cash and credit cards.

I never carry a lot of cash – friends’ experiences of being mugged on the streets always having been a deterrent; but this was an exception owing to the extra long holiday and the banks being shut.

The police were fantastic, from the desk officer who took the call to those who came to interview me and take forensic evidence. Likewise, the Lloyds Group insurance people I spoke to. Kind, understanding, sympathetic and helpful – I could not have asked for more.

I have returned home to find my home having been broken into when I lived in Bath, but Neighbourhood Watch were there so quickly the thieves escaped with nothing. The devastation felt by the violation of one’s personal space is, however, incalculable, and the knowledge that someone was in my home, just feet away from me, robbing me of my possessions, is something that, at present, is something from which I do not feel I will ever fully recover.

How did I not hear them? Why would they enter a house where it was clear someone was at home? Or, did they think the house was empty and, upon seeing me investigate the cold, pull the window shut and hide outside until I turned the lights off?

What if there had been no money in the bag? Would they have passed through the rest of the house and, upon finding me in the living room, coshed me over the head and helped themselves to everything they could?

The questions have been endless. The What Ifs, the Buts, the If Onlys – and, as the officer who took my statement said: hindsight is a wonderful thing.

When he handed me the statement to sign, I read through it and said it was fine – apart from the misplaced apostrophe in the possessive pronoun “its”. He asked when it was correct to use an apostrophe in the word, and, in the middle of my tears, I gave him an English punctuation lesson. It’s weird what shock does to you – and what it does not take away: namely, an obsession with language. Already, I was forming what I was going to write about the incident.

I was reminded of the story about Dorothy Parker who, at a theatre performance, laughed hysterically throughout but, in the next day’s paper, slaughtered the production. When asked by the gentleman who had listened to her guffawing throughout why there was such a disparity between her response and the review, she replied that she had not been laughing at the production, only what she was going to write about it.

The only upside of any bad experience for a writer is the knowledge that it is more material, and my grammar lesson was a tiny chink of light that reminded me that I was still me and would at some point return from what I now perceived myself to be, in just a few hours: a “victim”.

There are many situations in life capable of turning us into victims: the speed at which we shake that label off depends, for the most part, on our respective abilities to be re-active or pro-active. You can rant and rail against the hardships life throws at you for weeks, months, years; but in the end, it is only you who can change anything in your life.

There is a wonderful Maupassant short story in which one man tells another that he will ruin his life for the hardship he has dealt him. Decades later, having endured a terrible life and lost pretty much everything, the man meets the other, who had promised the wrath of terror; he congratulates him on having done exactly what he had said he would, destroying everything he held dear. Oh, that, the man shrugged; I forgot about that straight away.

The knowledge that it is we who are ultimately responsible for everything that happens to us is often a bitter pill to swallow, and it’s certainly true that there are many people – damned thieves included – who have no conscience when it comes to harming the lives of others. But it is how we respond to what is inflicted upon us – deliberately or by chance – that is the real sign of a great human being.

When the Stephen Lawrence “guilty” verdict was announced on Tuesday afternoon, it put my own burglary in perspective. Doreen and Neville Lawrence lost their wonderful young son at the hands of murderous, racist thugs; far from becoming victims, they fought for justice for 18 years, and this week, in part, they got it.

There is, indeed, evil in the world. People lie and steal and kill, and do all manner of things to defenceless human beings that it is hard to comprehend. But, when we feel at our most helpless, there are also many human beings who can surprise us with their compassion and kindness.

For me, this week, it has been the goodness shown not only by the police and insurance staff, but of so many strangers and friends on Facebook and Twitter, who offered messages of support after my ordeal. I felt alone and frightened, but was instantly surrounded by offers not only of practical help but emotional support.

It was uplifting, heartening, and transported me from the role of victim to one of survivor.

As for the people who robbed me. Enjoy the money. It won’t last. The love and support of my friends and family will.

Lording It Over The Landlord 12/18/11

2011-12-19T06:21:00.000-08:00

Don’t rent from a private landlord; it was advice I wish I had heeded when, standing before a judge in a Los Angeles courtroom, I was suddenly The Plaintiff in a case I brought against my ex-landlord.

Never having been sued or sued anyone else, my experience of courtrooms in general was limited, and my experience of American courtrooms was limited to what I had learned from television – which, as it happened, turned out to be very far from the reality.

I am not someone who is easily scared by bullies, and compared to the Fleet Street editors I am used to, any landlord is always going to be mincemeat. But the court officials – blimey! They were a different kettle of fish altogether. When I forgot about a small can of hairspray in my handbag as it went through the X-Ray at the courtroom entrance, I thought I was going to be whisked off to Death Row quicker than you could say Judge Judy.

Why hadn’t I left it in my car? I was asked. I explained that I didn’t own a car – a crime in LA even more heinous than carrying an illegal can of hairspray.

When the official picked himself up off the floor, he softened towards me, asking about my accent. Clearly, he had consigned me to the dregs of LA wheel-less nobodies, assuming that anyone who couldn’t afford a car wasn’t going to be a huge risk in the acquisition of bomb-making supplies.

It had been a long journey to the courtroom – almost a year, to be precise. My landlord had returned a portion of my deposit when I left the apartment and retained a portion to cover some stains, which I acknowledged had been left on the carpet. After my paying $600, the stains had allegedly had not come out: the carpet company provided no evidence of this; the landlord provided no evidence of this; and, despite repeated requests over many months, no receipts were forthcoming for any replacement carpet.

Californian law is very clear on this, and to cut a very long story short, a landlord must provide evidence of work carried out. So, I sued.

To make a very boring story interesting, let’s call The Defendants The Addams Family. Morticia ran the company for Lurch, whose contribution to the whole tale is nothing more than a lurking, verbally threatening figure in the background. As Lurch owned the letting company, I had to sue him; I was also advised to sue Morticia, should Lurch prove elusive.

Serving the papers became a comedy in its own right and will provide plenty of material for my future projects. The Addams Family refused access to the sheriff and so, as the plaintiff is not allowed to serve papers, I called upon the services of my friend Howard, who was visiting LA.

Morticia, I knew, attended a yoga class close by and Howard and I went along in the hope of serving Morticia mid-position. Seventy-five sodding minutes we spent, twisting our heads left and right from Downward Facing Dog and whispering every time somebody vaguely resembling Morticia entered the room. The teacher came over to ask if we were new and that we should be careful not to over-exert ourselves – our dogs were obviously already way too over-active in the head department.

If I thought that employing a sheriff was something I would be unlikely ever to find in my life’s repertoire, employing a private detective was way beyond my wildest dreams; but it became clear that if I wanted to play The Addams Family at their own game, that is what I would have to do.

Private detectives aren’t that expensive and they get the job done incredibly efficiently. My own man, let’s call him Superspook, served Morticia with ease, making an appointment to see an apartment and serving her in the elevator. When she realised what was happening, she pretended to be someone else, but Superspook was having none of it.

The next job was to serve Lurch. Superspook suggested getting his mates together and going in as a SWAT team. Whooooah! I said. Lurch was an old guy who might collapse and die at the sight of a SWAT team at his door; then I’d be up on a manslaughter charge and . . . No, I really didn’t want the SWAT team.

Anyway, Lurch was subsequently served and Morticia represented him in court. After trying to intimidate me beforehand – “You’re inept”, “You know nothing about Californian law” etc. – we were finally before the judge.

And guess what. The judge was incredulous that Morticia had retained monies and failed to provide any receipts. He concluded by saying that he thought were were both “very nice ladies” and “shouldn’t hate each other”. He would take the case under advisement.

The letter arrived the next day: judgment for the plaintiff, and Lurch’s company was required to pay me back half of what they had kept, plus costs. For a supposedly inept person with no knowledge of Californian law, I was rather pleased with myself. I will also earn more money writing about it than The Addams Family could ever have made out of me.

So, what’s the moral?

Take me on at your peril.

Because I won’t stop.

I’m like a dog with a bone.

And the only time you’ll ever find me Downward Facing is when I’m ripping you to shreds.

So, Farewell, Then, Los Angeles 12/8/11

2011-12-08T04:01:00.000-08:00

The smell of hops brings it all back. My childhood.

The excitement of coming to Cardiff with my parents, tempered by the dread of having to spend the day with my hand covering my nose: the sickly sweet smell from Brains brewery being the first sign that we had arrived in the big city from Newport, where we lived.

But I’ve still spent most of my adult life in the city in which I was born (albeit often living in other places at the same time); it has always been home to me and, I suspect, always will be.

Now, I’m back full time for real, and the smell of hops is still here, admittedly not as strong as it was to my young self but still a smell that resurrects the past with ease.

There is plenty that has not changed, and to walk through town is to remember so much and, for the most part, smile with the memories.

My first meal “out” as a child was at The Louis – still there - in St Mary Street. Its green awning with gold lettering (or have I imagined the gold?) is as glamorous as it ever was to me, and I can never walk past it without remembering my Big Day Out.

I had just been to David Morgan, where Mum bought us two coats and told me we had to hide them in the boot of the car so that she could break the news slowly to my dad. She can’t remember why she did that, as he was a placid man and certainly not someone who held the purse strings. She now wonders if she bought them on credit, of which he would have disapproved.

The coats were both cream: Mum’s had a fur (fake, of course) collar and mine was imitation lamb’s wool with brown buttons. It smothered me. It would have taken a week to shear me in order to get to my flesh, but I loved it and had never been so excited about anything as that first grown up coat.

It was rare for the whole family not to attend Mum’s shopping expeditions. Normally, she would park Dad, my brother Nigel and me by the Lancome counter in Howells and disappear for three hours, goodness knows where – other make-up counters, probably - but on this occasion it was just Mum and me. In The Louis, I had chicken chasseur and peas and thought I was the luckiest child in the world.

Howells I remember from my student years. I lasted two days working on the sweet counter, where a woman called Mrs Brown used to corner me between the truffles and the chocolate bars and admonish me for the smallest misdemeanour – breathing, topping the list.

It was the early days of credit cards and I used to dread people handing over their sliver of plastic and my having to negotiate this JCB of a machine, when all they were buying was 4oz of fudge. To escape the torture, I quietly told them to go to David Morgan, where they would find everything they wanted, sweeties included, for a darn sight cheaper. It was always the case, and I was sad to see the poor man’s Howells disappear in one of the many changes to the city.

The Philharmonic is still there, too. When I was a teenager living in Bridgend, I endured my first rugby international post-match drinking there and sampled rum for the first time. Lots of it. Rum that sprayed the fields travelling back to Bridgend, as I hung out of the train window, praying for death. I’ve never even been able to smell rum since without retching.

Wally’s delicatessen in Royal Arcade is now a much bigger and far more upmarket affair (so many lentils now. In my student days, I swear they sold nothing but red ones and white rice) and remains an institution. But the Chapter and Verse bookshop, where I bought the complete set of D.H. Lawrence letters, has gone, another victim of the Waterstone’s conglomerate.

Chapter Arts Centre is in the same place, but unrecognisable after its £3.8m makeover in 2006. It was converted from a school in 1971 and I used to watch Woody Allen films there on Friday nights. Afterwards, alone and depressed (my student days were not happy ones), I would ring the Samaritans from the pay phone on my way out. I never had enough money to get past “Hello”. One night, they didn’t even answer and I went round to their headquarters. They didn’t come to the door, either.

The Sherman, on the other side of town, is also still there. I was less suicidal at this venue but recall only that The Seven Swords of the Samurai seemed to be showing on a loop in the cinema – for four years.

So much has changed in the city. The plethora of cafes and restaurants lends a European air to the centre; the dominating feature is the Millennium Stadium, where once I stood queuing with my towel to get into the Empire Pool; Cardiff Bay is one of many jewels in the city’s crown and, on a hot day, a place buzzing with tourists and locals alike.

Change is good for us, and in Cardiff we are lucky in that the old continues to exist alongside the new – the indoor market, the Angel Hotel and, yes, The Louis. I wonder if the chicken chasseur is still on the menu. I might just pop in and find out.

People keep asking me if I am missing Los Angeles. To be honest, not a bit. I was there for nearly three years, enjoyed it, and had a wide variety of experiences. I even took an ex-landlady to court when she withheld a chunk of my deposit and provided no receipts to indicate on what it had been spent. I won my case and was especially proud, as she was a lawyer. I never got to hear the judge say “Judgment for the plaintiff”, but I can at least say that my horizons have been irrevocably broadened.

I made some good friends who I will miss and, come January, I will probably miss the sun. But as the rain beats down on my window as I write, and the wind howls, beating the trees to complete baldness as the last leaves of autumn fall, I still know that I have come home.

And it feels right.

Travelling Tadpole 11/9/11

2011-11-09T08:21:00.000-08:00

So, it’s 7.39am and I’m wondering whether to have another dish of the spaghetti Bolognese I had just under 12 hours ago.

Normally, at this hour, I’m craving pizza – or, rather, I’ve eaten the pizza at 5am and am contemplating having a nap before going to the gym.

I don’t know what time it’s ok to have a glass of wine – 7.39am in LA is, after all, 11.39pm in the UK, which makes it reasonable if I’ve been having a long supper, UK time.

But if I wait until cocktail hour at 6pm in LA, that’s 10am in the UK, which makes it decidedly unacceptable.

When I fly LA to London on a flight that lands in the morning, is it frowned upon to have a champagne breakfast, even though it’s last orders time in LA?

When my afternoon tea of a scone and clotted cream is delivered flying into LA mid afternoon, is it any wonder I want to throw up when it’s only 7am in the UK?

Yes, the long haul flying is finally getting to me. I’ve managed it for three years and, when I first moved here and was staying put for up to three months at a time, it never bothered me.

But in recent months I’ve been returning to the UK every few weeks, and I really don’t know where I am waking up each day. Back in Europe, I have also been visiting Paris and Spain, and the first ten minutes of every morning after I’ve been travelling are now spent in a panic as I find myself in another strange bed, reaching out for a water glass that turns out to be a telephone, and something I realise only when it is halfway down my throat.

It could be worse, I suppose. At least I’m not reaching out to a man and trying to make telephone calls from his chest. Or his handset.

As I have said before, I never used to be much of a traveller, so it’s still all relatively new to me; hence the tiredness, I suspect.

The longest journeys I took when I was a child were to:-

(1) Rumney village to my Auntie Cynth’s for Sunday tea.

(2) Weston Super Mare.

(3) Belgium, where my parents were so appalled by the shabbiness of the room, they contemplated driving straight back to the ferry. It was only my tears at the thought of having my first trip abroad so cruelly halted that I believe stopped them.

And let’s not forget:-

(4) Pwllheli, when my mother insisted on stopping at every single gift shop between Bridgend and North Wales (I swear I had three birthdays in the time it took us to get there).

And:-

(5) Cornwall, where, for some reason, at the height of summer, my parents thought it much more exciting not to book any accommodation in advance. “NO VACANCIES” is a sign that brings me out in a sweat even to this day.

So, I’m not sure where my recent new-found love of travel has its origins; but I do know that, for the moment, I’ve had enough of it.

I loved returning to my house in Cardiff for my birthday, different trees shedding pellets of autumn on my driveway. One friend wanted to sweep the pieces of autumnal debris away; I insisted that they stay, loving the reminder of seasons after such a long spell in the monotonous, albeit mostly glorious sunshine of California.

My rhododendron bush was flowering in the back garden – five months early, a sign of the warm weather I have missed (when, bizarrely, California was enjoying a less warm spell).

I opened my sweater drawer and put on my red cashmere for the first time in three years.

My mum and her dog came to stay.

I saw so many friends, in London, Paris, Spain and Cardiff.

I went to the 21st and 18th birthdays of my friends’ children and loved talking with young people, embarking on their adult lives, so full of hope and promise.

I bought food in a market in Paris and remembered how great things could taste outside the blandness of California, where a tomato could be a pomegranate for all the difference in taste.

I woke to exquisite sunrises in Spain and felt thrilled once more to be so close to the variety of truly glorious European cities.

There is a wonderful Alice Munro (the Canadian genius – and it’s not often you hear those two words in the same sentence) who wrote a story about some children, trying to re-locate tadpoles from one part of a pond to another. They successfully managed it, only to return in the morning to find that all the creatures had returned to the place from whence they came.

I still love travelling and am fortunate to have seen so many great spectacles in so many different countries.

But sometimes tiredness alone makes you just want to be a tadpole again – and eat pizza at the time it was meant to be eaten.

Eight pm. In front of the telly. At home. In my sweater.

Happy Birthday To Me 11/5/11

2011-11-05T03:17:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday.

I’ve had a lot of them, so I now know what to expect.

It’s very different from what I could expect over four decades ago. Then, my party guests would arrive not only with a present but a box of fire-works, which my father would set off in our garden after the sausage rolls and party games (which I had to, and did, win).

During the gunpowder part of the proceedings, I was the child hiding under the table in the dining room. I wanted everyone to go home so that I could play with my presents.

I also hated fire-works. I still do. When it’s the main noise that greets you on your first day in the world, it’s hardly surprising. I’ve never really understood the appeal of standing around in the cold, eyes streaming standing next to a roaring bonfire, watching a pretend man being roasted alive and having your ears invaded by loud bangs.

Decades on, the friends I once invited to parties usually cannot come to mine now because they are going to their own children’s bonfire events (and that’s what they are now: events. Unless you can reproduce The Towering Inferno on your lawn, it seems you are nothing these days). The most I can hope for is friends who are divorced and it is their year to do Christmas with their children, which frees them up for Bonfire Night. For ME. To every cloud and all that.

The last few years have been ruined by the All Blacks playing Wales in autumn internationals. Three years ago, I sat at a table I had booked for 20 in the Indo Cymru in Canton in Cardiff, with just five people: one was my mother, two my brother and his girlfriend, and another couple I suspect I might have hired off the street. I choked through tears on my Biriyani.

I remember my big birthdays very clearly. On my 18th, I had a hairdo that could have competed with the Taj Mahal as one of the world’s great free-standing structures. I had a turquoise top and trousers that has been in fashion at least five times since.

On my 21st, I was dressed in a long brown crimplene frock. My grandmother came for tea but I remember the day mostly for the hysteria in our house trying to keep Emma the menstruating poodle off the sofa and away from my grandmother’s nice suit.

I have had three birthdays that I recall as being the happiest days of my life. The first was my ninth and I had been given a gorgeous cream plastic tea-set decorated with brown flowers. As usual, I couldn’t wait for my friends to leave so that I could get it out of the box and play with it.

My 40th, in Soho House, the central London private members’ club, was extraordinary. Surrounded by colleagues and friends, I had never felt more loved. My brother had tracked down Ricky Valance, who sang the number one hit Tell Laura I Love Her. I was a big fan of his, not for that song, but Movin’ Away, which I used to sing into a hairbrush in front of a mirror in my youth. Ricky had recorded a message, which my brother played to the room; I also had a framed signed photo.

My mother also threw a family party for me near her home in Bristol and that, too, moved me to tears.

I wanted to celebrate the last day of my 40s with people I admired. I visited Simon Cowell in his smart London office and, in the evening, went to the theatre and shared a glass of champagne with Kenneth Branagh in his dressing room after the show.

I had three 50th birthdays: one, for close friends in the Bleeding Heart restaurant in London. Most people there had been at my 30th, too (apart from my therapist – if you haven’t had one by 50, you are so not of the NOW), and I felt blessed to have acquired – and kept – so many wonderful friends.

The second was at my Cardiff home, where I cooked for 70 and brought together many new friends with older ones who had known me since childhood.

The third was in Paris with friends I had made during my decade in France, and there were also new ones from the Paris/Welsh society. The last departing guest was lifted away, unconscious, by the pompiers, who were not happy, shouting that it was not their job to take away drunks of an evening. Ha! You want to be in Cardiff on a Friday night, I called back – or would have done, had my French been better and I did not harbour a fear of being beheaded.

I love birthdays. With each passing year, I am reminded that everything changes – and, yes, some things stay the same, and that is no bad thing, either. If I go tonight, I have still had a better life than most people in the world, let alone the country.

Age is not something that should frighten us, and the passing of days is not something we should mourn. Time is an ongoing period of learning: we have our successes and we have our failures. But we pass our wisdom – and our regrets – to others, who hopefully learn a little from both.

For me, it is the true meaning of everlasting life. Today, I celebrate it.

And, if you see me, you can celebrate it with me too.

Triples all round!

La La Means I Love You - Sometimes 10/29/11

2011-10-29T04:27:00.000-07:00

Travel while you’ve got your health.

It was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I have ever been given.

At the time, I was taking a cruise around the Mediterranean, writing a travel piece for the Daily Mail and enjoying the delights of Monaco, Malta, Sicily, Rome, Corfu – amongst others.

Don’t ask me in which order; Geography was never my strong point (in fact, a Geography lesson was one of just three times I was told off throughout my entire school career – for sneezing. Mrs Price went so ballistic, you’d think I’d pulled out a weapon and gunned down half the class. Teachers didn’t mess around in Bridgend).

I had flown just a handful of times on short trips during the preceding ten years; mostly, my travel was confined to the Eurostar, as I was renting an apartment in Paris, where I subsequently lived for six and a half years.

On the cruise, I met two very well-travelled American women from Washington, and it was Lisa, who has since become a close friend, who made the comment about appreciating travel while your body was still able to keep up with your mind’s intentions.

I was, of course, lucky to be travelling with Cunard, on a luxury liner where I ate the best food I have ever tasted – anywhere. The outstanding service in the Princess Grill (the higher end of the price range) put the normally poor service we receive on land in the UK, to shame.

Waking to sunrise in Monaco’s port moved me to tears (as did the prices, but that’s another story). So did the Sicilian coastline.

Rome was an enormous thrill (it was good to return, having visited only once previously for a rugby international, when I missed the entire city, returning to the UK and declaing that there was “nothing there”).

Malta was an unexpected pleasure.

And as for Corfu – I could have disembarked and spent the rest of my life there.

In the three years since the cruise, there has never been a month when I have not been flying off to another destination. I left Paris in 2008 and, for the past two and a half years, have been renting an apartment in Los Angeles.

I had always been someone who made sweeping generalisations about “all Americans” and wanted to dispel the prejudices that had been instilled through having been born and raised on our small island.

Having now travelled around the States and met a lot of Americans, I can confidently say that it is only “most” Americans who are uneducated, rude, uninteresting and uninterested, and hogs at a trough when it comes to bargain breakfasts in Las Vegas (actually, when it comes to that last one, I’m going to stick to the “all Americans” observation).

I have loved the energy in LA: the work ethic that permeates the whole city.

I enjoyed the craziness of Vegas (and saw Mayweather beat Mosley – live sweat, blood, and the thwack of leather on bare flesh: you can’t beat it), even though on my second visit I decided that even a second night was too much.

I burned off calories enjoying walking the hills of San Francisco (almost as much as I enjoyed the walk to the tarmac to leave the place).

A few months back, I was fortunate to be offered another cruise, this time on Crystal, around the Mexican Riviera – the R word being as far removed from its French counterpart as it is possible to be.

The poverty in Mexico broke my heart, but I like to think that I contributed to the local economy with my collection of hats, jewellery, bags and henna tattoos purchased on the beach.

How quickly “Look, piss off! I don’t want any of your tat!” turns into: “Where can I buy an extra couple of cases to take all this stuff home?”

Now, I am returning to Europe. I miss it. Despite my new-found love of travelling, the European in me misses home. Long haul travelling is also exhausting, and when I found myself returning from LA every three weeks on 12 hour flights, I thought that it was probably a sign that home was beckoning.

Last week, I was in six countries in as many days – New Zealand, the US, Wales, England, France and Spain.

My trip to Paris reminded me of the beauty of what I have always called my favourite city on Earth. London reminded me of the past I built up, both personally and professionally, over 28 years of living in the capital.

I am writing this from the apartment I bought in Puerto Banus, just outside Marbella, six years ago, looking out at 180 degree view of the Mediterranean in 27 degree sunshine – at the end of October, for heaven’s sake. On days like this, Spain reminds me that its south coast weather is as good as any I experienced in LA – and without the unhealthy smog.

Although my rugby World Cup trip to New Zealand instilled the country in my mind as a place to which I will never return unless under arrest, I am glad to have gone.

And finally, returning to Wales reminded me of the fact that no matter where you go in the world, your first love is for family and friends.

I have no doubt I will keep travelling – while I’ve got my health.

And there’s also one very important thing I’ve learned that would be the travel advice I would pass on to anyone, just as Lisa passed her wisdom on to me.

Not every holiday has to end with a lease.

Life, Death and a Bit on the Side

2011-10-28T00:42:00.001-07:00

Check out my other blog: Life, Death and a Bit on the Side at http://jacistephen.blogspot.com

Ashton vs Charlie: There's A New Trunk On The Block 9/20/11

2011-09-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

Why would anyone subject themselves to a bunch of showbiz (mostly) B listers abusing them not only in front of a studio audience but viewers at home?

The “celebrity roast” is bear pit television in LA. A celebrity – invariably one who has a dubious moral record – sits in a chair, while the “roast master” introduces the other celebrities, who in turn get up to deliver a comic monologue denouncing the star’s shortcomings.

For the less practised, the struggle to read an autocue full of jokes that have been written for them is embarrassing to watch; other performers display genius both in terms of material and presentation.

Last night, Comedy Central aired the Charlie Sheen Roast, just an hour after Charlie’s replacement, Ashton Kutcher, made his debut on Two and a Half Men, from which Charlie was sacked.

Kutcher’s entrance was in wet clothes, from which he quickly excavated himself and bared all – alas, this was hidden from the viewers sitting at home, but we nevertheless learned in the storyline that he is allegedly hung like an elephant.

Or maybe that’s just his character.

Anyway, CBS will have been rubbing their own trunks with glee when the viewing figures came in – 28 million.

The roast made less easy viewing. The brilliant Seth MacFarlane was roast master and was a good sport about taking jokes against himself too, even though they were pretty lame ones referring to the possibility that he might be gay but unwilling to come out of the closet. Who cares.

Mike Tyson delivered his speech with enormous energy and charm and looked in danger of expiring with the hilarity of the whole night, especially jokes in relation to his facial tattoo. Jeffrey Ross was the fantastic old pro he always is, even though a little bizarrely dressed as Colonel Gadhafi, and William Shatner was the star we know him to be.

And then there were some other people of whom I had never heard – which seemed to be the case for Charlie and Seth, too.

There were some very funny jokes, with many references to Charlie’s drug and alcohol problems and his psychological meltdown that followed his sacking from TAAHM. This was as sad as it was amusing, with the star later admitting that he hadn’t realised how screwed up he was until that night.

His own speech was a polished masterpiece and also rather moving, in the obvious realisation that here is a man who has been through hell and come through. Probably.

What left a far less pleasant taste in the mouth were the references to the women Charlie has physically abused, and quite why people were able to laugh so loudly at the idea of bleeding women cowering in corners and having things violently thrown at them is beyond me.

The bigger mystery was why one of them – ex-wife Brooke Mueller – was sitting in the audience, laughing uproariously along with everyone else.

But then I remembered that I recently made a “joke” on Facebook about the UK show, Red or Black, when the first winner of £1million was revealed to have served time for beating up his ex-girlfriend. Would the show now be called Black or Blue, I questioned. Most people thought it hilarious, but there were a couple of voices of dissension.

Was my comment any less offensive than the ones I felt uncomfortable with last night?

I think there’s a difference. My comment was a linguistic joke making fun of the show’s title in the light of their having failed to do their research properly; the Sheen event seemed to carry the message that if you’re a big enough and rich enough celebrity, you can do what the hell you like, including beating up women, and everyone will love you even more for it.

I enjoy the roasts, although can’t for the life of me think why anyone would subject themselves to the experience. Maybe it’s a way of drawing a line under the past: a way of saying “That was then, this is now” – and moving on, having learned valuable lessons.

Sheen was brilliant in TAAHM and he will go on to do other great work; I also hope that he has beaten his demons and emerged a stronger and nicer person.

But Kutcher will do well as his replacement. You know that phrase people say when nobody’s talking about “the elephant in the room”?

With Kutcher’s naked debut, now they’re talking ONLY about the elephant in the room.

Branson: Best Dick In The World 9/3/11

2011-09-03T05:20:00.000-07:00

Everyone recommended melatonin to conquer jet-lag.

Unfortunately, I was so jet-lagged, I told everyone I had taken methadone, which isn’t the same thing at all, and I then had to make a lot of frantic phone-calls to explain that I was not coming off heroin, nor, indeed, had ever been on it.

Anyway, back to the melatonin. I read up a bit about it and gleaned that the only negative was that it made you dream. As my dreams are very vivid anyway, especially in relation to a couple of people in LA (weapons of mass personal destruction feature strongly in those), I couldn’t see the harm, and so downed one before my long haul flight back to the UK.

It wasn’t good. I dreamed I had killed someone and was heading for Death Row quicker than you could say “Last meal curry and chips”.

I also dreamed that a policeman found a gun just as Prince Charles was about to do a walkabout, and threw the weapon into a bush shortly before HRH’s arrival. I wasn’t happy about this lapse in security but luckily woke up before taking the officer to task.

I was flying Air New Zealand but have decided to transfer my allegiance back to Virgin Atlantic; I just can’t take the stress of the ANZ points. With Virgin, you accumulate points and then use them for a guaranteed upgrade. On ANZ, with the “complimentary upgrade” you acquire with points, you often don’t know until the minute before boarding whether you have it or not.

It can be all the difference between sitting for ten hours next to that fat bloke with BO standing next to you in the queue or having your own pod and hibernating for the entire flight.

There’s also the Virgin lounge at Heathrow, which is like a holiday in itself, even though it’s not quite as good as it used to be. To avoid the possibility of the masseurs’ getting repetitive strain injury, they now pummel you with a wheat bag, which, quite frankly, is like being hit with a bag of Tesco shopping, although probably not as effective. The wine isn’t as good, either, although given that they change it often, that hardly matters.

On board, Virgin Business has a bar, which serves as a terrific networking venue; and the in-flight entertainment surpasses ANZ, whose content is not only much older, but comes to you via sets of headphones that enable you to hear everything that people in adjoining seats are listening to.

At least ANZ allows you to watch stuff until the last minute, though; the last hour of the Virgin flight is hell – the Branson clan advertising various charitable endeavours (I admire their altruism, but not when I’m knackered; please change it to the beginning of the flight), followed by the worst music ever composed, which is what you really don’t need after ten hours in the air.

Neither airline comes up to scratch on the food: a Virgin dining plate is so small, it could pass for an eye patch; and although ANZ boasts three great chefs, whose menus are fine, the food is ruined by being laden with way too much butter and so much salt you can’t help wondering if Lot’s wife has jumped into the pan along with the meat.

I was informed that salt is a good preservative, which I know of course; but when dehydration is one of the key discomforts about flying, surely the last thing you need is something that is going to exacerbate the problem.

So I remain very loyal to Mr Branson, who, all things considered, delivers the better product. He also has amazingly loyal and efficient staff, who respond to complaints and enquiries with efficiency and kindness. He also provides me with a credit card that enables me to acquire so many points, I am fast on the way to owning one of the aircraft.

I was really upset that his home burned down on Necker Island and wondered whether I could give him some points to help the rebuild, but figured I need them more than he does. In terms of flying, he pretty much gets it right, and ANZ’s new super dooper planes with white leather still don’t make up for the fact that the reception staff at the Star Alliance lounge used by ANZ at Heathrow are about as friendly as the Gestapo with a hangover.

They really need to learn from the ever fantastic Thierry at the ANZ lounge in LA. Great man, shame about the meagre offerings at the buffet, including a butternut squash soup that I mistook for the contents of the lavatory.

I still can’t quite believe that after ten years of refusing to fly anywhere, I am spending so much time in the air. It’s rather a good metaphor for where my life has been, but finally, this week, I finished my book – writing, not reading, that is. It’s been a long time in the making – over 20 years, to be precise, owing to the many incarnations it has endured along the way.

I didn’t feel any sense of achievement, which I suppose comes only if somebody agrees to publish the damned thing; but at least it’s done.

Maybe Mr Branson would like to buy it for people to read on his planes.

Trust me: it’s a lot better than the racket you’ll hear coming in to land.

The Unreal Side of Reality TV 8/20/11

2011-08-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

With the exception of everyone working in reality TV, most people in the industry will tell you that the genre is the death of serious drama, documentary, news, et al.

It makes stars of mediocrities, glamorises the inane and takes advantage of the stupid.

And why? Because it’s cheap.

The difficulty arises when you look at the reasons – or, rather, reason - behind the ongoing success of reality TV: it is, quite simply, hugely popular. Katie Price, Peter Andre, Kerry Katona and The Only Way is Essex crew in the UK; the Kardashians, Paris Hilton and all the Real Housewives Of . . . clans in the US – like them or loathe them; this is what audiences want to watch.

The reason why is a more difficult one to understand. Why would anyone want to watch Kerry Katona in yet another reality show? Has there ever been a woman who has achieved so little and yet made so much money from her mistakes? If she really is bi-polar, then it is serious medical help she needs, not more stints in the public eye, exposing her every word and action.

I feel the same about Katie Price. Never mind that her new love Leandro has a limited grasp of English; so does she.

In the States, I recently tried to go a day without hearing or seeing the surname Kardashian; it was impossible. It was like deciding to go to Iceland and vow not to see any snow. The family really is inescapable – in their own shows, on news items, showbiz reports, on the net. Ubiquitous doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I’ve been more of a fan of The Real Housewives of . . . series, but that’s because a group of women bitching amongst themselves always makes for good viewing (it’s as true when this happens in soap as in reality TV).

This week, however, the reality behind reality TV and, in particular, this series, came to the fore when the estranged husband of one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills committed suicide.
On Monday, Russell Armstrong, father to two sons by previous relationships and also five year old Kennedy with his BH wife Taylor, was found hanging in the friend’s house where he had been staying since separating from his wife. He had not left a note.

The papers have reported that in recent months he had claimed that The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills had destroyed his life: that any problems he and his wife had had were exacerbated by the public exposure.

It has since emerged that he was in debt, having struggled to keep up with the outward expressions of wealth demanded by the show, and that he allegedly physically and emotionally abused his wife.

A report also surfaced that he had sent an aggressive letter to Camille Grammer, another of the Housewives and ex of TV star Kelsey, after Taylor confided in her about her husband’s abuse. According to these reports, Taylor had to have reconstructive surgery when filming began, so badly beaten was her face.

It is also claimed that a book revealing Russell’s bisexual proclivities was about to be published.

Now it is claimed that Russell’s family are considering suing Bravo TV, which makes the programme, and especially if they show so much as a frame of Russell.

But is it fair to blame Bravo for his death?

Russell was an adult who, for all the pressure he might have come under from his wife to appear in the show, could, quite simply, have said No. Every reality show always throws up people who claim to have been “destroyed” by it afterwards, yet they always seem to be the people who have not made as much money as everyone else who has appeared.

The difficulty of appearing in front of any TV camera, whether it be on reality TV or in a proper job (yes, I am making a clear distinction), is that it changes you; it has to, in order for you to be able to do the job well. You are not in the pub, chatting with a few mates, with half a Stella spilling out of your mouth and down your front; you are inviting people into your world, for better or worse, and asking for their opinion on how you live your life.

And, to that end, you are always on show and trying to portray the person you want them to see, rather than who you actually are - yet it is that, ironically, that reveals the truth you are often trying to hide. That's because you have to be a bigger personality for the small camera and that means that every aspect of you, good and bad, is magnified tenfold.

I’ve been in front of the camera a lot of times. I was an extra in Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein and was demoted from grieving widow in warm church to starving, freezing peasant in courtyard, because I was considered too short to be a widow (“But short people can be widowed!” I complained, to no effect).

I filmed a series called So You Think You Want a Healthy Lifestyle? for Channel 4, when they left me with a camera to film myself, if and when I had something to say. They had to bring eight hours’ worth of extra tapes on day one, after I filled up the initial batch on the first night.

I appeared regularly on daytime TV for many years and had to be “on” as they say in theatrical terms all the time. For those presenters doing two hour stints of live TV every day, I have nothing but admiration. My own ten minute slots were stressful enough; performing for long periods really is like playing a part in a multi-faceted play in which you are never offstage. You cannot help but reveal aspects of your true and often not so pleasant self.

I could go on. The camera brings out your inner egotistical monster and, in the case of Russell, I suspect it released demons he was already, at best, trying to keep under control. But reality TV is not the perpetrator of the crime - only the key to setting free what is safer locked up.

With or without the show, Russell might still have taken his own life – many abusers do; it is the ultimate act of violence. It is desperately sad that he has left a grieving family, including three children.

But let’s not lay blame at the door of reality TV.

That’s too easy a copout for what was obviously a complex, tortured soul whose problems off camera always threatened to overwhelm him.

Collared By The White Collar Audience 7/7/11

2011-07-07T13:54:00.001-07:00

Where have White Collar’s opening titles gone?

Where is the energetic music and cheeky grins of Neil and Peter?

I am in mourning.

White Collar (USA Network) is one of my favourite shows on television. The chemistry between Matt Bomer (ex-con Neil) and FBI agent Peter (Tim DeKay) makes them one of the best double acts in the history of crime drama. With the exception of some of the external shots (allegedly New York, but which High Definition turns into something resembling your old kitchen), it looks, sounds and feels fantastic.

But I am in mourning for the old titles.

What they did was set up the very spirit of the show and the relationship between, and characters of, Neil and Peter. The new music is dull and creates no sense of tension of the drama to come. The boxes featuring the characters are a throwback to Sixties titles but have been given a modern twist that is out of kilter with the almost quaint elements that follow. They don’t work because they convey a sense of disconnectedness between the various elements of the show.

If I had never seen White Collar, I would have no idea as to what I might be about to see and, in the time it took me to work it out, I would be reaching for the remote.

So many fans have complained about the new sequence that USA executives have decided to let viewers decide on whether the show should revert to the old sequence and music. Voting opens tomorrow afternoon (Friday 8th July); the choice will take effect in two weeks and continue all season.

It is a brilliant piece of marketing and one that would be inconceivable in the UK, where viewers’ opinions are less respected than they are here. I recall when Dallas replaced Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie, such was the outcry against her successor, Donna Reed, that Ms Geddes was reinstated. Likewise, the outcry when the show killed off Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) and resurrected him as having been part of wife Pamela’s dream. Unfortunately, over on the sister show, Knot’s Landing, they continued to mourn him long after Pamela (Victoria Principal) had woken up.

I am very admiring of a network that listens to viewers who, are, essentially, paying the wages of everyone in the organisation. Executive producer Jeff Eastin is a keen Twitterer, and his updates about the show, its characters and plots, also help to engage the audience. If I have to record White Collar, I can’t go on Twitter until I have watched it, such is the enthusiasm of followers who cannot help but give away the plot.

I’m as involved as anyone in this latest off screen drama and will be casting my vote tomorrow – in favour of the old sequence, old music (versus new sequence, new music – you can’t mix and match). I’ll also be trying to catch another criminal on the White Collar website and drooling over the wonderful Mr DeKay and pretty Mr Bomer.

And here’s my prediction for the vote: overwhelmingly in favour of the old titles and music.

Watch this space.

Fathers - at LIfe, Death and a Bit on the Side

2011-06-19T20:19:00.001-07:00

Please continue to follow me on Life, Death and a Bit on the Side at http://jacistephen.blogspot.com

Grouponism: The 12 Step Cure 4/1/11

2011-04-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

My name is Jaci and I am a Groupoholic.

And I didn’t even know I was an addict until I found myself waking up halfway through the night and going to my computer, for fear of having missed a bargain while I was sleeping.

Grouponism.

It started out like any other addiction. At first, a small pleasure, with me innocently signing up to what appeared to be a great bargain. A mere $35 for a $60 meal? What could go wrong? A $40 facial for $20? All the things I loved, suddenly at my fingertips, for considerably less money.

Then there were deals for things I didn’t even know I needed until Groupons came into my life. Boot camp! Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of it before! Six $80 sessions down to the bargain price of $25! I’ll take it!

More things followed. Rally driving. Golf. Rambling. Scuba diving. Infra-red sauna treatments. Microdermabrasion (whatever that was). Tattoos. If it was a bargain, I wanted it. And, down to three hours’ sleep a night and needing to grab the best Groupon deals before everyone else, I invariably got it.

Incredible. I was rich, and the more I spent, the richer I seemed to become.

I was living a double life and loving it.

I had easily been able to segregate my Groupon life from what I called my normal life. My own Grouponism was a guilty secret - I Grouponed alone, I hid my Grouponism from friends and family – but I carried on with my Groupon-free existence, never wishing to openly acknowledge what was happening in that dark place.

The hotels and bars I frequented were Groupon-free zones, where I laughed at people afflicted by Grouponism. How I sneered at their desperation and their sweaty little hands, frantically waving their pieces of paper proclaiming the deal, and making demands upon staff whose eyes you could see burning with Groupon hatred.

Now, it’s all gone horribly wrong; suddenly, Grouponites are everywhere.

In all my once Groupon-free zones, there are dozens of people, sheafs – reams - of paper scrabbling for air space, and customers demanding why they can’t use their Thursday Groupon on a Friday, and why the sliders have lamb rather than beef fillings, and why you can’t use the Groupon for a Martini instead of a glass of wine.

Having got the bargain, they have to find something wrong with it and are never happy. I also notice that Grouponites never tip. The deal spells it out: you have to tip the staff, as tips are not part of the Groupon; but the Grouponites are so intent on landing a bargain, they ignore the small print of the deal.

I now feel permanently incensed on the staff’s behalf – at least, once I pick myself up off the floor after being trampled on by a hoard of Grouponites. It’s heartbreaking. All my favourite places have been turned into scenes from the Alamo.

Suddenly, I don’t want to be associated with these people, but have I left it too late? Has my addiction already taken too strong a hold? I have begun to loathe the very sound of the word.

Groupon. The monster that is Groupon.

Is there a Dr Groupon in a dark office, wondering, like me, how his wonderful creation got so out of hand? How all of us, wanting a bargain and signing up for our discounts, have turned so resentful, owing to the fact that now, when we go to our favourite social destination, we have to hack down fellow Grouponites who stand in our way?

Having resolved to wean myself off, however, I discovered that there was no help available, no known cure: no counselling groups, no programmes, no newspaper articles revealing how we might dig ourselves out of this mire. And so I set about devising my own 12 Step Programme that I hope may be of use to those finding themselves in the grip of the same addiction and wishing to step off the Groupon ladder once and for all. So, WE:-

1. Admitted we were powerless over Groupons – that our lives without bargains had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power lesser than our consumerist selves could restore us to sanity – Debt.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Debt, as we understood It.
4. Made a searching and fearless financial inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to Debt, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our Groupon inclinations.
6. Were entirely ready to have Debt remove all these defects of consumerism from our weak and feeble characters.
7. Humbly asked Debt to remove the word Groupon from our computers and to block all invitations from future Groupons.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed in our fight to beat them to a bargain, and became willing to make amends by returning all gifts purchased by Groupons.
9. Made direct amends to such people, wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them even more than we already had, when we trampled them while rushing to the discounted Martini.
10. Continued to take personal inventory of our bank accounts and, when we noticed our savings mounting up, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Debt, as we understood It, praying only for knowledge of Its will for us and the power to carry that out in getting our bank accounts back into the red.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Grouponites, and to practise these principles in all of our financial affairs.

My book on the subject will soon be available on Amazon, by the way, price $29.99. $10 with a Groupon.

Grief Encounter 3/30/11

2011-03-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you just have to accept that there are people whose sole purpose on Earth is to give other people grief.

Invariably bitter about the lot they have been dealt themselves, their strategy lies in the hope that in making others miserable, they will somehow feel better about themselves.

It never works, and they never learn that it never works; the poison just keeps eating away under the illusion of power.

I’ve had the misfortune to meet quite a few of these people in my time here; in fact, one of the reasons I have not been writing this blog regularly is that some of the individuals in question have made me physically ill. I have met many wonderful people in the two years I have been here, in particular those working in the film and TV industries, which were the reason I came in the first place; but this little pocket of nastiness has left a bad taste in the mouth.

With escalating blood pressure, for which it now seems I will have to go on medication, I went to a bookshop to see if there was anything that might help me deal with the problem in different ways.

There was the Bible of course – be good to them who hate you, love your enemy, turn the other cheek – but I wasn’t quite that far along the forgiveness route at that point.

Then, I happened upon a book titled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – and Most of it is Small Stuff. It explains how most things that keep us awake at night, worrying, don’t really matter, and offers some techniques to help you deal with the difficult people you encounter in life.

One idea is to think of the bad people in your life as babies, long before evil struck them down. So, that’s what I tried to do with my detractors. Bonnets, dummies, toys. I thought of them as young children, innocently playing in the park. I focused on the things beyond their control that turned them into the bullying adults they have become.

This technique was sort of working, until the baby images were quickly dispelled from my mind and replaced by something that made me see right to the heart of my enemies in an instant: the Addams Family.

Forget all those nice little babies; the Addams Family was much closer to the reality. A TV show that was a satirical inversion of the ideal American family, it featured an eccentric, wealthy clan, who delighted in the macabre and were unaware that other people found them bizarre or frightening.

In real life, I had found my own Morticia (well, more like Morticia’s less attractive elder sister - and without the charm): a woman with only occasional wit, and a deathly disposition.

I had also found my Lurch, another member of the group, a man of few words, but regular grunts, sighs, or simply gesticulations. I endured only tenuous connections with the extended posse, with whom Morticia was regularly falling out, although more than one of them sounded as if they could have been a spiritual, emotional and body double for the African Strangler, the Addams' family’s man-eating plant, Cleopatra.

The hypnotist Paul McKenna once tried to help me overcome my fear of clowns by transforming their faces in my head into something more pleasant. I managed to do the transformation work with my Morticia and Lurch, although when you consider that the Addams Family was the surrogate family I replaced them with in my head, it gives an indication of the hell they put me through.

It still astonishes me that you can be incredibly kind towards people, support them through their woes (in Morticia’s case, a lot), and then they treat you poorly, cruelly, unfairly, and often, where finances are concerned, dishonestly.

How do such people sleep at night?

Are they sick, disillusioned, or just plain stupid?

Or just not very nice people?

I come from a culture where I was brought up to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, unless proven otherwise, and I have a long record in being fair and kind, both professionally and personally.

But when I came to LA, people warned me not to be as trusting as I had always been, and it’s true that I have often been disappointed, when what appeared to be one thing on the surface turned out to be the opposite.

I suppose that’s just life: it’s a cliché, but we really do live and learn. The weird thing is, that when I first met the Addams Family, all of my instincts said Run! I thought I should listen to my head rather than my heart, and it’s not the only time I got that wrong in LA.

City of Angels? There are quite a few here. But when you watch them fly too close to the sunny illusion, their wings, like those of Icarus, turn out to be a great deal less substantial.

So, having learned that, I’m trying not to sweat the small stuff and will be returning to writing on a more regular basis.

Some people, at the end of the day, are just liars, thieves and bastards. One day, they may wake up and realise that the rotten lot they have been handed in life is of their own making.

Yes, they were once all somebody’s baby.

It’s just bad luck that in my case, they happened to be Rosemary’s.

Naked Ambition And AADD 3/2/11

2011-03-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

Which came first? The Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, or the desire to be a porn star?

It was the question I was left pondering the most, as I watched Sunday night’s Oscars in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

I did not know that my New Best Friend, to whom I had just been introduced, either had AADD, nor was into acting in porn films. She told me of the former herself and, when she left, another member of the group asked me if I was okay with her chosen career.

To be honest, I had no way of knowing if it was true, and nor did I care; she was fabulous company, and the great thing about someone with AADD, I discovered, is that it really takes the heat off your having to contribute too much to the conversation when you’re tired.

It was a relatively quiet Oscar week for me. On Friday night, I bumped into old friends at Soho House and also made some new ones. I stayed in on Saturday, in preparation for the big day, and had a drink in Beverly Hills’s Villa Blanca before moving onto the hotel.

Villa Blanca is owned by Ken and Lisa Vanderpump, the Brits who have become TV celebrities after their appearances in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Both Ken and Lisa (who handled herself with immense grace, dignity, wit and charm throughout the series) can regularly be seen in the rather exquisite white décor of the restaurant, which is now packed. It was pretty full before, but now it’s a TV tourist hot-spot it’s seriously crammed all the time; at mid-day on Sunday, I managed to get the restaurant's only available seat - at the bar.

But back to the Polo Lounge. The main barman, Greg, was presiding over all with his characteristic friendliness, which is extended to everyone, locals or strangers. He has an uncanny knack of remembering an awful lot about his customers, irrespective of how long it has been since their last visit.

I first met him when I arrived for a holiday in LA in November 2008, shortly before moving here in April 2009 (I can still hardly believe I have been here nearly two years). His effusiveness and calm in a crisis (he managed the crowded bar single-handedly for several hours on Sunday) makes the place one of the most pleasurable social venues, especially for women on their own who don’t want to appear like hookers (not something that can be said for all the hotel bars).

The ceremony was showing on a single TV screen, but I still managed to miss most of it, owing to the noise from customers. Nobody, unsurprisingly, was going to shout “Shssssh!” when the shortlist for Sound Mixing was announced, but for the biggies (actor, actress, director and film), there was practically a riot if somebody breathed over the announcement.

There were cheers from a few Brits for Colin Firth, who won for his portrayal of the stammering George VI in The King’s Speech, and although I was not a huge fan of the film, I adore Colin. Not only is he a lovely man and a terrific actor, he got his shirt wet in the 1995 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and livened up the review I wrote about it no end.

I wasn’t too bothered about missing any of the big parties when I saw who had attended them. Katie Price was reported as having been all over some Argentinian model at Elton John’s post-awards bash, and anywhere within a mile of that woman is still 1760 yards too close for me.

I almost ventured up to Chateau Marmont, where the Weinstein bash was taking place, but no sooner did the thought enter my head than I fell asleep with jet-lag in the Polo Lounge – not before I had given the porn star some tips, obviously.

So, awards season is at an end and we can get back to talking about what we were wittering about before it all began – Charlie Sheen’s apparent meltdown. It’s now the biggest real life soap opera in LA, out-eclipsing even The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as THE show to watch.

Charlie also has a porn star as one of his entourage, albeit not the same one as I have. She’s in the papers as much as he is, not only kissing him but fawning over his twin boys, who yesterday were removed from the house.

Where must your career be if you see the ranting, bizarre behaviour of Charlie Sheen as a step up the ladder? You’d have to have a serious case of AADD first to think that, and then to follow through with it.

Which brings me back to my opening question: which comes first, the porn or the AADD?

Who knows. But where Charlie Sheen’s wallet is concerned, neither ever seems very far behind.

Anyone For Charlie Sheen's Tennis Balls? 2/5/11

2011-02-05T05:33:00.000-08:00

The whole coke scene has never been something that has interested me, but if the papers are to be believed, LA is under a veritable storm of the stuff.

It’s been reported, for instance, that Charlie Sheen went on the three-day bender with five porn stars and was witnessed diving into a pile of coke the size of a tennis ball.

I’m a bit of an innocent in these matters, so is that a lot of coke or not very much? Does the tennis ball go in one nostril, or is it split between two (a sort of Deuce!)?

One report said that he took it in a pipe. Can you fit a tennis ball in a pipe?

If it’s consumed a few grains (is that what it’s called, or granules, like gravy?) at a time, wouldn’t he still be there, with a teaspoon?

And why has it made his teeth fall out? Maybe he’s chomping a bit too hard on the tennis balls.

Like I said. I’m an innocent in these things.

Now, to the five porn stars. Five! Isn’t that a bit greedy? And surely once you’ve seen/had one porn star, you’ve seen/had them all. One suggested that Charlie was on a suicide mission; well, if anything fatal had occurred and the woman then confessed to having thought that, yet did nothing to prevent it, I’d say that she was on a manslaughter mission – and one without much man’s laughter (geddit?), to boot.

The porn stars worry me even more than the tennis ball. Were they of the kind provided by the madam who now claims Charlie likes fetishism and spanking? How do those fetishes manifest themselves? Do the women Charlie allegedly hires take it in turns? There’s not that much to hang on to on a bloke, so let’s say that one gets the ears, one the mouth, one the bum, and one the penis, what does the fifth one do?

Maybe she’s the ball girl, running back and fore to the bathroom to get more tennis balls. Or maybe the fifth one gets to do nasal sex when there’s not a tennis ball blocking the airways of the only orifice not being taken up by the other four "stars".

As you can tell, I have given over much valuable thinking time to these matters, and as I am totally addicted to Two and a Half Men (although not in a tennis ball kind of way), I can’t reconcile the brilliance of Charlie Sheen as an actor with the mess that seems to be constantly paraded before us in the papers, even though his character bears more than a little similarity to his real life persona.

I actually feel very sorry for him. Yes, people choose to take drugs, drink, sleep around, and embark on all sorts of destructive behaviour; but the reasons why they do so are complex and vary hugely from individual to individual.

He has been criticised for choosing not to go into rehab, but be treated at home, and I say good on him. Rehab hasn’t worked for him; it doesn’t for many people – you only have to witness the number of celebrities being readmitted time after time to see that. It hasn’t worked for Sheen five times now.

If you crashed your car five times, wouldn’t you stop and think . . . Hmm, maybe this car thing’s not for me. Maybe I should take a bus.

Rehab is big here. Huge. Big subject, big business. It’s part of their tourist industry. On one Hollywood tour, the open-top bus stops outside Michael Jackson’s house and plays the 911 call that was made to the emergency services on the day it is claimed he either took or was administered a fatal overdose. Pretty horrific, by any standards, but even more so when there is a man facing trial for his alleged part in the star’s death.

There is a ghoulish sense of impending doom about Sheen, but to me, being looked after in his own home might do him a darn sight more good than being wheeled off to yet another 12 step programme that, in my experience, has worked for only a very small minority – and there is one argument that says that of the small percentage it works for, they would, by the law of averages with any illness, have recovered on their own.

That’s for other people to argue, and if something works for you when you’re rock bottom, then all well and good; but there is not one pill for every ailment, and if Sheen now wants to try something different, he deserves support, not more criticism for having chosen a different route. He is a huge talent and I wish him well in his recovery and hope finds peace.

The whole thing has certainly put me on my guard here. The next time somebody calls out “Anyone for tennis?” I’m going to think twice.

“New balls, please”? No, thanks.

A Matter Of Degrees 1/11/11

2011-01-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

This is a sentence I never thought I would write: I am freezing in LA.

Having spent two weeks completely buried under snow and, for the most part, unable to leave my house in the UK, I was looking forward to returning to blue skies and sunshine. But apart from three days, the first two weeks of the new year here have been grey, miserable, sometimes wet and, yes, cold.

I am spectacularly ill equipped for it, too. All my sweaters are in a drawer back home (well, six drawers, to be precise – I never risk anything in wet Wales), and as I can’t afford to stock up on any clothes here, I have to make do with layers of skimpy T-shirts and thin cotton cardigans if my nose is not to grow icicles.

Just as the UK is never prepared for snowfall, so LA is unable to cope with unpredictable cold. In bars and restaurants, they have the air con turned up to maximum heat to compensate for the dip in temperature, and then, just as everyone is practically down to their undies to cope with the heat, they turn it off, and you are once more shivering and have to start layering up again.

I spent two hours in Soho House last week, wrapping and unwrapping myself every five minutes like a one-woman, human version of Pass the Parcel. Down by the beach, the bar at the end of the pier is, ironically, freezing indoors, and absolutely scorching outside, with the overhead heaters on full.

My cheeks were so hot at the weekend, you could have taken a couple of slices off them and passed me off as tapas.

Brits are renowned for their willingness to talk about the weather at great length, irrespective of what the temperature is. It’s always too hot, too cold, too wet, too grey.

Forget the possibility of having to swear allegiance to the crown, if you want to come into Britain: what MPs really need to be discussing is people’s ability to merge according to their weather chatting skills.

I just never expected to meet the same enthusiasm in LA, but people here are just as bad. When I first arrived, in April 2009, it was always hot, but that didn’t stop the locals from commenting on the fact.

“Lovely day,” said every taxi driver, wherever I went. Yes, I know, I wanted to scream; it bloody well always is.

Now, though, with this smattering of cold, wet weather, and a not very good summer (incredibly, the UK was warmer), the citizens of Los Angeles talk about heat as if it is an alien, the like of which they may never see again in their lifetime.

Now, when I get into a cab when the sun is out, the drivers sigh, commenting “It’s a lovely day”, as they gaze longingly at the sky, knowing that something, someone up there, is going to steal that golden orb from right under their noses anytime soon.

I used to take the fine weather for granted here, but not anymore. Now, on the rare days when the sun is out and the skies pure blue, I walk down to the ocean to watch the sun going down over the Pacific.

It’s an exquisite sunset, but then sunsets always are – and they’re all different. The first time I came to LA over 20 years ago, it was the sunsets over the Pacific that struck me most clearly and that I remember even now.

Golden, to red, to orange, to yellow and, finally, to the fine sliver of intense white light that tells you it’s all over for another day.

It is nothing short of miraculous.

It’s that last line of light that always brings me to tears. Sunrise and sunset have been metaphors for so much in great art throughout the centuries, and it’s easy to see why. Light fades, light returns; people and experiences come and go; we lose, we gain; our hearts burst with light, they fade in the shadows.

There were shadows, again, in 2010. One friend committed suicide in January, another in December. Several friends were diagnosed with cancer. Family members fell sick. Across the world, tragedies continued to unfold, and still do.

In Britain, on Christmas Day, the body of 25 year-old landscape architect Joanne Yeates was found in Bristol; she had been strangled. This week, in Tucson, Arizona, six people died in a shooting, among them a nine year old girl. Elsewhere, people are starving, dying of thirst, hunger, Aids. Every day, everywhere, the sun goes down.

How do we cope? How does the human spirit sustain such losses, such tragedy, such hardship?

We are extraordinary creations, whose desire to survive, despite all odds against us, gives us strength. We sleep, in order to wake, and we still, incredibly, pull through suffering.

We are as miraculous as the sun and, like the sun, we know that, come the morning, and against all our expectations, we will rise again.

It's the cliche of dawn, but no less true, or incredible, for being so.

Mine's A Snowball 1/2/2011

2011-01-02T00:34:00.000-08:00

The Elevator Pitch is one of the main things I learned from my mentor and friend, Blake Snyder, who taught me so much before he suddenly died in August 2009.

There are days when his death still stuns me, but there are as many days when I remember things he said and, at the end of another year, recall with pleasure the things I would not have done, the people I would never have met, had he not encouraged me to come here.

I might never have discovered The Elevator Pitch. Essentially, you have to imagine yourself between floors in an elevator and, in those few seconds, be able to “sell” your movie idea to the important person standing beside you who can make it.

I’m not often in elevators, and the luggage-loaded people in the Heathrow Express lift (I still can’t get used to calling it by its American name) never look in the mood to hear anything other than the ping that tells them they have arrived at their destination floor. It’s therefore hard for me to assess precisely how many seconds you actually have for an Elevator Pitch.

Are you allowed to press the emergency button to pitch a longer movie? If the elevator breaks down, can you justify pitching the sequel, too? It can become a complicated metaphor if you really put your mind to it.

But flying back to the UK for Christmas, I managed to put the EP theory into practice. Sitting in the Air New Zealand lounge, I bumped into Paul Abbott, the brilliant creator and writer of some of the UK’s greatest ever TV shows – State of Play, Clocking Off, Shameless (the US version launches on January 9th).

I know Paul through my work as a TV critic and also know him to be one of the few people in the industry who is hugely encouraging of new writers. So, after inviting him and his colleague to join my table that the lovely Thierry of Air New Zealand always reserves for me in the lounge, I set about pitching my idea. Well, several to be precise, but each of them wrapped up in EP speak, with title and logline, just as I had learned in Blake’s class and from his great screenwriting book, Save the Cat!

Paul responded instantly and very positively to my own personal favourite, perhaps forgetting that there were 11 hours airborne in which I could well be expected to expand upon the EP at great length, write most of it and even get to perform a couple of scenes before touchdown at Heathrow.

Had we been travelling Virgin, with the bar on board, I would doubtless have dragged him to it to do precisely that, so he had one thing on his side in that we were travelling ANZ.

He wasn’t getting away that easily, though, and I continued my EP over a drink at Heathrow and, I have to confess, in subsequent e-mails. It’s not the first time that Paul has been helpful and encouraging to me in relation to my writing, and his kindness and ability to see to the heart of the matter, not only in his own work, but others’, is truly inspiring.

It is also exceptional.

Writers in particular are rarely very encouraging to those they often perceive as their rivals, and, in these tough times, they are even less so. I was struck again, on returning to the UK, how the spirit of negativity increasingly pervades the TV and film industry and, while things are also tough in the US, how much more positive people generally are.

I know that I am living in the heart of the industry, but the constant talk of ideas, scripts and deals really does make you feel more upbeat about possibilities.

Yes, there is a lot of bullshit, as everyone says, but, as I have noted before: as bullshit goes, it’s the best in the world.

It’s bullshit that currently produces astonishingly good TV series. Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, White Collar, Psych, Life Unexpected, CSI, Law and Order – I really could go on and on. And although I’m less of a fan of the current batch of Hollywood movies, there is still enough variety to provide welcome escape from Britain’s obsession with Royals and toffs.

My experience back in the UK wasn’t helped this time with being snowed in for the entire two weeks I was back. I never even saw my car because it had turned into an igloo; any attempt to venture out meant risking life and limb. And then, just as the snow started to melt, freezing fog closed in, so then I couldn’t even see the igloo.

The only place not suffering from any kind of frost was the First Great Western train, which, between Cardiff and London on my way back to Heathrow, they miraculously had no ice at the buffet.

I have a suggestion: get the people who run our incompetent trains to tell everyone else how to get rid of ice when the rest of the country is ten degrees under.

I was too cold to make any snowmen, but made it to a neighbour’s house where I was offered a real Snowball (advocaat, soda, lemonade). I hadn’t had one for about 30 years and rather enjoyed it.

When I Googled it to check the ingredients, I also happened upon the term “snowballing”, which, I discovered, has nothing to do with Frosty and his eyes made out of coal, but someone taking a man’s semen into his or her mouth and passing it orally to the other – and a term not exclusive to the homosexual community anymore, according to Wikipedia.

I can’t wait to get into my next elevator to start pitching that one.

It’ll give a whole new meaning to White Christmas.

RIP Lester and Gavin 11/28/2010

2010-11-28T10:10:00.000-08:00

I was walking back from the gym on Friday afternoon, when I received a call from a friend in the UK to tell me of the death of an old journalist friend, Lester Middlehurst.

I had known Lester for over 25 years, both at our time on Today newspaper and, later, the Daily Mail. He was always great fun to be around and a brilliant show business journalist; his interviews were second to none.

On Tuesday, Lester took an overdose and was found the next day. He died two days later.

The circumstances surrounding what led him to kill himself will doubtless emerge, but I remember Lester as someone who brought a great deal of colour to the world of journalism.

He was gay at a time when it was less easy to be openly so, and he was terrified when, in the week he started work on the Mail, Private Eye published a story about him. He had nothing to worry about, as his talent was far too great to tarnish, and he remained on the paper for many years.

It’s been a sad week, because on Wednesday I received a call from another friend to say that the producer of Emmerdale, Gavin Blyth, was very ill. His partner, Suzy, had posted on Facebook asking if anyone knew of a registrar who could get to Leeds infirmary within the hour to marry her and Gavin.

On Thursday, she announced that she was Mrs Blyth; on Friday, she was a widow and single mother.

Gavin, too, was an extremely talented man, who had risen through the ranks of press PR to running a hugely successful soap. Ratings went up with him at the helm after January 2009, and the brilliant storyline of young Aaron Livesy, struggling with his sexuality, was one of the highlights of the past year and recognised with awards.

Being 3000 miles away from home, it was again Facebook that made it possible for me to make contact with others grieving for these two men, dead at a relatively young age (Gavin was only 41, a father of three, the youngest being just one year old).

Suzy wrote beautifully on the site about her love for her husband, and the responses from friends and colleagues bore tribute to what was clearly an extraordinary and hugely liked man.

It’s again made me question the wisdom of spending time away from family and friends back in the UK, because, cliché though it is, we really don’t know what is around the next corner. But then again, to live one’s life in fear as to what might be, is no way to exist – or, rather, it is only existing; it is not living.

Better to die living than to live dying.

Hearing of suffering and death back home nevertheless reinforces feelings of helplessness. When my good friend Angharad committed suicide in January this year, I stood on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, sobbing on the phone to one of her sisters, who assured me that nothing was to be gained by my leaping on a plane and going home. This week, it was Santa Monica Boulevard that bore witness to my tears when I heard about Lester, and the instinct to rush to the airport was as strong.

Through Facebook, however, I have reconnected with many friends whom I have not heard from in some time, all of them recalling this vibrant journalist who, I suspect, never really believed in just how good he was, nor how much he was loved.

Tributes have also been flooding in for Gavin on Facebook, friends and colleagues have been Tweeting about their loss, and the social network again embraces our respective grieving with a remarkable sense of sharing in the experience of what it is like simply to be human, irrespective of what life throws at us, good or bad.

Some people gain comfort from believing that there is a world after this, in which our departed loved ones are looking down on us, smiling, just like us, at better times that have gone before; others take refuge in memory, holding on in thoughts to their personal stories; Facebook is a democracy in which either viewpoint, or, indeed, any other, in relation to death, can be heard.

Who knows what is right or wrong; what unites us all, however, is how damned hard it is to lose the people we love, and, in that connection, we must find comfort.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.
Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted,
And human love will be seen at its height.
Live in fragments no longer.
Only connect…
~E.M. Forster, Howards End

Pier Pressure in Santa Monica 11/19/10

2010-11-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

Life in Santa Monica could not be more different from my life in Beverly Hills.

One day, a couple of months back, I was looking in shop windows, fantasising about what I might be able to afford if ever I won three lotteries in a row; the next, I was on Santa Monica pier, wondering whether to waste my money having my name engraved on a grain of rice.

The carbohydrate name engraving is one of the highlights of the pier, although I have never seen anyone queuing up to have it done. As my name is Jacqueline Margaret Stephen, I want to put the promise of the billboard to the test, just for the hell of it, but 25 letters on one grain? Even if it’s an extra length grain of Basmati, I’m just not optimistic.

Watching the sun go down at the end of the pier, however, is one of the joys of living closer to the beach; in Beverly Hills, the only thing that makes your jaw drop at close of day is your bar bill after just two glasses of wine. But every day in SM, there is breathtaking beauty.

The Pacific boasts one of the most moving, exquisite sunsets in the world, and while there is always sadness when the orange disc quickly disappears at the sea’s horizon (as quickly as my cash used to do in Beverly Hills), there is pleasure in the knowledge that it will rise again, equally wonderfully, in just a few hours.

It’s a metaphor I need at the moment.

I’ve always loved seaside towns, and fairgrounds in particular. There are only a couple of rides on SM pier (and not very spectacular ones, at that), but the place still resurrects the childhood memories I have of going to Barry Island or Porthcawl in South Wales: the excitement of rotating lights on the Big Wheel, the pink crinolines of candy floss, the smell of salt, and the sound of the incoming tide as the excitement of the day turned to a slight chill and the promise of a warm bed to come.

My new best friend on the pier is Zoltar, a very strange character in a turban, who sits in a glass case, beckoning you from afar.

“YOU THERE!” he calls, a little too loudly and personally for my liking. Upon approaching the glass, his cold blue eyes spin a little wildly, and he invites you to find out what the future holds.

I have paid a dollar twice to get Zoltar’s advice, hoping that he would tell me that my current stresses could all be solved without my having to resort to buying dolls and sticking pins in bodily parts that will make mincemeat of my real life enemies.

His first piece of advice was that I needed to get up earlier in the morning. On the day of this revelation, I had been up since 3.30am, working, so the only way I am going to get up any earlier is if I just don’t go to bed at all. Zoltar foresaw “a turn of events that will give you a great deal of happiness”, so maybe that lottery win is in the offing after all.

On my second visit to Zoltar, he declared that I had recently had to balance work and friends. He had this to say: “Better a person of humble standing who works for himself than one who plays the great person but lacks food on the table.”

As I am having trouble paying for any food on the table at all at the moment, yet still working for myself and trying to be humble, I think his philosophy has gone a bit awry. Humility hasn’t put a bean in my mouth. So stuff humility and stuff that McDonald’s down my throat.

There was a lot of other talk about branches and trees, but Zoltar is no Socrates, believe me. So, I’ve been taking solace, instead, from “Creating True Peace” by the Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. He’s rather good, and when you learn to pity people rather than feel anger towards them, his philosophy really works. Then I see another doll and a pin-cushion and I just have to buy it.

I’m also seeing a wider variety of people on the bus to the beach. This week, a creature (I have no idea if it was man, woman or alien) got on the 704 bus from SM, covered head to toe in flowing garments and wearing a headband and dark sunglasses. He/she/it proceeded to put a newspaper on a seat, before deciding that It wanted the Chinese man’s seat opposite; so It usurped the poor man, who willingly gave it up, not wanting to argue with the bizarre spectre.

All very strange. Naturally, as It was carrying a small bag, I was convinced that we were all about to be blown up, but luckily the creature alighted at SM/Wilshire, to wreak whatever hell It was planning on people who could afford to clean up afterwards.

Despite warnings about SM not being as safe as Beverly Hills, I still haven’t been approached once by the kind of weirdos who used to confront me on a regular basis in the supposedly more upmarket area. On Tuesday, shortly after midnight, the publicist Ronni Chasen was also gunned down in her car in Beverly Hills, as she returned from the premiere of Burlesque, so it just goes to show: you never can tell.

But for a dollar’s ride on the Big Blue Bus and a $9 frozen margarita, there are times when you just have to sit and take in the wonder that is nature, and these are moments to realise that the dickwits in your life are no force for the glorious otherness of the sublime.

Who knows how long we’ll have any of it.

That’s something not even Zoltar will be able to predict.

Jet-Lagging Behind The Times 10/22/10

2010-10-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

This jet-lag is a killer.

As I write, it is 7.30am in Spain, which means it is 10pm in LA. That is my excuse, anyway, for continuing to work my way through a giant pizza that I began about five hours ago, with the intention of consuming one small slice.

It is also my excuse for having watched two episodes of Murder She Wrote, one of Diagnosis Murder, and three episodes of Damages that I have already seen. Oh, yes, and a film called An Unexpected Love, in which a divorced woman falls for her lesbian boss. To be honest, the lesbian boss was a lot more attractive than the convertee, but I still had a cushion over my face when they hit the . . . well, it was the cushions, actually.

I have nothing against anyone being gay, but I’m just not keen on seeing full-on passion between anyone on TV. It’s not moral thing, it’s an artistic objection; I just don’t like the noises people make. It’s bad enough if you hook up with a slurper and grunter in your own life, without having to watch it all again in what should be the sanctity of your living room.

Since my arrival back in Europe, I’ve had a strange sensation of drifting in and out of consciousness. It’s been a very stressful few weeks in the US, which hasn’t helped, but after 11 hours in the sky, I feel like I did after the one and only time I had an anaesthetic: incredible highs, interspersed with mini comas. I fell asleep sitting upright at the computer last night. I wouldn’t have minded, had I awoken to find that my body had been taken over and I had composed the world’s greatest novel in my mental absence, but I didn’t; I came to, only to discover my chilli lodged in every orifice of my QWERTY and spent the next two hours picking it out with tweezers.

I am having trouble adjusting to what I can only call the RFE (Reverse Facebook Effect), too. Being eight hours behind in LA, I am used to making contact with my UK friends either at midnight when they are getting up for work in the morning, or at lunchtime my time, to coincide with their evening. In my mother’s case, that is more complicated, because I have to schedule my contact between her viewings of Home and Away, Neighbours, Emmerdale, Coronation Street and EastEnders during the week, and then X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday and Sunday.

I finally managed to persuade her to get Sky Plus a couple of weeks ago, so that she could more easily record stuff and talk to me, or Facebook me at any time, without fear of missing anything. The problem is, she doesn’t trust it, terrified that every time she pauses a programme, she will miss out on the opportunity of seeing . . . Like I said, it’s just too complicated, and I fear that nothing short of moving back in with her after 35 years is going to solve the problem.

But I keep forgetting that I am now on European time and, because I have yet to adjust and am living my life in a semi-coma, I am contacting people at ridiculous hours. They’re just not very happy when I call at 6pm LA time, full of beans and thinking about my dinner, only to find that they have been asleep for at least two hours and now hate me for waking them up.

I don’t think I’m really helping myself on the readjustment, as my TV viewing remains pretty much as it is in the US; there really is nothing on UK TV, so I am just watching repeats of my favourite US shows on the cable channels – White Collar, Law and Order, CSI, Two and a Half Men etc. etc. – so it’s as if my brain is still telling me that I am in LA, because all the information associated with it is still being processed exactly as it was when I left.

Apart from my momentary coma lapses, I just can’t sleep. I’ve now been awake 24 hours, have written my Daily Mail column, plus an extra feature, and also started a new blog (which you should check out – http://jacinthesoapbox.blogspot.com.), which I am hoping will attract advertising. It’s mainly out of necessity, having been landed in the deep financial shit in the US - which also isn’t helping with the sleeping – but writing has always, and continues to be a great purger.

Barely a day goes by now when I am not reminded of Edward Bulmer Lytton’s 19th century play, Richelieu, in which he asserts that the pen is mightier than the sword. Doubtless there will come a time when people won’t know what a pen is, and plays will be full of lines like “The Facebook is mightier than the Tweet”, but by then I will hopefully be long gone.

It really is strange, though, coming back to the UK news. When I left LA, all talk was about the campaigns in the race to be the next governor of California (from what I understood, the ugly, fat bird doesn’t stand a chance – that’s about the extent of my interest); in the UK, most people have been able to talk of nothing other than whether Wayne Rooney was going to stay at Manchester United, or defect to Manchester City.

Just when it looked as if the ugly, fat guy didn’t stand a chance, he appeared to give up the fight, but now all is apparently well, and the young, thick bloke, who sleeps with prostitutes, is staying on at a vastly increased salary.

There’s maybe hope for Meg Whitman in LA yet.

Cultural Light In The Tunnel 10/18/10

2010-10-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

The cultural wasteland that is Beverly Hills has been manifesting itself this past week in the launch of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (“Real” and “Beverly Hills” – not words you will often find together in the same sentence).

The TV series manages to bring together some of the worst, most vacuous women in various states across America (New Jersey is so far topping the list in terms of grossness), and this lot, like their predecessors, clearly have no idea about the face they are presenting to the world.

Well, I use the word “face” loosely; somewhere, beneath all the surgery and Botox, there probably lurks the semblance of a real face, but it hasn’t seen daylight for at least a decade.

It’s what Beverly Hills is all about – false features, false people, in a city of money-grabbing, intellectual dereliction. It’s a shallow, toxic environment: scratch the surface of the glamorous façade and the hollowness will swallow you up.

As friends had told me, there really is cultural life in LA beyond BH, and the relief at finally finding it has enriched my life here no end.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (whose resident home is London's South Bank) is in Santa Monica at the moment, and their production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Broadstage Theater is hilarious. My friend Gerard McCarthy, who I gave rave reviews to during his time in Hollyoaks is in it, and is now sporting luscious long blonde hair.

It was something of a talking point among some Americans in the audience. “Is it real?” they asked him at the after-show party. “Can we touch it?”

Clearly, there had been a busload in from Beverly Hills, because another man asked Gerard: “Why have you all got English accents?” Er, because the play is set in Windsor, knobhead.

Gerard is actually from Belfast, but does a very convincing English accent, and it’s great to see him playing a romantic male after his stint as a transsexual in Hollyoaks.

It’s been something of a cultural week, and yesterday I went to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown, to a Dvorak recital (or Der-vorrack, as one American lady pronounced it). My new friend Francois Chouchan, an award-winning concert pianist, delivered a breathtakingly brilliant performance, and I was once again reminded that there really is nothing like great art to transcend the mundane and nastiness in life.

It was rather a special afternoon: a wonderful recital, followed by a champagne tea and “la conversation”. After the less than mediocre performances I am used to in Beverly Hills hostelries, it was, literally, music to my ears.

Friends had also informed me that if I could tear myself away from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, there was a rich cultural life awaiting me in San Francisco.

Well, I finally managed to visit the city I had also been assured was “very European” - an observation that completely passed me by, as no matter which way I walked, I always ended up in Chinatown. And as I was walking over ten miles every day, that was something of an achievement. Or maybe I had just reached Hong Kong.

San Francisco Bay isn’t anywhere near as vibrant as Cardiff Bay back home, to be honest, although a boat trip to Alcatraz was a tad more exciting than Cardiff’s hourly water service to Penarth. Having escaped the Alcatraz that was my Beverly Hills life, however, it felt a little too close for comfort.

It was also a pretty unfriendly city. At the Butterfly restaurant in the Bay, I was about to be given a table, until some couples arrived just behind me. I was then informed that there was room “only at the bar or outside” for one person. Alcatraz was the Ritz compared to Butterfly’s outside, and I would have had to lose two stone to cram myself in at the bar, so I left.

I later left a message on the restaurant’s answer-machine, informing them how appalling it was, being treated like a second class citizen just because I was alone, blah, blah, and I was a journalist writing about the city, more blah, blah, blah.

The manager phoned me the next morning, very apologetic and offering to make it up to me on my next visit. He assured me that this really was not their policy. Yeah, right. Too little, too late.

It’s something I am not used to in Europe, and in particular Paris, where women on their own are treated with respect, even reverence. The Parisians also know that a woman by herself is likely to treat herself to a really nice bottle of wine and stuff her face with three courses, thereby spending a lot more than the family who comes in, orders a mixed salad between four, and a jug of tap water.

The King’s Head in Santa Monica appear to know this, but then it is a traditional English pub, run by the Irish. This week alone, I’ve had their Cornish pasty, their chicken curry and, joy of joys, their bangers, mash and gravy. On Saturday, my French friends went for the pasties, the fish and chips, and the chicken pie. They loved them all.

So, all in all, it’s been something of an adventurous week, which is just as well, because the weather has been diabolical. I’ve been listening to the song Rain, from the brilliant Mika album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much (“When it rai rai rains, when it rai rai rains . . . I hate days like this”), as I look out at the permanently cloudy skies.

But while there’s music and moonlight and love and romance, it’s easy to face the music and dance.

The Underbelly Of Life 10/9/10

2010-10-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Irish sausages were great.

My mass stocking-up of familiar UK goods from the British Shop next door to the King’s Head, and the Tudor Shop opposite, in Santa Monica, reminded me of all the foodstuffs I missed from home.

I wolfed down the Heinz baked beans like a hog returning from boot camp; the chicken pie flew down my throat like a flying saucer; and the sausages . . . Oh, the sausages.

Until discovering this little corner of a foreign field that is forever England (at least, that’s what I’m hoping), I’ve been living pretty healthily here. The lack of accessible takeaways near my apartment in Beverly Hills ensured that I wasn’t going to bed monosodium glutamated up to the gills three times a week, and I regularly went to the gym and walked pretty much everywhere.

The healthy living looks set to continue in my new life in Santa Monica, with Sports Club LA’s sister gym (which also has a huge pool) in West LA, and the close proximity of several farmers’ markets. I also walk 30 blocks to the beach, a journey that takes only 40 minutes (two days and 40 minutes, if I call into an Irish pub en route).

But now there’s that Brit temptation threatening to put a spanner in my good works when I finally reach the ocean.

I know how to watch what I eat, though, and what I put into my stomach has always been something I have been able to control. But the presence of home food in my cupboards has once more made me aware of just how very differently we eat back in the UK, compared to US folk, who seem to fall into two camps: basically, greedy buggers and nibblers, and it’s not hard to spot the difference.

The greedy buggers flock to chain restaurants such as the Cheesecake Factory or Il Pastaio, and order way too much, but eat it all anyway, for fear of not getting their money’s worth.

The nibblers can be seen hanging out in healthy sandwich/salad hostelries where, upon ordering the Caesar salad, they will add: “ . . . but no cheese, no anchovies, no dressing, and easy on the leaves.”

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t fat nibblers, too; there are. They just don’t like to be seen to be eating. They therefore manage a soupcon of kobe beef and take the rest home in a box to stuff during the Letterman Show.

Thin or fat, they all appear to be obsessed with food, and it plays the most enormous part in their lives, even while on the move - driving, walking, even on the treadmill at the gym. As someone who was brought up to eat two good meals a day and nothing in between, I just cannot get used to the snacking culture. I tell you: their mouths are never empty.

Crisps, nuts, olives, breadsticks . . . Their supermarket trolleys are piled high with junk food, which also turns up on every bar counter and restaurant table, and is consumed by the bucket-load in advance of the main meal.

And when the irritating crunch of their salty orchestra briefly pauses for an intermission, their teeth are chomping on gum, which they eat with mouths wide open, saliva dripping onto their lips. It’s like being on the set of Jaws.

It’s easy to see why 72 million Americans are obese (according to the latest statistics), but nobody seems to be doing anything about it. In the UK, the Food Standards agency has come under criticism for not providing sufficient guidelines regarding healthy eating, but there is still general knowledge, and let’s not forget Jamie Oliver, who heightened awareness among schoolchildren and their parents. But it’s just not as big a deal in the US.

I suspect that the main reason is that fast food is cheap, and with 13% to 17% of Americans living below the federal poverty line at any one time, fast food is going to be high on their limited shopping list.

But what of the percentage that does have money? Why aren’t they eating more healthily? One simple reason: the country’s indulgence of one of the seven deadly sins: Gluttony.

The way they eat in the US is a physical manifestation of the greed in so may other areas of life: the money-grabbing, selfish, mean-spiritedness among the Haves that are the very things that keep so large a percentage - the Have Nots - of the population down; it’s the word of capitalism made flesh, and it is sickening to see.

I have met some really great Americans here, and some absolute monsters; but I find the general greed, both literal and metaphorical, that I witness on a daily basis, increasingly disturbing.

In Britain, we blame the division between the Haves and the Have Nots on our class culture; it’s not called class culture in the US, but it is the same thing.

This week, a report stated that racism under Obama is worse than it was before this first black President came to power. I don’t doubt it, and in Beverly Hills in particular, I was appalled to witness the racism towards anyone who wasn’t white, upper middle strata (“class”, as we know it).

It’s disgusting. It’s inhuman. And in a country in which 92% of the population believes in God, it is utterly hypocritical.

They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Not in the blocked arteries of American gluttony it’s not.

Life's A Beach 9/28/10

2010-09-28T11:21:00.000-07:00

A month is a long time in Hollywood.

There I was, all set to go home, waxing lyrical on September 6th about my family and friends, while declaring my LA life over, and yet here I am. Still. And, what’s more, in a different apartment, with another signed lease, engaged in an enormous writing project.

I can’t divulge the details just yet, but it is hugely exciting and, as I need regular access to the subjects, whose biography I am writing, have decided to stay on, rather than conduct the whole thing via e-mail and phone from back home.

No, I have not emigrated, and will still be back in the UK on two extended trips before Christmas, for all the reasons I detailed in my last blog. But I am yet again going to be an East/West commuter and sharing nights out with my flight crew chums from Virgin and Air New Zealand.

My mother in particular is being incredibly understanding. She knows what a tough year it has been, and this project could really transform my life. She is used to my changes of fortune and also my changes of address, and I could not wish for better support. My friends, also, while probably thinking I am insane, are excited for me.

But I have moved. After 18 months of living in Beverly Hills, I decided to try a different area. In recent months, I have been going to Santa Monica’s ocean front several times a week on the bus: a journey that took over half an hour. Much as I have enjoyed the exclusivity of Beverly Hills, it can hardly be called real life. The nearest supermarket was over a mile away; buying a pint of milk at night was harder than keeping a cow in the bathroom. Although there was a Whole Foods two miles away, I could no longer afford their prices. My screams at the checkout were beginning to frighten the locals.

Having looked at some dire places near the sea front, I decided upon a very high spec, modern apartment about a five-minute drive away from the coast. My new landlord owns the spectacular kitchen store below, so I now have the appliances I have always dreamed of. My fridge is like a second home. I could take in a couple of lodgers in the oven and never bump into them.

Close by and within walking distance, is the store Smart and Final, which is cheap, cheap, cheap; and, a few doors from that, the Star Market, an Oriental store with hundreds of spices and exotic fruits. The Wine Expo one block away has as good a selection of European wines as I ever saw when living in France; on Saturday, they are opening their very nice wine bar. And, opposite, there is Busby’s Sports Bar.

I’m not sure whether I will be a regular in Busby’s, which is a real All Guys Together sort of place - the kind you see in movies, before reaching for the remote to see if there is a rom com on another channel.

The clientele is very tall, they shout at screens showing games that, to me, have incomprehensible rules; they high five each other when someone scores (which appears to be often); they wear baseball hats and drink beer, while wolfing down plates of chicken wings the size of small poultry farms.

Luckily, I don’t hear any of the noise from Busby’s in my apartment, which, being far set back from the road, is unbelievably quiet, and I already feel very settled. I had everything unpacked and in its place within 48 hours, including my alphabetically ordered books – and spices. And I have already been to a cheese and wine evening at an apartment, where my new neighbour was introducing a line of beauty products.

I have also been to the fabulous Wine Lounge at the top of the new Santa Monica shopping mall, and again to my regular haunt the King’s Head, the British pub close to the front.

And who should I see in the King’s Head, but David Beckham. Sitting at the opposite table, in his baseball cap and vest, having lunch with his three kids. I could barely swallow my fries.

It was all rather sweet. David cut up the younger boy’s food and was openly affectionate with them, like any normal doting dad. And what well behaved children. Polite, friendly to the staff, they were adorable and stood patiently by as other diners, clocking the star, moved in for photos and autographs as the party stood up to leave.

Okay, yes, I was one of them. Having seen David in my gym, where Victoria regularly works out, too, I was playing it cool. And then couldn’t. So there he is, on my Blackberry, in a very blurred photo (the female fan taking it was so excited, she was shaking uncontrollably), with me looking like a Lilliputian tucked under David’s well muscled arm.

They were all going next door to the Tudor shop where, joy of joys this week, I was able to buy Heinz baked beans. And proper Irish sausages. And a chicken and mushroom pie. Real British food. You can take the girl out of Wales, but . . .

It is still easy to get around on the bus, which goes from right outside my apartment block, and yesterday I went to West Hollywood, where I saw yet another sports superstar - Mike Tyson, sitting right across from me in a hostelry. I decided not to venture forth in quite the same manner as I had with David. I value my ears. Not to mention my . . . Well, we all know the boxer’s history. He was laughing uproariously with some friends, with his mouth wide open and baring his teeth. All he was missing was a lion tamer.

So, another chapter begins, and the roller-coaster at the end of Santa Monica pier beckons. It’s an appropriate metaphor for the fortunes of my strangely ever-changing life.

Tony Blair - My Part In His Book's Downfall 9/6/10

2010-09-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

Technical failure, terrorism, another BA strike – we are beset by so many fears in the age of modern flying; and yesterday, I was able to add another to my list. The low-flying book.

I’d been reading extracts from Tony Blair’s memoirs on the train on my way to Heathrow. Leaving his sniping about Gordon Brown aside, his excessive use of the exclamation mark and the awful title, A Journey (living in LA, I am so sick of everybody’s bloody emotional and spiritual journeys), I thought there was enough of interest to warrant my buying a copy for the long flight back to LA.

The problem was, that as it is number one on the WH Smith bestseller list, it was on the top shelf. Not being one for girlie mags, and being a semi-dwarf, I have never been over- familiar with the top shelf, so I took what seemed like the easiest route, stretched up with a kind of little hop, too, and tried to grab a copy.

Big mistake. The book I grappled with flew off the shelf, crashed onto my face, cut my cheek open and left me with a whacking great bruise and in rather a lot of pain.

It’s a big book. Well, it’s a big book for a small cheek and rather delicate cheekbone. It was a veritable weapon of mass destruction, to be honest, and an attack that left me having to fill out a personal injury form while pressing an ice-pack to my face.

I really wish I’d paid more attention to those TV ads fronted by Billy Murray, who used to be in The Bill and EastEnders; he’s now on screen telling you how to get a lawyer to sue the arse off people who piss you off. I vaguely recall that his ads are for criminal lawyers, and I’m not entirely sure whether a book would technically qualify as an assailant, but I’m sure it’s worth a call.

In the Star Alliance lounge, where I went to recover from my attack, John from WH Smith and Susan from Air New Zealand administered to my needs, and the staff on board ANZ checked on my wellbeing throughout the flight.

As for Tony’s book, I never even opened it. It stayed in the overhead locker for the entire 12 hours, as there was no way I was going to risk another mid-air collision with the thing.

I can never decide what to do for entertainment on the plane. I usually buy half a dozen books but never get to read them, because most passengers pull down the window blinds within minutes of being airborne, and leave the cabin in relative darkness.

I’m running out of films, too, as I have made the journey so often (that’s journey with a small “j”, Tony! And that’s the way to use an exclamation mark, by the way!! And that's not.).

The Lovely Bones and My Sister’s keeper had me sobbing so uncontrollably throughout, I though I would need paramedics to resuscitate me on arrival. Dying, or already dead young girls are not the stuff of in-flight entertainment, I have decided.

I loved Ricky Gervais’s The Invention of Lying, which has an immense profundity at its comic heart; and yesterday I really enjoyed Sex and the City II, along with The Juliet Letters.

Mind you, it was hard to concentrate on either, as the woman in the opposite aisle was laughing so much throughout the episodes of Only Fools and Horses she was watching, I thought she would have to be sedated.

I’ve been making the journey regularly for nearly two years now, and this one, the penultimate one before returning to the UK at the end of the month, was an emotional one.

I’ve made quite a few friends, both among passengers and staff. I’ve travelled with celebrities – Sharon Osborne, La Toya Jackson, Mel B – and chatted to many writers and producers.

I’ve eaten both great food (ANZ) and not so great (Virgin). I’ve travelled in a wheelchair to the plane when I did my back in, and I’ve lost a hugely expensive tennis bracelet that I still can’t bear to think about.

I’ve seen more films than I ever would have managed to do on dry land, and written thousands upon thousands of words of my book.

I’ve cried when travelling to or from a funeral or memorial service, and I’ve travelled with great excitement when knowing I am going to see family or friends and share in more joyous activities in their lives.

Most significantly, perhaps, the fear I once had of flying has completely disappeared. It certainly feels a lot safer than trying to cross the road in LA.

True, that fear has been replaced by a fear of low-flying books, but you can’t have everything.

I’ll miss the long haul flights, not least because I can’t imagine any other circumstances in which I would have the joyous experience of being forcibly separated from the non-stop ringing of my mobile phone for 12 hours.

But I can again look forward to nipping over to Paris on the Eurostar; the short flight to southern Spain, where I still have an apartment; the easy train access to London’s vast cultural experiences.

And as people keep telling me: LA’s not going anywhere and I can return anytime I like. In the words of Tony Blair . . . Well, I’m not sure I’ll ever find out what they are.

But as journeys go, mine’s been a great one.

Marijuana Or Martini? The Choice Is Yours 8/22/10

2010-08-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

It’s a thin line between being laid back and being lazy, a fact to which several hundred people I have met here bear witness.

While there are many incredibly hard-working individuals who come to California in search of fame and fortune, there are even more who come in search of a lifestyle that allows them to be even more bone idle than they managed to be back in their home country.

Because the US is a country in which everything seems possible, and anyone can be anything they want to be, the spirit of optimism rides high; the problem is that the spirit of delusion rides equally high, and everyone thinks they are going to make it, irrespective of talent, and irrespective of their ability or desire to put their noses to the grindstone.

Personally, when I arrived, I worked very, very hard, often right through the night. I rediscovered a passion for writing that I had not experienced in some years, the toils of journalism having knocked out some of my creativity for different sorts of projects.

But as time has gone on, I have felt a slight lethargy creeping in, a desire to “chill out” more, which, while being beneficial in many ways to my health, has made me feel increasingly irritable and restless.

Excessive chilling out can be as frustrating as excessive stress, and it can smooth the rough edges of creativity – you only have to look at the crap that Hollywood turns out to know that.

The endless warm weather is undoubtedly a relaxant. In the UK, if the sun shines on a Bank Holiday, we rush to throw ourselves into vats of Stella in pub gardens and beachside bars; but if you drank every time the sun shone here, you would never be sober.

The misery of bad weather makes Brits drink a lot more, and their lifestyle is a lot more stressed. The cycle is one of stress at work/worry about money = drinking to forget and reduce stress = more stress, because nothing has fundamentally changed.

When the sun is permanently shining, it is actually very hard to keep drinking, because dehydration induces a craving for little else other than water or, in my case, gallons of PG Tips.

The vast open spaces of LA in particular, are also contributory to the emotional spaced-out-ness of its residents. You just don’t literally bump into anyone in the streets here; yes, people spend an inordinate amount of time in their cars, but when out and about, there is a feeling of spaciousness that, coupled with the ability to live so much of one’s life outdoors, cannot help but contribute to a feeling well-being. I walk miles every week and love the fact that I see so few people along the way (even if the police are a little suspicious of folk a pied).

When I recently returned to London, I felt like a marching ant in Oxford Street: being hurtled along, against my will, to whatever hell my body was being forced. I was terrified.

This week, however, I discovered another contributing factor in California’s laid-back state of mind: marijuana. Lots of it.

I know a handful of people in the UK who are prescribed marijuana for medical reasons, and others who have taken the drug recreationally. Among the first group, I have seen the benefits; among the latter, I have seen a few people who appeared to function perfectly well taking it.

But I have also witnessed that heavy marijuana use often goes hand in hand with unemployment (and yes, I appreciate that most people are unemployed for a whole host of other reasons) or, at best, under-achievement; I have seen it lead to usage of heavier drugs.

There have also been, sadly, a few in whom I have witnessed increasing use of the drug appearing to induce psychoses, with often tragic results.

As with all drugs, the goal-posts are ever shifting, according to medical research and our own experience, and in the case of marijuana I am no expert as to the short or long term physical effects.

But in California, it is synonymous with the laid back lifestyle, and it's everywhere. When I arrived, a few people told me that they could recommend some doctors where I could obtain “medicinal marijuana”, a phrase that apparently gets around the legalities. I politely declined and haven’t heard or seen much about it since.

Occasionally, it gets a mention in TV court shows, and in one recent People’s Court, a man was suing his ex, because he gave her marijuana, which she smoked but didn’t pay the full amount for – and she was counter-suing him, because it was allegedly inferior stuff. “California! Dontcha love it!” said Judge Milian.

This week, however, I went to Venice Beach, which might as well be called Marijuana Marina, for all the cannabis on offer there.

Every few steps, another man approached, pointing to a doorway, where, apparently, a highly reputable doctor was inside, handing out medicinal marijuana. The smell of the stuff was so intense along the board-walk, I felt I was getting enough already, without having to pay anything for it.

Gosh, it was bad. A really sickly, sweet smell, that seemed to permeate every pore in my body.

Venice is where the really, really lazy people hang out, I discovered. I hadn’t been there for 20 years and thought that maybe it had cleaned up its act, but nothing of the sort. It’s dirty, scruffy, a bit scary, and makes the Kiss Me Quick culture of Blackpool look like Key West.

There was only one place where you could have anything remotely decent to eat or drink along the front: the Sidewalk Café (apparently famous, though heaven knows why), barely better than a roadside caff, and with every table boasting a plastic bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup the size of a small baby.

I walked to nearby Santa Monica, roughly three miles away and a tad more civilised. It still has the air of a slightly downmarket UK seaside town, but at least you can breathe the air there.

But the edginess that inspired me when I first arrived and which sustained me for about six months has definitely diminished. Many of my reasons for leaving I wrote about two weeks ago; but another reason is my feeling increasingly out of kilter with this all too laid back lifestyle - and, in my case, that's nothing to do with the availability of marijuana. The drug is just one of a whole host of factors that keeps large sections of this city in a state bordering on rigor mortis.

As I said, it’s a thin line between laziness and being laid back, and I don’t want that line to get any thinner.

At the end of the day, there’s more to life than sunshine.

That's Another Fine Mess . . . 8/21/10

2010-08-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

Has there ever been a nation in the history of civilisation that opened its mouth so much and yet said so very little as the USA?

Yes, it’s been another nightmare week in the LA service industry that so enamoured me when I first arrived.

Having finally managed to sort out my ongoing saga too boring to detail with Best Buy, this week it was the turn of the grocery store, Vons.

As I do not have a car, I have been mostly using the store’s online delivery service. Vons, like its sister store, Pavilions, is, in fact, Safeway, and far cheaper than, say, Ralph’s or Wholefoods. Every few weeks, Vons will deliver your groceries for free, although this is usually dependent upon your purchasing five items from whatever their specials of the week happen to be.

So, for example, when they had a healthy options week, you could get a free delivery if you bought things such as vegetable juice, bran flakes, oatmeal bars – stuff you would never normally touch, let alone swallow, but, for the sake of saving $6.95, were prepared to spend three times that amount on the useless products.

I was having a party and therefore bought the wine in bulk, when I saw a special offer allowing you free delivery on an order over $150. So far, so good – well, almost. Apart from the defrosted pizzas, the bulk order of creamed corn instead of peas, and soft drinks clearly belonging to another order. Customer service ignored my complaining e-mail.

When the party came around some weeks later, two of the bottles of Pinto Grigio turned out to be corked, so I contacted the store to see how they might be replaced.

Now, you have to know this about every single American in LA (at least, the ones I have met): they know nothing, nada, zilch, about wine. Every restaurant, every bar, every snooty bloke sitting down once a month with his mates for a blind “tasting” (basically: rich, ignorant, old guys with nothing better to do - and you see them in many hostelries) – they wouldn’t know a decent wine if it spat at them.

On the few occasions when I have had to send back a corked bottle, the members of staff have examined the glass, declaring that they cannot see any cork floating in it; or they have just looked at me blankly.

And it's not just a problem with corked wine. This week, I had to send back a 2007 Tavel because it had, quite simply, been kept too long in the wrong temperature and had turned to sherry; I know that Tavel is a dark rose, but honestly, I’ve seen more attractive diverticulitis.

The waiter was polite in removing the offending receptacle, but with the comment: “Well, if you don’t like it.” “No,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s bad.” More blank stares.

Bar, restaurant, or five star hotel, it’s been the same story every time, so I wasn’t holding out much hope for the Vons sommelier.

Sure enough, after being put through to various people on the phone, each claiming to be a different branch of Customer Service, I tracked down the store from which my wine had originated. But no. I could not return it, as it had been bought online. More calls. This time: no, any goods had to be returned within 48 hours; it was “company policy”.

So, I said, if I buy 20 bottles of wine, I have to taste them all within 48 hours, purely to ascertain whether they are corked, in order to be allowed to bring them back? Apparently, yes. But then, according to the small print, no; I discovered that it’s not even that easy. Once wine has been delivered for an online order, it cannot be returned – for any reason.

None of the people I spoke to knew what a corked wine was, anyway, so I have downloaded the Wikipedia definition, which I intend to show to everyone I meet who pleads ignorance on the matter.

It’s an awful lot of effort to go to for the presence of a bit of 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) (that’s corked, for those of you still in the dark; and smell a wet dog, if you’re still confused as to what you should be sniffing for); but why should anyone lose their money because Vons has a policy on refusing to accept returns on what are, essentially, damaged goods?

So, my disillusionment with the service industry that so impressed me when I arrived, continues. The “Yes, ma’am, I can help you with that today” continues to mean “No chance” with every single company I am trying to wind up my affairs with.

I’m going to need more alcohol just to get me through it. I’m just not going to be buying it from Vons.

I’ll just head for the Napa Valley, hook myself up to a vine and cut out the middle man.

Amazing, Awesome, Aw, Just Shut The Hell Up 12th August 2010

2010-08-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

There are only two words that Americans in LA use to express their enthusiasm: awesome and amazing.

Unlike Brits, for whom “quite good” and “enjoyable” are regarded as commendable expletives, nothing here is ever less than knocking your socks off, being blown away by, knocking you down with a feather, dog’s bollocks, et al – in other words (two, to be precise): awesome, or amazing.

Both words were much in evidence this week at the live shows in LA of America’s Got Talent, which for the first time featured acts hitherto known only on YouTube (which is where most of them should have stayed).

Inevitably, this resulted in a bunch of mediocrities taking to the stage with their dubious “talents”, but that didn’t stop them from expressing their delight at the awesomeness of the occasion.

Ten year-old Jackie Evancho, who wowed the crowd with her powerful rendition of O Mio Babino Caro, made it through to the semi-final in Las Vegas, and said the whole thing had so far been “amazing”. Okay, she’s a kid and can be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by the occasion, but it was the same for everyone else.

Don’t they teach them any other adjectives in school here?

As a side point, was Jackie that awesome anyway? She was a very cute kid, with a powerful, pure voice, and youngsters invariably do well in these competitions. But in the UK version of the show, this really annoys me at times.

Go to the annual Eisteddfod in Wales every year, where young kids with AMAZING voices are two a penny. They never make it onto the UK version of Britain’s Got Talent, because they are, quite simply, too talented. One gifted child standing out on a freak show (which is what BGT increasingly is) can be regarded as a phenomenon; put him or her alongside another dozen talented kids, and the first one’s mediocrity will shine through.

Jackie Evancho has a very strong, melodic voice, but dreadful breathing technique, which resulted in poor phrasing (less pushing for power would have solved this, so there). She is still terrific, but there are still equally impressive youngsters of her age out there (Charlotte Church was brilliant beyond belief at this age). But hey, Jackie fits the bill of the TV show.

It has also been an amazing, awesome time for Ali Fedotowsky, who, in ABC’s reality show, The Bachelorette, this month, chose her husband, Roberto Martinez, from a cast of 25 hopefuls. Ali and Roberto Martinez got engaged at the end of the series, and have this week been walking hand in hand around LA, or seeking even more publicity in a sky blue metallic Volkswagen convertible, driving around San Diego.

Their first appearance after the show’s finale was on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show, where the host drew attention to the number of times the word “amazing” had been uttered throughout the series. Ali was amazing, said the guys; the guys were amazing, said Ali; Iceland was amazing (Ali); the experience was amazing (everyone). On and on and on.

Ali was amazingly irritating, with her nasally drawn out syllables every time she said “amaiiiirrrzing” or “Awwwwwsome”. I couldn’t help feeling that if Bart Simpson had turned up as one of her suitors, Ali would have expressed just as much amazingness towards him, and even towards his dysfunctional family (yes, all the families of the men she visited were amaiiiirrrzing, too).

When I first arrived here, I loved the enthusiasm that greeted me in every restaurant and shop. I liked the service at the end of the phone – “Yes, ma’am, I can help you with that today.” The irritating aspect of it now is not that it is deliberately false (they genuinely do go out of their way to help); it’s the monotony of the tone in which everything is said, and the fact that the promised help rarely brings about a satisfactory result.

I never know whether I am speaking to a machine or a human at the end of the line and now ask, just before I start detailing my problem, which it is, for fear of being given a star-key option at the end of my diatribe. And then, more often than not, the person who promises to help me at the start of the conversation can do nothing of the sort.

Take Best Buy. I think I must now have spoken to everyone in the organisation, each of whom turned out to be less helpful than the person before. I can only reiterate the slogan I adopted from day one with this dreadful store: Best Buy somewhere else.

Yesterday, I was talking on the phone to a woman from Time Warner Cable, who assured me she could help in my request to scale down my service in the weeks before I return to the UK. She told me she loved my English accent and always felt the need to compliment one when she heard it. I pointed out that it was Welsh and proceeded to give her a geography lesson regarding the four-country break-up of the United Kingdom.

In her excitement, she pressed all the wrong buttons and had to start the operation again. “I didn’t know that,” she went on. “But then how would I, if I’ve never been there.”

Duh! We are handcuffed to you on every battlefield! How about dipping into books, TV, the internet, newspapers? I’ve never been to the White House, but I still know it was occupied by an amazing nobhead before November 2008.

The LA Dictionary of Wonder is undoubtedly the smallest in the world. Once you’ve dispensed with the words awesome and amazing, there is little left for anyone to say. This inability to find suitable words has resulted in the “NoNoNoNoNo” culture, which you can find not only in everyday conversation, but in just about every TV show, whether it be reality, drama or comedy - and not just in LA.

Take a look at Friends again, and Rachel in particular. When she is not being amazed or over-awed, she is wagging her finger in a contradictory manner and saying “NoNoNoNoNo”, because she has already run out of words to express extreme emotion.

Yes, it’s nice to be treated courteously, instead of someone throwing you your burger and never looking you in the eye (you know who you are, Burger King on Paddington Station), and enthusiasm, encouragement and positivity can cheer up the most dreary of days; but after 18 months, it’s getting in my face.

The promise of helpful assistance is rarely forthcoming in the long term, and things that people profess to be awesome or amazing are invariably less than mediocre; in fact, if I’m being honest, they’re often crap.

Not everything in life has to be awesome or amazing, and throwing these words around willy nilly may give everyone a level playing field, but it’s a very hollow one.

Sometimes, in life, things are just okay.

And you know something? That’s okay.

Gotcha! LAPD's Finest Hour 8/8/10

2010-08-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

Sitting on your sofa in front of the telly can be an exhausting experience in LA.

Despite having witnessed thousands of car chases in TV dramas over my twenty-odd years as a TV critic, I cannot believe the difference in emotions when you know that you are experiencing the real thing.

The last car chase (well, crawl, to be precise) I watched on TV was that involving OJ Simpson, whose white van was followed by cops, following the murder of his ex, Nicole Brown Simpson and her lover Ronald Goldman (a crime of which he was found not guilty – okay, so he just fancied a long drive that day).

But on Thursday afternoon this week, a man who had walked into the Southwest Los Angeles Police Department and threatened officers, took to the streets in what I can only describe as hara-kiri on wheels.

It was incredible. Breathtaking. I was shouting at the screen, as the man went the wrong way up and down streets, speeding at 70 mph as the cars around him trudged by at 30.

How did I know the speed? The Man in the Helicopter that was following the chase told me. I tell you: I learned more about the streets of Downtown LA during this half hour than a year of studying Google maps could have taught me.

Then the guy mounted the pavement – still speeding. Any human would have been mown down in his path, had they been in his way; a walking Chihuahua would have been mincemeat within seconds.

The cops almost caught him at one point, but their car bonnets ended up in a kind of romantic kiss as the man sped away once more. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” I yelled, as the runaway car sped off yet again.

At one junction, he hit another vehicle; then he narrowly missed hitting three others. And then . . . Oh, yegods, this was far, far better than Hill Street Blues had ever been . . . One of the cop cars chasing him crashed into a palm tree.

The MIH (Man In Helicopter) now had so much more to talk about. Not only was he instructing me in the intricacies of Downtown LA sidewalks and streets, he now had the job of filling me in on the state of the officer’s health.

Was he injured? If so, how severely? Oh no: surely the poor man hadn’t died (okay, MIH didn’t say this, but I was fearing the worst). And there he was again, the cop in the palm tree! All because our escapee was now going around the block.

I was exhausted. And then, at about 2.15pm, it all ended at 37th Street and Normandie Avenue (I tell you: I could be a tour guide after this), when the man hit a car and the cop cars blocked him in.

But even then, the drama didn’t end. Despite the fact that about a dozen armed cops surrounded the vehicle, the man wouldn’t budge. One cop started to smash in the rear windscreen; people in surrounding vehicles didn’t know whether to stay put or run (according to MIH – God, this guy was good); and then, back in the studio, MIH was interrupted.

A warning: we don’t know what’s going to happen next, so if there are small children watching or you were of a delicate persuasion (words to that effect), turn away now.

Ohyegods triplefold! They were going to blow the guy’s brains out! Even better, they were going to beat him to a pulp before our very eyes. And all because he had walked into a station and been a bit abusive.

Blimey. They should be in central Cardiff after a rugby international, then they’d know the meaning of abuse.

And our criminal STILL wasn’t getting out of the vehicle. Momentarily stunned (according to MIH), they finally got him out, but, when he came to, he was still resisting arrest.

Geez! How many LA cops does it take to nuke a light-bulb?

What impressed me the most about the chase was how considerate the cops were about other cars, pedestrians, small dogs (okay, my added colour again) et al, as they followed the guy – certainly a darn sight more considerate than he was being.

Unlike the cop cars in Hill Street Blues, where mowing people down got you promotion, the cops following this guy slowed down where they thought there was danger to Beverly Hills/Downtown Chihuahuas and their owners; and yet, incredibly, they still managed to keep up with the maniac.

My admiration of the LAPD remains resolute; it may have taken a dozen of them to nuke the light-bulb, but they got there in the end.

So gripped was I by the spectacle, however, that I realised I had missed Judge Alex, who is my Monday to Friday TV fix. Still, I had endured more than enough law, order, and assassinated palm trees for one day. As, I suspect, had our MIH.

What, though, he added, must the person driving the silver car that our baddie crashed into have been thinking?

How much money can I make from this on Fox News would be my guess.

Time To Go Home? 7/29/10

2010-07-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

I once told Steven Spielberg that ET was the greatest film ever made.

I had managed to crash a post BAFTA Awards party by crawling through the legs of people queuing to get into the venue. Once inside, I hovered by the late, great Bill Cotton, who introduced me to the director, who had just won an award for Schindler’s List.

“I know you’ve just won an award for another film,” I said, “but I have to tell you that I think ET is the greatest film ever made.”

“Gee,” said Spielberg. “D’you know, I was thinking about that film last Friday, and I think you could well be right.”

I maintain that it is still the greatest. It has all the monumental themes: separation and loss; life, death and resurrection; survival, friendship, science versus the heart, and, in its final denouement, the need to belong: ET, phone home; ET, home, home, home.

“Come’” says ET to Elliott, as they stand beside the waiting to depart spaceship.

“Stay,” says Elliott. In those two words, you have it all: we want to hold on, we need to let go.

That scene remains, for me, in just two words, the greatest in cinematic history.

I’ve been thinking about it again this week, as the pull of home grows strong once more. I’ve been here 15 months, and each time I go back to the UK, it is harder to return. I see family and friends, spend time in my house, surrounded by my familiar things, and never does my identity feel so strong as it does when back in Wales.

Usually, my mother comes to stay with me when I return, but this time I visited her. She lives in the house in Bristol, where she and my father moved after my brother and I left school. My Dad died a little over 20 years ago, but there are still signs of him everywhere: photographs on the mantelpiece and the wall; the Capodimonte Romeo and Juliet his firm gave to Mum when he died; the G Plan dining room suite my parents were so excited to buy decades ago, and which still looks perfect.

Walking up the stairs is to climb the family tree. My brother and I are there in our university caps and gowns; the beautiful face of my dear cousin Sarah, who died at just 34 nearly five years ago, looks out with her mischievous smile; aged aunts and grandparents stain the wall in their sepia colours.

In my bedroom (we still call it “mine”), the oaky smell of the square wooden jewellery box in which I stored my first trinkets, still permeates the room; the white bedroom furniture that arrived over 40 years ago and thrilled me so much with its in-built electric light, is still standing (and operational).

In my mother’s office, there are the books I left behind. A Course in Miracles; a poetry compilation the size of two bricks and whose title I cannot see, as neither my mother nor I will ever be able to reach it; dog-eared cookery books.

Downstairs, I go through the LPs that I want to load onto a memory stick from the system Mum bought me for Christmas. Richard Burton reading Under Milk Wood; the Misa Criola and African Sanctus, which Mum played incessantly when she returned from a drama course at Barry Summer School; Elvis and the Beatles; Roy Orbison and Tom Jones; Shirley Bassey and Abba. Our family’s past, imprinted in vinyl.

Mum cooks me dinner (a “mam” dinner, as we call it – real food, with gravy) and we drink tea from two of the many mugs she used to buy from Ewenny pottery, always insisting that we stop off there on our way back from the beach (beach, two hours; pottery, four – that sort of thing).

It was a miracle there was even room for the purchases, given what she used to pack for our weekly trips to Southerndown, near Bridgend, where I grew up.

Beach chairs, table, Lilo, Floatina, wind-break, lounger, deck chairs, towel wraps, Tupperware containers of squash and sandwiches, flasks of tea – the tide was so far out by the time we reached the coast with our second home, we needed a compass to find it.

I think of the many dinners Mum used to cook – meat and two veg, plus a pudding every day – all of it coming back in the rise of the steam as she tips the potatoes into the colander. And I think how much I love my mother and the life she and Dad gave me and my wonderful brother Nigel.

And suddenly I know that much as I try, much as I am energised by my new life, I cannot start making a new history, especially in a country that barely has one of its own, and that I miss the history of which I am already a part: a history still in the making, with friends and family celebrating new ventures and achievements, and children (many of whom I have known since they were babies) growing into adults and just starting to make their way in the world.

But also people close to me, young and old, falling sick, suffering; some dying. I don’t want to regret not being there to spend whatever time any of us have left together.

There is so much to love about California. I admire the spirit of optimism, the belief that anything is possible and, of course, I adore the weather. As a writer, I try to cram in as many experiences as I can, and this, despite heartache along the way, has been one of the best. I have also completed two books here, one of which will be a compilation of these blogs.

I have made good friends and I do not rule out keeping on my apartment. But at the moment, the longing for the homeland that the Welsh call "hiraeth", tugs at my heart. Who knows, if I had crawled through enough legs, Hollywood might have held more allure, but I have found this small part of the city, with its detritus of mostly broken Hollywood dreams, a little sad.

Next week, it is a year since my good friend and mentor Blake Snyder, who was so instrumental in my coming here, suddenly died; and that, too, has been a salient reminder of how quickly everything can be snatched away.

I divide my life now into BB and AB – Before Blake and After Blake, and I am not the same person who came here in April 2009.

But in the words of the song about that great hero of my youth, Andy Pandy: Time to go home, Time to go home.

Is That A Truncheon In Your Pocket, Or . . . 7/20/10

2010-07-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

You know you’re getting old when the policemen start getting hornier.

Maybe it’s the warmer weather, maybe it’s the fact that the LA cops just all seem to have walked out of the movies, but they really are a pretty hot bunch.

Until I came to LA, uniformed cops never really did it for me; I simply have too much of a terror of authority to be able to think of the police as anything other than people who will put me in chains for getting out of bed the wrong side (I once woke my parents up in the middle of the night, devastated that I had forgotten to pay my three-pence to Brown Owl in the weekly Brownies meeting, which gives you an idea of how law-abiding I have always felt the need to be).

Doctors, yes (love the white coats and any man in scrubs); firemen, yes (although mainly for their props – sliding pole, hoses, that sort of thing); but never coppers (despite their truncheons).

Well, unless you count actors who play coppers.

My first job as a TV critic coincided with the launch of the ITV show The Bill and, being in my twenties, it was hard not to be drawn to these rather fit young men who launched the series.

Now, the actors are 103, the show is being axed, and everyone wants to see real life coppers in reality shows, which to me isn’t the same thing at all.

But there is just something about the Beverly Hills cops, who will rush to your aid in about 30 seconds flat, no matter how small your problem.

Hilton Hotel too noisy? Call the cops. Nasty man in Vodafone shop, threatening to come back and shoot everyone because his SIM card doesn’t work? Call the cops.

They are pretty strict about road etiquette, which can be a bit scary (do not, and I mean do NOT cross unless the white man is showing on the lights), but their constant patrol, both on foot and in cars, makes you feel extra safe which, for a woman walking alone in a big city (yes, I am still the only person who walks in LA), is always a good thing.

I suspect, however, that the real reason I am fancying the cops is the ongoing absence of any decent men here. The arrogance and rudeness of most blokes I meet makes even the most misogynistic of Brits seem like groupies in the Germaine Greer Appreciation Society.

The guys with money treat you like dirt because they just want a piece of eye candy on their arms (which they know they can get); the high end business guys can’t bear it when you’re not impressed with their status; and the tough guys . . .

Well, I have to be careful what I say about them, for obvious reasons. I haven’t met many, but when I was told that “the real life Tony Soprano” had entered one establishment I frequent, naturally I was curious.

Tony Soprano? The guy looked as if he had eaten three Tony Sopranos for breakfast and still had enough room for three small cousins. Initially friendly, he and his mate then decided that sometimes guys just had to be guys and women got in the way.

As they high-fived each other in their mutual appreciation of each other’s wit (I use the world very loosely), I was yet again left wondering where the smart, creative men hang out.

Having now lived in five different countries (Wales, England, France, Spain and the US), it’s fairly safe to say that I’ve given the male species more than a good onceover.

I have really close male friends, so I don’t have an anti-man thing going on. But all those men were nabbed long ago, and even those who broke up with their partners were quickly snatched up the second or third time around.

Really, you have to start looking in August if you’re hoping to have a date on New Year’s Eve (take note: Windows 2011 is just around the corner), although I suspect that all the men I would really like to meet are so busy working, they have to schedule the pulling of a Christmas cracker three years in advance.

Meeting a man was never my aim here; I came to work and, having just about finished my book (writing, not reading), am pleased with the progress I have made. But some male company along the way would have been nice.

I have met some wonderful Europeans, all really into their work and loving the LA lifestyle. I have met great women, too, both American and European. But the American male is a species I just don’t understand.

People tell me that the East Coast is very different, so, who knows, maybe that’s where I’ll head next.

Or maybe I’ll just aim for a wild party in LA at the end of 2010, have the cops called in, and see in the New Year in handcuffs.

The Cleanest Bottom In Hollywood 7/5/10

2010-07-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

Wolfgang’s toilet.

They’re not two words I ever expected to write in the same sentence, but the receptacle of which I speak has to be one of the seven great wonders of modern technology (on a list that includes the Eurostar and the i-Pad).

Wolfgang’s Steakhouse is one of my favourite haunts in Beverly Hills: a large steak restaurant with a long bar down one side, and delightful staff that never make me feel less than hugely welcome.

It has the lovely Adolpho on the piano, some really good European wines (difficult to find in LA, with its excess of California plonk, which I loathe), and a sociable clientele who make it easy to make friends if you’re sitting by yourself.

But the toilet. Oh, the toilet.

The first thing that strikes you is how warm the seat is. It’s like going back to the womb; that in itself makes you reluctant to get off.

But then there are the various dials to your right on the wall: the first two say “REAR CLEANSING”, with five small vertical dots under the one, and four dots and the word "SOFT" written under the second button.

Next comes “FRONT CLEANSING”, with two sets of four dots in a diamond shape underneath. Then you have “PRESSURE” and “POSITION”, with a plus at the top and a minus below. I tell you: the place is a veritable theatre.

I didn’t know which bits to wash first, nor (not having entertained myself in this manner before), how much pressure to go for.

Was it like an Indian restaurant, where you ordered the Vindaloo and then realised, too late, that you had over-estimated how strong your constitution was?

Then there was position to consider. Did you have to take the size of your rear end into consideration when deciding whether to sit more towards the front or back of the seat? Or did the position button take care of all that for you?

In the time it was taking me to weigh up my options, a lengthy queue was doubtless forming outside the door, impatient customers who had yet to discover what an adventure the emptying of one’s bladder and bowels could be.

In the end, I tried all options. I could take the Vindaloo force on front wash, but had to take it easy on non-soft rear wash, which, on full pressure, made me feel as if an elephant had decided to empty its trunk into my back passage.

Front cleansing was an easier and far more pleasurable operation altogether, but then that was something I had already learned long ago.

The only thing I didn’t manage to do was flush the damned thing. When I put the lid down, the array of lights and paraphernalia turned the bowl into the Star Ship Enterprise. I pressed, I tapped, I looked in vain for a flush, but nothing.

When I questioned Ron the manager about this (adding my compliments to the plumber) upon my return to the restaurant (days later, it seemed, and a lot cleaner than when I had gone in), I was assured that even if you haven't managed to work out the logistics, it flushed automatically once you left the cubicle.

It wasn’t until I got back to my seat that I realised I hadn’t actually done the very thing I had gone in there for – namely, the evacuation of my supper; there were just too many other things to do.

Quite what governor Mr Schwarzenegger would think of it all is anybody’s guess. California has been suffering from a water shortage for some time now, and if the entertainment offered by Wolfgang’s toilet starts attracting bigger audiences than it already does, that shortage is only going to worsen.

I suppose they could try using the same water, recycling it and purifying it in some way, but I suspect that would probably negate the “cleaning” part of the operation.

I’m also curious as to what goes on in the men’s room at Wolfgang’s. Presumably, they have the same bowl and dials for longer performances, but I’m curious as to what their urinal is like.

Is there a small shower for testicle cleansing, a foreskin wash, added pressure for the less sensitive circumcised organ? Do men have to change position according to the size of their anatomy? Do very large penises have to be done in shifts?

There are so many unanswered questions about Wolfgang’s toilet, but at least I have information about the most important one – can I get one installed in my apartment?

Apparently, they only cost about $1500, which, when you compare it to the price of going to the theatre, is a really good deal, considering how many toilet performances you are going to attend in your lifetime.

I’m going to ask my landlady to look into it and try to convince her of the benefits of having the cleanest tenants on the block.

And when it’s installed, I might invite my 25 year old Italian next door neighbour to the premier. Maybe we can share a Cornetto in the interval.

Ready for my close-up? You bet. I already feel flushed with success.

Talking Sport Bollocks 6/23/10

2010-06-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

If you had told me two years ago that I would be cheering for the USA in anything, other than its drowning in the sandwich of its two oceans, I would have laughed.

Not only laughed, I would have bet my house, my every worldly possession and even my entire family against it.

Yet last week found me yelling for the Lakers, who won the NBA Basketball, yesterday cheering as I watched their celebratory parade and, today, shouting for the USA soccer team in the World Cup.

Landon Donovan’s goal gave them 1-0 up against Algeria and put them top of Group C, the first time since 1930 and ahead of runners-up England (alas, they beat Slovenia, so the ghastly fans I wrote about in my last but one blog must have been particularly gross today).

Nine of the USA goals have been scored after the 86th minute, which is a tribute to the team’s incredible nerve.

You see what has happened to me? I can now talk sport bollocks with the best of them.

A year ago, I didn’t even know that the Lakers were basketball and the Dodgers baseball. I hated the “guy” culture, with men in my gym high-fiving each other, shouting at the TV screens on the treadmill when a player missed whatever ball he was trying to hit or land. I was constantly irritated by the non-stop talk about whatever game had been played the night before (and there always seemed to be one).

Every day, I was bemoaning this sports-obsessed nation and, in particular, its obsession with baseball and basketball. But I have come to love the latter. There is something incredibly beautiful about the 3-point shots that land so cleanly through the basket, and the energy that sustains itself throughout these fast games is breathtaking.

I love the squeak of rubber on hardwood, the intensity in foreheads pouring with sweat. And the muscles. Oh, the muscles of those players. I’m not sure my bones would emerge intact after a night in a dark hotel room with any of them, but these bodies are works of art.

“Go, Lakers, Go!” I posted on Facebook throughout the game, as my friends back in the UK wondered whether I had completely lost my sanity. I was in my favourite restaurant, Enoteca, in Beverly Hills, chatting to locals about individual players, and querying why the Lakers were taking so long to shoot.

“Shoot! Shoot! we chorused. It was an exhilarating three hours and, by the end, I was exhausted. I felt as if I had been up against the Boston Strangler, not to mention the Boston Celtics.

I have never been much into soccer, as I have always been a die-hard rugby fanatic, and English soccer in particular – the arrogance of its players, the thuggish fans - leaves me ice cold. But I’ve got into the World Cup purely as a result of the emotion the USA team has been generating.

Their soccer has been pretty impressive, and today I found myself welling up as Donovan spoke after the Algeria game about the “journey” he has been on the last four years.

They are very fond of their journeys, these Americans. If you haven’t been on one, you are an emotional retard, and in LA especially, you can find every kind of tool - emotional, spiritual, physical or mental - to help you on your way.

Worried about the future? See a psychic. Need physical enhancement? Join a gym or see a plastic surgeon. Looking for God? Join a church or give all your money to a nutter who reckons he/she can save your soul.

The city is a veritable Louis Vuitton warehouse, when it comes to things you need for your journey.

Now the soccer players are talking about their journeys. To date, only Donovan has appeared on the David Letterman Show, but you can bet your bottom dollar that many more will be on talk shows in the forthcoming weeks, regaling us of their respective journeys and the various means of emotional transport it took to get them there.

It’s not just the journey clichés that came out of the closet today; every cliché in the American constitution (with a small “c”) emerged after this surprise World Cup success. An outsider could be forgiven for thinking that the USA had already won the Cup.

It was everything “we” Americans were about (I was even counting myself among them, so carried away was I by the occasion); it was the American dream; having President Clinton there to share this moment was surely everything any player could ever want – yes, it was even a moment to forget that Clinton is no longer President.

The Americans are constantly criticised by the Brits for their excessive emotion, but after yesterday’s emergency budget in the UK, and the promise of even tougher times ahead, the Brits could take a leaf out of the USA book.

There is nothing inherently wrong with your heart being touched and letting people know it. Donovan cried in front of the TV cameras and took several seconds before he was able to start his interview.

Moments like this are reminders that we are all human in a difficult world.

But remember Gazza’s World Cup tears in the UK? They were the subject of ridicule and even made it into a TV commercial. Well, he’s crying again, and it ain’t so funny anymore.

The Brits may think that the way to cope with diversity is by adopting the stiff upper lip. But with governments that keep punching them in the mouth, sooner or later that lip is going to crack, and it won’t be a moment too soon.

In the meantime, I’m behind the USA and praying for the dream journey’s end. I doubt that they will make it, but boy, am I enjoying their belief that they will.

One way ticket to Dreamland, please.

That's Jaci With A "J", Not Liza With A Zee 6/13/10

2010-06-13T13:08:00.000-07:00

I am Liza Minnelli. It’s official.

When I recently walked into a friend’s party, there was huge excitement generated in one corner when they believed that Liza Minnelli had just arrived.

Their delight quickly turned to disappointment upon discovering that no, it was just some short Welsh bird with a similar hairdo, but at least I had my moment in the LA spotlight.

The Liza thing has been following me for some years now. Apart from the fact that she looks about 104 (she’s actually 64, but the years and substances have taken their toll) and old enough to be my grandmother, it’s something of a compliment.

We are both small, we both have short, dark hair and brown eyes, and . . . Well, that’s it, really. I have also had my voice trained, and although I can’t confess to being as good as Ms Minnelli, I have a strong pair of lungs and can belt out New York New York quite convincingly.

On Saturday, a man in the King’s Head in Santa Monica told me that not only should I play Liza in a musical of her life, he could make it happen.

These People Who Can Make It Happen crop up all the time in LA. They know someone who knows someone who once met someone who made it happen for an extra in Star Wars – that kind of thing. They never carry business cards and don’t want to tell you who they really are (or they would have to kill you), but they insist that fame and fortune lurks just around the next corner for you.

Last month, a man at the bar in Mastro’s restaurant told me that he could get me into Days of Our Lives. This is a daytime soap opera featuring impossibly glamorous people on sets that look as if they will blow down if a character so much as whistles.

This man reckoned that Days of Our Lives was just waiting for a Welsh female character and promised to get in touch.

Sure enough, he rang the next day, giving me the number of Bill, who he said was waiting for my call “to do an interview”.

Eh? How did I go from being the new star of the show to interviewing Bill about his own stardom?

It reminded me of my demotion when I was an extra in Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein. I was cast as one of eight grieving widows in the church, but was quickly deemed too short to be a widow.

Despite my protests and querying whether there was a height restriction on grief in Dr Frankenstein’s day, I was sent out into the courtyard to be one of a hundred starving peasants.

The widows were in the nice warm church; I was in the minus four degree weather outside in a thermal vest, surrounded by people boasting about their moment of stardom in a Swiss cheese commercial; so I could see the way my debut on Days of Our Lives was going.

I think I stand more of a chance on the Liza front, even though my new manager hasn’t given me his name, doesn’t know where to contact me, and could only tell me that a planned film about Judy Garland’s life has just been cancelled.

He seems to think that this makes it more, not less, likely, that a Liza project would get the green light. I told him, however, that I don’t want to play the fat, drunken years, although quickly realised that this would probably limit my options.

One tiny thing on my side is that I once met Liza’s co-star Joel Gray, who played the MC in Cabaret. It’s not a huge claim to fame, but I have discovered in this town that you really have to talk up your part in every area of life, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem.

So, this morning, I’ve been standing in front of the mirror with my hairbrush in hand, belting out Maybe This Time, and, between verses, penning my Oscar acceptance speech.

I don’t think I’ll be getting the award for Days of Our Lives, and much as I love soap opera, even I am having difficulty seeing how the South Wales plot could easily be woven into the current storylines.

But Liza’s life story could be my way onto that podium. My only real worry is whether I would have to play the David Gest months and, more to the point, who they would get to play him.

I know that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince, but even I have my standards.

Anyway, for the moment, I’m just going to practise getting into character. I’ve dyed my hair a darker shade of brown, endured sleep deprivation to get heavier bags under my eyes, and watched the Wizard of Oz, just to get something on the family background.

Now, where did I put that corkscrew?

'Ere We Go - And I Wish They Would 6/13/10

2010-06-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Virgin Upper Class lounge at Heathrow has been turned into a discotheque.

At least, that’s what it seemed like as I waited to board my Los Angeles flight on Thursday afternoon.

As always, I arrived several hours ahead of schedule to get full benefit of the free goodies on offer (well, “free” once you have paid several thousand pounds to enjoy the benefits), and enjoy a period of calm before the long haul across the Atlantic.

But having told the staff at the reception desk how much I looked forward to this part of the journey, I was in for a great disappointment, when my ears were instantly bombarded with loud, banging music of the kind I had hoped never to hear again after the age of 14.

Three hours of the stuff. Incessant. Noisy. Gross. It even managed to penetrate the one allegedly “quiet” zone.

What have you done, Sir Richard?

There was worse to come. I used to enjoy a 15 minute massage before boarding. Now, you can pay and have a longer massage, which in theory sounds good, until you discover that along with the “upgraded service” comes a new kind of massage.

“What’s that noise?” I asked my masseur, as what seemed to be a herd of plastic bags descended on my ears.

“It’s a wheat bag,” she explained.

“A what?”

I turned around to see just that in her hand – a round lump of linen, packed with wheat grains, that she had been using to pummel me.

“Could I have the usual deep massage with fingers?” I asked politely, only to be sniffily told that this was the new massage, so no, I couldn’t.

Apparently, this new massage has been dictated by the powers that be at Gatwick, and it is truly dreadful.

My masseur then started to thwack said wheat bag up and down my back.

“It’s like being hit with a sack of Tesco shopping!” I squealed.

If it ain’t broke, why try to fix it? Being beaten up with a pile of shopping in the middle of a roaring disco is not my idea of relaxation before a long haul flight, and whoever these powers that be are at Gatwick, they need to get real, get off their wheat bags, and consult customers as to what works for them.

The flight itself was the usual joy that it always is on Virgin, and I heard a very interesting story about a well known English footballer who had pressed unwelcome kisses on a 16 year old girl on a flight a couple of years ago.

The American woman who told me the story had no idea who he was, but the girl’s parents wanted police to be standing by when the plane landed. The American woman made the footballer apologise, and the authorities were not called; but the name would come as no shock to any British person.

If the behaviour of some of our so-called national heroes comes as no shock, the behaviour of some of the people who idolise them should be no surprise either.

But on Saturday, I was genuinely horrified by England fans gathered in the King’s Head in Santa Monica to watch the England vs USA match.

I’m very fond of the King’s Head, but to say that there was standing room only is a gross understatement; there was barely any breathing room. Making it from one side of the bar to the toilet on the other required camping equipment, the journey was so long and arduous. Not even an ice-pick would have penetrated the wall of bodies next to the TV screens.

I have never felt so many men pressed against my groin, backside, thighs – in fact, I didn’t know that there were so many positions of which a man’s body is capable.

It was all very good-hearted, though – until the teams came out. At their first glimpse of the USA team, the English supporters started chanting: “You’re gay, you’re gay, you’re gay!” I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. And there was more. “You’ve got Aids, you’ve got Aids, you’ve got Aids!”

When the ex-Welsh rugby captain Gareth Thomas recently announced his homosexuality to the world, those of us who had known for years were surprised that it had taken him so long to go public. Although rugby supporters are a different breed from soccer supporters, I suddenly realised why, in the sporting world, players are reluctant to be open about their sexuality.

When I confessed my disgust to a couple of supporters, they told me that I was being “too serious” and that it was “just banter”.

The small number of Americans in the bar were as stunned as I was by the chanting, as, indeed, any civilised human being should be.

Alas, this so-called “banter” is just the tip of the very big iceberg that is the racism, homophobia and thuggery that is still central to the world of British soccer.

While there are, of course, many decent, good people who enjoy the sport, the collective hatred that can be generated and harnessed by the minority is fundamentally disturbing. You only have to look at Hitler’s Germany to know why.

It’s the main reason I am not supporting England. Yes, I’m Welsh, too, and as ours is the only flag not represented on the flag of the United Kingdom, I have no qualms about not sharing in the “united” part of the hysteria surrounding this lacklustre English team.

But it’s a secondary reason when placed alongside the main one: that there are a lot of thick, violent, nasty people among the English supporters who get their kicks from bullying and inciting hatred and intolerance.

And while other fans continue to condone it in the name of “banter”, British soccer will remain the national disgrace that it has always been.

Laugh? If Only ... 6/4/10

2010-06-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

When your life is at the mercy of nature and psychopaths, what’s the point in anything?

People keep asking me why I wrote just one blog last month, and the truth is, I don’t know. Call it a touch of the Nietzsche.

I went to Vegas, saw the Mayweather vs Mosley boxing match, attended a friend’s wedding, stayed at a lovely hotel, and didn’t have the desire to write much about any of it.

It may be that I am so preoccupied trying to finish writing my book (only the second in nearly 20 years, yegods); or that I continue to worry about various things going on in my family and friends’ lives 6000 miles away; or, that I just don’t see the point in anything anymore.

I’m not talking suicide, but the Icelandic volcano eruption brought life as we know it (at least, in terms of travel) to a halt. This week’s tragic, heartbreaking shootings in Cumbria in the UK, just made you wonder why any of us bother trying to pursue our projects and dreams, when we are so at the mercy of forces outside our control. Well, that’s what I felt.

I am in Spain at the moment and missing certain aspects of the US: my friends in the hostelries Enoteca, Mastro’s and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

On the street where I live, I am not missing the screaming kids, who, because the sun is almost always shining, treat the sidewalk as a playground.

I am missing the cleanliness of Beverly Hills, along with the lack of cigarettes everywhere you look; I loathe the fact that nearly everyone smokes in this southern part of Spain, in or out of restaurants.

I am not missing the west LA branch of Best Buy, a store with which I have had an ongoing battle that is turning out more bloody than the Alamo, though much harder to bring to a conclusion.

The culture difference between the small part of the US in which I live and Europe is immense. Most of the American men I have met by casual acquaintance (the gay population totally excepted from this sweeping generalisation) are even more chauvinistic than the worst of their kind in the UK. Arrogant, pompous, rude – the idea that a woman might be going out on her own, without wishing to pull a bloke, is anathema to them – ironic, given that most of them wouldn’t even know what anathema was, let alone be able to spell it.

When I return to Paris or, this week, Spain, it is a joy to discover what fresh meat, fruit and veg tastes like, when no matter what I buy in LA tastes of nothing.

This afternoon, I sat on the beach in Marbella, where the people at the next table were celebrating a birthday, complete with guitars, maracas and singing. They were joyous, laughing for a good couple of hours and, for once, I cherished the noise.

I realised what I miss most in LA: it’s the laughter. I have it among my own circle of British friends when we get together, but go out to a bar or restaurant any time, day or night, in Beverly Hills, and you hear nothing of that uproarious, side-splitting hilarity that was so much a part of my life back in the UK and which I again experienced among close friends in Spain this week.

I know that my experience of the US is narrow, and, who knows, maybe even as I write, there are people in Michigan being hospitalised for having literally split their sides through laughing, but I doubt it.

Is humour dependent upon a country having a history, I wonder? And, being a young country, has the US not built up enough of a defence mechanism to be able to laugh at itself enough – something which, to me, and probably the UK as a whole, is one of the foundations of our comedy?

Even taking New York and the Sex and the City crowd humour into account, it’s still not of the tears rolling down your cheeks kind of laughter that I have experienced not just in the UK, but so many parts of Europe where, I believe, defending yourself against the enemy has rooted itself in our consciousness not only historically, but in the development of our artistic culture.

It’s not that there is no humour per se in the US; it just manifests itself in different ways. Miami-based Judge Alex on TV is one of the funniest things I have ever seen – a daytime judge with his own show and a razor sharp brain that knows exactly when to bring humour to a situation, and when to pull back when sensitivity to people’s distress requires it. Currently, no comedy show comes close to matching it.

Specifically to my own area, though, where is the laughter on the streets, in the cafes, in the bars and restaurants, among the LA population? I love the work ethic in the city, and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has done a terrific job through TV commercials to sell what is truly a great, vibrant state.

I just don’t see the smiles of the commercials on the streets of my little bit of LA. Maybe everyone has been so Bo-toxed up to the hilt, they’d need jaw surgery just to put a slight grin on their faces now.

And, given the recession, maybe they just can’t afford to.

Elvis, Me, And Our Irritable Bowels - Viva Las Vegas 5/9/10

2010-05-09T11:37:00.000-07:00

Elvis died from constipation; but then I suspect that anyone who spends most of their waking life in trousers that tight is always going to be a bit constrained in the bowel department.

Still, it gives a whole new meaning to All Shook Up - or would have done, had the man received treatment that he was apparently too proud to have.

It was reported this week that the singer’s official doctor has revealed that Elvis’s colon was twice as long and twice as wide as it should have been, and that a four to five month old stool was found in it at the autopsy.

If only I had been armed with this information last week, when I visited Las Vegas. How many more friendships could I have formed, in the city that celebrates the singer on every street corner?

“Do you know Elvis’s stools caused him to have “accidents” on stage?” I could have asked, as I watched fellow diners’ enormous mouths descend on burgers as big as buses?
“Don’t you realise the trouble you’re storing up for your stools?”

I could have entertained them at length about the real reason for Elvis’s weight gain: namely, that his gut couldn’t digest and dispense with all the muck he was feeding his body.

I could have told them of my own problems in the irritable bowel department and my experience of colonic irrigation that was filmed for a TV show, and the pronouncement that I had “stubborn stools". Oh, yes; how very different my Vegas trip could have been.

But instead, I find myself writing up an entirely different set of experiences as I return to the oasis of calm that is Los Angeles.

Now, there can’t be many times in the history of print that this combination of words have appeared in the same sentence; but returning to the city after a week in the chaos and often sheer hell that is Vegas, I feel a calm that is not a far remove from rigor mortis.

I had never been to Vegas and, despite being a fan of boxing, had only ever seen televised fights. So, on the encouragement of a friend, who assured me that the Floyd Mayweather/Sugar Shane Mosley welterweight confrontation was going to be huge, I secured a ticket and booked six nights at the Bellagio, famous for the dancing fountains that separate the hotel from its lake. I had only ever seen them on the TV show Las Vegas, a drama that portrays casino life as one long endless arena of glamour and intrigue, and thought I was in for a classy experience.

I was therefore spectacularly unprepared for the reality: the miles of slot machines, and the awful racket as the likes of Lobster Marina and Kitty Glitter flashed their lights with the promise of riches that never seemed to materialise. The endless rows of isolated, sad looking individuals, exercising a single arm as they pushed coins into slots or built turrets of chips (in many cases, castles) on numbers at the roulette wheel; the smoking that is allowed on the casino floor. God, yes; the dreadful, disgusting smoke.

Shell-shocked, I spent the first night in my room, only to be woken at dawn by the couple next door having the mother of almighty rows: so bad, in fact, that four security people came to check on the wellbeing of the screaming woman. Her take on things was that the argument had come about because hotel staff had been too noisy in the corridor – a logic that escaped the security people, and also me, by then in my dressing gown, also in the corridor, for fear of missing a slice of the action.

Just when I thought that life couldn’t get any worse, there was breakfast: a cafeteria style room reminiscent of a cheap holiday camp, crammed with screaming kids, and, in my section, presided over by a waitress for whom the notion of having two tea-bags was proving even more of an uphill task than if she had gone to Ceylon and picked put the necessary leaves with her teeth.

The tea-bag issue is something of an issue for me the world over. In Paris hotels, where they have only ever heard of Liptons, I have to ask for at least a box of the stuff if I am to stand a chance of my finished cup appearing even slightly off white.

In LA hotels, they think all the British drink is Earl Grey, which I loathe. If and when you manage to get served English breakfast tea, it arrives with honey and lemon. The operation to explain the reason for, and finally get your milk, is so tortuous and long, that by the time it arrives, the tea has to go back because it has gone stone cold.

When you can’t even acquire tea-bag number two and are told that the tea will be strong enough with one, Oliver Twist’s “Please, sir, Can I have some more?” starts to look like a gastronomic walk in the park.

Now my bowels were really irritable, along with the rest of me. Had I not been looking forward to the boxing on the Saturday, and had I not also agreed to be a witness at a friend’s wedding in the Little White Chapel, I would have been out of the city quicker than an Elvis stool at a colonic convention.

Instead, I phoned the concierge service that comes courtesy of my all-singing, all-dancing black Amex Centurion card, and spoke again to the wonderfully efficient and charming Hayden, who had arranged my whole trip.

Hayden quickly got me moved to another hotel in the Amex programme, the Mandarin Oriental, and I packed up and moved out of the Bellagio – although not before I had used the $100 voucher for lunch that came with the Bellagio package.

That was a lot of food for one in the Olives restaurant, I can tell you (all of these deals are for two people), and with oysters, steak and cheese, I still only managed to spend around $60.

If I wasn’t yet looking like Elvis, my innards were a getting a pretty good idea of what it might be like to feel like him.

Love Me Tender? Not until I’ve spent an hour in the rest room.

Ashes to Ashes 3/19/2010

2010-04-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

My brother and his girlfriend, both teachers, are stranded in Beverly Hills.

Originally due to fly back to the UK last Thursday, they now find themselves, along with thousands of others, unable to take to the ash-laden skies because of the volcano in Iceland.

They are booked to fly again this Thursday, but with another ash cloud apparently heading towards southern Britain, even that journey is under threat.

They acknowledge that there are worse places to be stuck, and Air New Zealand, together with the exceptionally kind and efficient people who operate the concierge service that goes with my Centurion Black Amex (oh, how I am glad I decided to go for it), have kept their stress levels to a minimum.

I have friends currently in transit with BA in similar positions, but they have not been so lucky. Their travel insurance does not cover them for an “act of God”, and they have basically been shown a hotel room, which they have to pay for, and left to fend for themselves (BA – Bugger All, in other words).

I can’t see the airline ever recovering the kudos it once had; in response to the horror stories I have catalogued in this blog and in newspapers, so far only one person has contacted me with something positive to say about them.

I have also suggested that trapped passengers vent their annoyance by doing what Billy Connolly’s advocate character Steve Myers did in the 2001 Australian movie, The Man Who Sued God.

When his insurance firm won’t pay up after his fishing boat is destroyed by a so-called “act of God”, Myers files a claim against God, naming church officials as representatives of God, and thereby the respondents.

If they admit the destruction of the boat was an Act of God, they have to compensate Myers; if they deny it, they will be denying God’s existence. It’s a story that would run and run in the courts.

There have been more positive stories from people dealing with Air New Zealand and Virgin, my two favourite carriers. Thierry, who manages the Air New Zealand executive lounge at Los Angeles airport, could not have been more helpful, keeping us up to date with daily reports. Air New Zealand’s cabin crew are just as impressive onboard, as are Virgin’s: cheerful, always helpful staff, who get paid a fraction of BA employees’ wages and receive none of the perks.

I know that the issues between management and staff at BA are more complex than most passengers really know, but who, in their right mind, would risk flying anywhere with them now. A pair of home-made wings would be more reliable.

But back to my brother and his girlfriend. They have enjoyed doing all the touristy things that LA has to offer.

They went to San Diego to watch Shamu, the whale from Free Willy, leap about in the water (it’s something of an irony that the film about freeing the poor devil now sees him incarcerated in Seaworld, splashing kids – still, at least he’s nowhere near a volcano).

They’ve been to Hollywood and Universal Studios, three of the surrounding beaches, and numerous bars and restaurants.

They’ve met friends and lunatics, experienced the faultless Beverly Hills service, and barbecued on the roof terrace of my apartment block.

They’ve mingled with celebrities, sat in the audience at American Idol, visited Simon Cowell in his trailer, and have learned a great deal about Ukrainian history in conversation with taxi drivers.

They also heard, by means of an introduction at a private party, four words that I never expected to hear in the same sentence: “Jaci Stephen, Gore Vidal.”

By now, they would have been back in Clacton where they live and work. They are both concerned about missing the start of term and their pupils’ forthcoming exams, but still, there really are worse places to be trapped than Beverly Hills (even if my brother is pining for a pint of real ale in his local).

It’s the launch of Brit Week tomorrow night, which is rather apt, given how many Brits are trapped here. The annual festival celebrates British contributions to LA, and it goes on for about three weeks (a very loose interpretation of “week”, therefore). The number of Brits establishing themselves here also seems to be growing – actors, presenters, agents – and despite everyone telling me that the allure of La La Land would quickly wear off, it hasn’t yet.

True, it doesn’t have the cultural range of London or New York, but there is an incredible, positive energy that is generated by its being an industry-focused place, in which everyone feels that anything is possible.

Who cares if some of that self-belief is delusional; people are willing to get up, get out, and have a go.

And if that ash cloud moves any further south, expect to see my brother and his girlfriend marking registers in Beverly Hills High in the autumn term.

To Pad Or Not To Pad, That Is The Question 4/12/10

2010-04-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

Now, I know it for sure, and I can stop practising writing my surname as “Cowell”.

Despite the fact that becoming the first Mrs Cowell would have solved all my financial problems, plus those of every living relative and a couple of dozen friends to boot, I know that it is over. The dream.

Because I have, quite simply, seen That Ring. Yes, it’s for real. Having been invited onto the set of American Idol this week, I can confirm that there really is a future Mrs Cowell waiting in the wings.

I know, because I have seen the diamond evidence, and it is very firmly on the hand of the beautiful, very slim and very charming Mezhgan Hussainy. My mission to get Simon interested in short Welsh birds has ended in failure.

Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. Fifteen years, to be precise.

Now, let’s get back to That Ring. The stone alone is bigger than my en suite bathroom. I could park my car on it and there would still be room for a small music festival. Having recently lost the diamond tennis bracelet I worked 30 years to be able to afford, I was a breath away from grabbing the nearest knife and taking Mezhgan’s finger home in my bag; but I resisted.

Good luck to them both, although I will be the one singing It Should Have Been Me at the reception.

I was at the show because my brother and his girlfriend were visiting and, as my first house guests here, I wanted to show them as good a time as possible. They were thrilled to be invited into Simon’s trailer (if That Ring is the size of my bathroom, the trailer is my entire house), and the show was terrific.

I saw more of LA during my guests’ visit than I have managed in the past year. Normally, I have to be excavated out of the Golden Triangle of Beverly Hills, but my brother was keen to explore.

One friend drove us all to Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, and then up into the hills of Palos Verdes. I took them to Soho House LA, Santa Monica, Hollywood Boulevard – all on the bus. They set off for San Diego and Seaworld on their own; enjoyable and cost-efficient as I find the buses, the idea of sitting in one for six hours in a day is about as appealing to me as a day trip to Guantanemo Bay.

One highlight of their trip was getting to see the iPad in advance of its UK launch.

To Pad or not to Pad – for those of us in love with all Apple products, it’s the question that has been occupying us for some weeks. When I spot an iPad across a crowded dining room, I approach with stealth, like David Attenborough coming upon a new and rare species, hoping to get just the merest glimpse before the owner snatches it meanly away.

Stephen Fry has written a wonderful piece about the iPad in the current issue of Time magazine, and after bumping into him in LA, I learned more about the product than I had from the hopeless assistant in Fashion Island’s store in Newport Beach (“It’s like a big iPhone,” he said – and that was it).

Stephen posted the opening of his iPad on You Tube, and his “Oooh” as the final layer of wrapping falls, is as glorious as the squeals of a four year old, finally winning Pass the Parcel at a birthday party, after a week of bullying at school. It’s a lovely “Suits you, sir!” moment, and Apple should use it in their advertising.

Stephen reckons that we relate to Apple’s products as we do to animals or humans, and I’m totally with him on that; it explains the Apple cemetery that I have in my attic, as I am unable to throw away even completely clapped out computers and phones.

But I’m still torn, in a way that I wasn’t when trying to decide whether to go to Seaworld, but I know that I will weaken. I’ve now spotted three iPads in LA, and they are undoubtedly jewels that single out the men from the boys in town (I have yet to see a woman with one, so that may end up being reason enough to indulge).

I am not a big shopper normally, but Apple draws me in with an alacrity that Versace or Armani never quite manage.

I don’t need the iPad; I’m not sure that I think it will offer any more than my MacBook Air currently does.

Oh, but how I want one. Nothing says more about your Hollywood status at the moment than wandering into a restaurant or bar and opening up your new best friend. Forget the boob job and tummy tuck, girls; it’s the iPad that has the real pulling power. I’m going to call mine Simon.

Death Wish In Soho House 4/6/10

2010-04-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

My visiting friends had been warned. It was Earthquake Preparedness Month.

They asked me about the posters and, now that I’ve been here a year, I was able to tell them exactly what the heralding of the great event entailed.

Having learned from my experience during my first earthquake last May, this time round I had heeded the advice of the Pioneer hardware shop that first put my preparedness kit together and gave me advice.

I sleep with money and a torch by the side of my bed, and a lot of bottled water in the apartment. I know to run to a door-frame or under my dining table when disaster strikes.

My friends were impressed.

Or would have been, had we not been 14 floors up in Soho House’s new members only club, when Mexico’s 7.2 earthquake struck on Sunday afternoon.

The new Soho House venue is spectacular, as all of Nick Jones’s ventures are. When I briefly returned to the UK a couple of weeks ago, I stayed at the London Club’s new hotel in Dean Street, where the pillows are so spectacular, you need crampons and a compass just to make it into bed.

If I had picked up anyone en route, I wouldn’t have known, as I wouldn’t have been able to find them among the Himalayan linen.

Soho House LA is a mixture of modernity and old Hollywood, and has quickly become everyone’s favourite place. I have been a member of the London Club since day one; I had my 40th birthday party there, and I adore the new place even more. So, with 360 degree views over the city, and the best roast dinner I have had in years, I was quite content when the light fittings started to shake.

Shortly followed by the room.

It was only when I saw the fish clinging with their gills for dear life in the restaurant’s lake that I really started to panic.

The whole scene appeared to pause in freeze-frame. I hadn’t ordered flying fish for dessert, but one looked suspiciously close to landing on my plate.

These were the people I was going to die with.

I thought that the man on the next table, who had brought his brand new Apple iPad to lunch, would never get to use it (although it would be the first thing I was going to steal when the walls started to crumble). Gone.

We would never again see the beautiful Ally, who had welcomed us, or the immaculately turned out Phil, who had served us (I want to employ whoever does the Club’s laundry to do mine). Gone.

The cocktail glasses, apparently modelled on Marie Antoinette’s breasts, would be nothing but shards among the rubble. Gone.

OH, YEGODS! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

The eerie silence lasted for about a minute, but felt like ten. Then, when the shaking stopped, and we realised that the earth had moved but not caved in, a strange thing happened. People started to chat to complete strangers, almost deliriously, relieved that we were all okay.

Or, I wondered, maybe we were not, and we had already gone to the afterlife. I wouldn’t have minded, to be honest. With its open roof, imported olive trees that canopy the restaurant, and great food, if Soho House was Sixth Sense II, I wasn’t going to be complaining.

There were worse places I could have died. Rite-Aid, for a start. I wouldn’t want them to find me among the hundreds of products in the Feminine Hygiene aisle that have so fascinated me since I came here (by the way, the TV commercials say that Refresh beats the others hands down, ladies, and I concur).

Or I could have been in Sports Club LA, where they would have found me like an inflated lobster as I tried to keep up with Victoria Beckham on the next treadmill.

Or in Century City’s AMC cinema, with the Buffalo Burger and fries down my front.

Yes, there were definitely worse places to die than Soho House.

We quickly learned that the earthquake had registered as 6.9; then it was up to 7.2. Our new best friends thought that for dramatic purpose, we would tell everyone back in Britain that it was 11.3.

We also learned that the building that houses the Club is on wheels, which apparently make it earthquake-proof. This worried me even more, as I had visions of us free-waying our way down the Hollywood Hills into unsuspecting Big Mac diners, who had not been so fortunate as to have just enjoyed the dining experience that we had.

The whole event has made me reassess my plans for Earthquake Preparedness Month. If you’re five miles away, what use is a torch sitting in the drawer of your bedside cabinet?

Now, I am going to carry my EPM kit around with me, and it will consist of just two things: my Soho House membership card and a corkscrew.

Because, at the first hint of another rumble on the news, I’m going to be out of my place quicker than Marie Antoinette’s breasts in her boudoir, and over to Soho House.

And when the fish start to fly, I just want to be drunk as a skunk before they find me among the rubble, with a goldfish up my nose.

A Sherpa Is Not Just For Everest, He's For Life 4/6/10

2010-04-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Finally, I know the kind of man I want.

A Sherpa.

He doesn’t have to talk to me or sleep with me; in fact, I am happy to walk three steps behind him – just so long as he is carrying my bags.

After deciding not to take the multiple amounts of medication given to me by doctors for my bad back, I spoke to an osteopath, who put the problem down to the immense bag carrying I have been doing on my Transatlantic travels – usually two cases that come up to my elbows, a back-pack, camera-case and equipment, and a handbag as big as a moose.

One of the cases is generally stuffed with dozens of books, and on one trip, before my back went, I managed to re-locate my entire collection of Italian, Spanish and French language learning sections of my new US home library, back to the UK.

Quite why I thought I was going to learn three languages on my ten-day break is a mystery.

If I had a Sherpa, he could also carry back and forth the Russian language learning section, which I bought when I recently decided to read Tolstoy in the original, too (I got as far as “Zavoot Jaci”, plus one obscene word, which is apparently the same in Polish).

Each decade brings about a big difference in the kind of man a girl wants, and travel has a lot to do with it. Between the ages of one and ten, she looks for The Protector, who will walk her to school and carry her satchel.

Eleven to 20: Protector turned Welcome Predator, who will start by carrying her satchel, but only with the aim of whipping her off to a quiet secluded spot when he acquires his driving licence at 17.

From 21 to 30, it’s The Wooer, who whisks her off to Paris and makes her cry (or was that just me?).

Thirty to 40, she wants The Provider: someone with a job, security and a bit of money, who will pay for a second home abroad.

If she’s still on her own at this time, or has dumped, or been dumped by, any of the ones she has acquired from the previous decade, from 40 to 50 she will simply start looking for The Available.

And if she hasn’t pulled post 50, all she wants is The Sherpa. Trust me: I’m there.

I have done more travelling since hitting 50 than I managed in the previous five decades, and having spent 25 years swearing I would never cross the Atlantic again, after visits in New York and LA in my twenties, now I can’t wait for the 11 hour journey, during which my mobile won’t ring, I can watch a couple of films, read a book, enjoy a decent meal and generally live a very comfortable life – albeit a mini-one.

And whether I travel with Air New Zealand or Virgin (forget BA; I’ll probably be able to buy a plane with my unused BA points, the way things are going), I know that I can rely on both to get me to my destination on time a darn sight more than I can rely on the First Great Western Railway to do the same between Paddington and Cardiff, when I hit the UK.

But the bags. The bags. Oh, how I need a bloke to help me with the bags. It’s the only thing missing now. At this age, I’m really easy maintenance otherwise.

Although my sexual desire has increased a hundredfold, post menopause, I’m really EPCM (Easy Post-Coital Management). Forget all that after-sex cuddling and kissing (and, heaven forbid for men, talking), that I wanted years ago, now I want him out by midnight so that I can watch the back to back CSI episodes from what feels like a hundred US cities.

Actually, I don’t even want him to hang around that long, and now I think I think that if I meet any halfway decent men, I’m going to have to establish some sort of shift system for my new lifestyle.

As I’m generally working by about 5.30am (and up at four, if I need to catch people in the UK before lunchtime), early mornings are out. Then, when I’ve managed a few hours work, it’s over to the gym and back at the apartment to watch Judge Alex over lunch.

It’s work again in the afternoon (there are so many more hours in the day over there – weird!), until two episodes of Two and a Half Men at seven; major dramas nine till 11, then late-night Chelsea Handler and Letterman, before CSI starts all over again.

So, basically, any man I meet has a brief window of opportunity between eight and 9pm – without food, and he’d better be quick about whatever it is he wants to do. Actually, on past experience, I’m now thinking that even an hour may be too long.

Like I said. Easy maintenance.

When I was back in the UK last week, nearly everyone asked me: “Have you got a man in LA?” I found it faintly irritating. It was never my top priority anyway, and it’s certainly not what I came here for. It’s not even on my radar.

And unless James Spader, David Letterman and Judge Alex are going to come up with an idea for how a foursome might work between us, that is unlikely to change.

But I’ll make an exception for a Sherpa.

My only worry is whether there will be time between the specified minutes for him to pack the travelling homes that have become my luggage.

The Better Half Of Two And A Half Men 3/29/10

2010-03-29T05:53:00.001-07:00

It’s been hard for me to reconcile what appear to be Charlie Sheen’s auditions for The Shining II in real life, with the truly extraordinary actor.

I watched him in Wall Street again the other day, and it is a performance of incredible range and talent for such a young man.

Every night, I watch double episodes of the sitcom Two and A Half Men, whether I am in the UK or the US; I can pretty much recite them all by heart now, but Sheen still makes me laugh out loud every time, just as the brilliant Jon Cryer (who won an Emmy as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series this year – so, so deserved) makes me both laugh and cry, as his character lurks often pitifully in his seemingly more successful brother’s shadow.

The character Charlie (played by Sheen) is the drinking, fun-loving, sex-craved one; Alan (Cryer – his character often lives up to the actor’s surname), the divorced one, has been living in Charlie's Malibu beachside home since his marriage broke up, and appears to have very little going for him.

He has virtually no luck with women, gets a hangover if he so much as breathes the same air as a Budweiser, and has the greater moral conscience.

But he is much nicer to his mother than Charlie is, and tries to keep his own food-obsessed son Jake on the straight and narrow, as the boy is passed from mother to father and back again, with several pizzas and buckets of fries acting as the middle men.

But why, in many US comedy shows, are there so many women have absolutely no, or certainly very well hidden, redeeming qualities? Lilith (Cheers, Frasier); Ros and the unseen Maris (Frasier); housekeeper Berta (Conchata Perrell), Alan’s ex-wife Judith (Marin Hinkle), and the brothers’ mother Evelyn (Holland Taylor) in Two and a Half Men?

True, many of Charlie’s women have some nice qualities, but these fly-by-nights are generally out of the door quicker than Charlie can say . . . Well: “Don’t slam the door on your way out.” Fiancée Chelsea was a very rare exception; it is the three monstrous women who dominate the female part of the show.

In the UK, it is generally the females of sitcoms who set the moral barometer; they are the ones to whom the other generally hopeless characters (usually men) turn to, in order to find clues as to how they could, or should, be running their lives.

In the US, you wouldn’t look to any of the above-named women for directions to the bathroom, let alone your life path; you know they would only point you to the cellar, lock you in and throw away the key.

So who sets the moral barometer in Two and A Half Men?

It’s Alan’s son, Jake, played by Angus T. Jones, who was just a month off his 10th birthday when CBS first aired the show in September 2003 – and it is this character who ultimately defines the show as the most moral comedy on television.

That’s right: Two and A Half Men is the most moral comedy show on US television. And that is the real key to its enormous success as a family comedy.

It has the most promiscuous sex, the most heartless and cruel women, the rudest (though most daring and riotous) jokes, and yet, at its heart, a very moral tale: two grown men, seemingly at odds, little realising that what binds them is not only their relation to each other by blood, but the thing for which they are both searching, albeit in very different ways. Namely: how do you find the right person to love?

It's a primal journey, common to most people, of both sexes, the world over. It's just that Charlie gets his end away more often en route - as it were.

But Jake is the touchstone to which they both keep returning. Jake's curious questioning of life and sexuality is governed by Charlie; the importance of having a conscience is monitored by Alan.

But in both men essentially (and in Charlie's case, unconsciously) competing for control of the youngster, the men constantly have to reassesss their behaviour and lifetyle while in his presence: the young spectre at the grown-ups' feast.

In reality, Jake is saner than both his father and uncle (and certainly saner than his mother). He is the calm voice of reason, questioning both men’s behaviour, as he grows up surrounded by people who don’t know how to love because they were not, quite simply, loved by their mother.

Jake is loved by everyone, which automatically gives him the moral high ground. His security in being wanted by mother, father and, jokingly reluctantly, by Uncle Charlie, enables him to look with bemusement and wonder at the people denied what has always been given to him freely and unconditionally.

He’s a young child of divorced parents (which helps); he has crushes – on girls and older women; he loves telly; and we’ve seen him grow from pre-pubescent into handsome, funny and smart young man – without his incurring, or our ever having had to see, all the problems that this transformation usually entails in real life.

Oh, yes; and he’s always been very cute – and Jones is a damned fine young actor, as both the pre- and post-pubescent Jake glaringly reveal.

After Sheen’s recent spell in rehab, recordings for the new series were put on hold, but filming resumed two weeks ago.

I really can’t wait for it to come around again. My guess would be that it will now be Jake who starts competing with his Uncle Charlie for the same girls, which will bring Charlie’s insecurities to the fore.

That’s Charlie the character, not Charlie from The Shining II, by the way.

I’m not suggesting you swop your Bible for DVDs just yet, but there are a lot of moral lessons to be learned in Two and A Half Men, where love really does conquer all.

Even if it is often Jake’s love for whatever he’s thinking about putting in his belly next.

Ready For My Handcuffs, Judge Alex 3/25/10

2010-03-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

Judge Alex Ferrer.

He keeps me awake at night.

Seriously, I think I am in love. I know he wears a wedding ring, but I figure that with all the TV commercials asking people to pack up their gold in brown envelopes and send it to places like “We at the mail office steal your gold marked GOLD ENCLOSED”, he might be tempted to ditch it.

Then he would be free. For me. For all I know, he is married to a stunner, but then so was Tiger Woods, and that didn’t stop him trying to land a few more holes.

I confess to being addicted to the US celebrity judge programmes. In the UK, it started with Judge Judy, who hasn’t changed her hairstyle in a decade, and is terrifying in a head teacher kind of way.

I don’t want to sleep with her, which helps me concentrate on the legal aspects of the programmes, and I now feel that I could sit as a High Court judge in the US courts and act just as efficiently as she does.

I can’t help noticing, though, that the people in her courtroom are fatter than the ones on any other, and that if Judge Judy just sent them all off to Weight Watchers for a couple of weeks, they might drop a few pounds and resolve their differences more calmly.

I like People’s Court, with Judge Milian, who is, like Judge Judy, seemingly right about everything, but I just want to know who her dentist is. She really does have the best teeth of any of the judges, and she also has Harvey Levin, who stands outside the courtroom, chatting to locals about what they think should happen inside.

Poor Harvey. I specially feel for him on days when it is raining and no one gives him an umbrella. The general opinion of the hapless bunch that surrounds him is “String ‘em up”, irrespective of the crime, and when Harvey says “Goin’ back inside the courtroom,” there is more than a hint of “Thank the Lord for that, get me away from these lunatics asap” about him. He is the Ryan Seacrest of the legal world, always central to the action, but always a Cowell away from true glory.

But back to my beautiful Alex, ex-Florida Court circuit judge (the only time I have ever been tempted by the idea of enrolling for "circuit training", to be honest), who I would happily disrobe in less time than it would take you to say “Guilty m’lud.” He is clever, funny, he loves the narrative of the absurd stories that unfold before him, and he always manages to get to the sexual nitty-gritty in which the other judges show relatively little interest.

So, let’s say you stole a vase from your ex-boyfriend’s mother’s house. Within seconds, Judge Alex would have managed to extract from you exactly how many times mom and pop had had sex before they bought the vase (and in which positions), where said vase was on the dresser the last time they had sex before it was stolen, and even whether the vase was used for any improper purposes before it took up residence in the new (illegal) home.

If I were to choose anyone to sit down and watch a porn movie with, it would be Judge Alex. Fully robed. Briefly. Then I would want him to handcuff me, put me behind bars and make me beg on all fours . . . Well, you get the picture. And if you don't, apparently it's illegal for me to text it to you.

A man is never more sexy than when he is at work; and a clever, witty man, who holds power, and who is articulate, who stands on the moral high ground, yet with just a hint of smut on his shoe, is always going to top my list.

Forget Judge Judy, I am saving up my Air Miles just to steal a vase in Miami, purely so that I can be on the receiving ends of one of Judge Alex's admonishments. I’m not looking for life imprisonment, just a slap on the . . . Well, you get my drift.

We don’t have cameras in courts in the UK, and it is yet another reason I love being in the US. Judge Alex is my lunch hour, and as I can barely eat with excitement when watching him at work, he is proving very good for my weight loss, too.

I’m keeping an eye on that third finger, left hand, just in case he becomes available. But while that gold stays in place, lock up your valuables; I am a woman on a mission.

The only flaw to my reasoning will be when I end up in Judge Judy’s courtroom, after Judge Alex takes out a restraining order on me.

This week, however, I have been facing a dilemma as to what I do about my future: Judge Alex Ferrer every lunchtime, all-day marathons of Law and Order, and, at night, the hilarious and sassy Chelsea Handler on the telly.

Sunrise and sunset over LA, beside the pool of my Beverly Hills apartment’s huge rooftop terrace. The staff at my favourite local restaurant, Il Pastaio, and most-loved hotel, the Beverly Wilshire.

The almost endless sunshine. Martinique tea at the American Tea Room. The Container Store at Century City. The endless floor to floor joy of Bed, Bath and Beyond – best store and service of any in the world.

And Judge Alex. Every day. Yes, I know. I mentioned him. But oh, Judge Alex. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Smart. Hilarious. Way and above the best and most compelling of all the TV judges - and happily married with kids, alas, but hey ho, a girl can dream.

And will. Ex-cop, attorney, and now in robes. Uniform, authority, handcuffs. Call me old-fashioned, but 6,000 miles away from home, a daily dose of the awe-inspiring judge on TV more than makes up for several decades’ worth of British guys offering you half a Stella before throwing up their previous 18 over your new dress.

Every time I come back to the UK, I add to the list of what I miss about LA. Unfortunately, each time I return, it is usually for a funeral or memorial service, and although I haven’t been left anything in anyone’s will, some of my dear departed friends are doubtless laughing in their graves at the number of Air Miles I am acquiring on their behalf, even if those miles might land me in jail (bad) or handcuffs (less bad).

It’s been a strange week. I missed so much about LA, I put my UK house on the market and thought I would make LA my main base. Then I thought about my wonderful mum and brother, the friends I have spent decades making, and took it off again.

As I was brought back in a wheelchair, after the back problem I wrote about last week, it’s been a week of reflection. In the UK, I was told that the drugs I had been given in the US were drugs given to kidney transplant patients (at the last count, I still had two – of my own). My doctor substituted the five lots of medication for a stint of something else, but I am reluctant to be on medication for that long.

Apologies for sounding melodramatic (you can take the girl out of LA . . . ), but is it a metaphorical weight I am carrying, as well as the very real one? One night, I found myself on the driveway of my Cardiff home, crying as I tried to sort the bin bags, because they hadn’t been taken the previous week (wrong colour, wrong plastic, wrong handle position – you know what a bloody nightmare putting out your bins in the UK is these days) and wondering: Where do I really want to be?

I went to Los Angeles to change my working life, and the man who became my friend and mentor, Blake Snyder, died. I love more and more about the city, and back in Cardiff, I have no real social life.

As an older single woman, never married, never co-habited, not a lesbian, I don’t get asked anywhere. In LA, I meet gay, straight, couples, singles, all the time, all from different professions, every day.

Age never feels an issue; moving on in my professional life feels like a real possibility and very unlike what seems to be the position in the UK, where everyone appears to be running very hard – just to stand still.

Is this a woman thing? An everyday thing? A worldwide recession thing? I just know that having been in America rather than Europe for the first time in my life, I am re-assessing everything, in ways I never believed possible.

The US is an amazing country, with a variety of people, cultures and, in LA, which is pretty much all I know, a heady, inspiring experience. I also know that it can be short-lived. But then so has everywhere I have ever lived.

I want it all - at the time. I love it all - at the time. Then I want something different. Maybe, what I have discovered, in LA, is that I was right all along: I was born a writer who thrives on change. I just may need a little more time in Judge Alex’s handcuffs to reflect on the matter.

Wheel Me Up, Scottie 3/15/10

2010-03-15T03:57:00.000-07:00

There are many things I fantasised about doing in the heady, showbiz city that is LA, but being driven around LAX airport in a wheelchair wasn’t one of them.

In fact, until this week, I had never even touched a wheelchair, much less sat in one, and my admiration increased a thousand-fold for people who have to view the world from that level and constantly be subjected to the bullying of the mobile chaos around them, not to mention being at the mercy of the pusher with delusions of Formula One.

The problem started the week before last when I woke one morning, completely unable to move. I had made a joke about falling off my Jimmy Choos in the excitement of my finally having met the actor Matthew Rhys, but it certainly hadn’t been enough to incapacitate me to the degree of pain I found myself in two days later.

It was so bad, I couldn’t even reach out to my bedside table to my phone and, living alone, there was no one I could call even to ask for a cup of tea.

This is how I was going to die, I thought. It was The End. At just 51, and having been blessed with a relatively healthy life (apart from a bout of glandular fever when I was seven, I can count my bedridden illnesses on one hand), I was now going to rot to death.

No food, no water, and, worse, no TV, because the remote was on the chest of drawers several miles away from where I was lying. If I could have passed on with CSI comforting me during my final hours, it would have been something, but dying to the accompaniment only of your own screams isn’t much fun, I can tell you.

It took me four hours to roll, inch by inch out of bed, onto the floor, and over to the kettle in the kitchen, by which time I had lost roughly three stone in the effort.

Then I remembered my black, Centurion American Express card, the all-singing, all-dancing bit of titanium I wrote about some months back, trying to decide whether it was worth paying the increased annual fee of £1800 (up from £650) for all the benefits that I could never see myself either wanting or needing - three million points for a pink Pringle sweater; etiquette evenings, where you learned how to hold a fork, that kind of thing.

D Day was imminent, and as their concierge service had still not provided me with anything that I had not been able to get myself for considerably less money, I was pretty sure I would not be renewing.

But I remembered the travel insurance, allegedly one of the most comprehensive in the world. I phoned them (another eight miles to my handbag, in which the card resided); they had AXA, their delightful, impressive insurance people on the phone within three minutes, and I was offered a house call (in the UK, I’d have to book one now if I wanted to have a doctor’s home visit in 2014). I was also told that all my travel arrangements (I was due to fly back to the UK) would be taken care of, if the worst came to the worst.

In the end, I had to take a trip to a local clinic, all paid for upfront by AXA and Medical Express. I was seen instantly, given an injection for the pain, and a couple of bottles of painkillers and muscle relaxants.

Now, the only thing I know about prescription painkillers in the US is that you die not long after taking them.

It’s the reason I was once very reluctant to have a general anaesthetic, because everyone who has one on Casualty or Holby City never wakes up. Having been reassured by the pharmacist that I was not en route to becoming the next Michael Jackson, I went home to recuperate.

And got worse.

A week later, and still rolling to the kettle, I had a proper home visit, and this time was told I would have to be treated more “aggressively”. And I mean aggressively. Methylprednisolone, Motrin, Norco, Soma, Diazepam – or, for those of you not in the know, the latter four are Ibuoprofen, Hydrocodone, Carisoprodol, Valium. Any clearer? No, me neither.

All I can tell you is that I had no pain – the reason being that I was unconscious. Out cold. I missed the whole of the first half of the Ireland/Wales rugby match on the telly, the second half of the Scotland/England game, and eventually came to in about 1971, thinking I was on the Lions tour.

The doctor insisted I be upgraded to a Business Class on my flight home, which would ensure me of a bed in which to relax, and the insurance came through with everything they had promised, including ground transportation and a wheelchair at both airports.

The wheelchair rides were more terrifying than the drugs had been. Blimey, those things can whizz along. I needed another bottle of Valium, just to get me over the trauma of the rides.

I’ll need another bottle when that Amex bill comes through, too, asking me for the £1800 annual fee.

But even with doctors’ fees and medication, I’m still not sure the titanium card has earned its full quota (I’m also not sure that the pills they provided did much more than a pint of Stella and a couple of aspirin would have done).

When the drugs finish me off (which I have no doubt they will do), maybe Amex will make up the deficit in a nice floral arrangement for my funeral. That may be their only option, as there isn’t a stonemason in the world who could find enough room on my stone for the names of those damned drugs.

But at least I can now say that I have experienced the US healthcare system, and have joined the long list of Hollywood celebrities on prescription painkillers.

It’s my biggest leap up the showbiz ladder so far.

Time To Hit The Grecian, George 3/8/10

2010-03-08T12:20:00.001-08:00

Please tell me he’s done it for a part.

Please tell me that George Clooney’s badly styled, greying locks at the Oscars, were not the result of a decision on the actor’s part to grow old gracefully.

Please tell me that it wasn’t George at all, but an aging cousin drafted in as a body double because the real George was at home with flu.

Anything. Please tell me anything other than the inconceivable truth that George Clooney has gone totally grey.

Being the only Brit in LA not to have received an invite to Elton John’s post-Oscar bash, I watched the awards on the TV at my favourite restaurant, the Grill on the Alley, in Beverly Hills.

Far from feeling left out of the party, I was grateful to have been saved the pain of seeing Katie Price turn up as the Big Purple One from the Quality Street collection. According to reports, she hadn’t been invited to Elton’s, either, but managed to blag a ticket.

In the build-up to the big day, I saw Katie’s name appear on one invitation list as “actress” which, given that her whole life is a performance, I suppose that is pretty much what she is. Arriving at LAX with an army of minders and sunglasses the size of shields, I am now convinced the woman is suffering from an acute case of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder.

Katie the “actress” hadn’t arrived by the time I left the pre-Oscars pampering night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, but real celebrities gathered on the pool terrace to sample the free massages, make-up and Moet and Chandon.

It was one of hundreds of events in a week that saw the city turn into an Oscar theme park. Previous Oscar winners were wheeled out on TV to talk about their bygone days of glory, and previous winners of Best Picture dominated the film channels. I re-watched The Godfather. Twice. And although I still haven’t summoned up the emotional energy to watch The Hurt Locker, or the time to watch Avatar, I felt that I knew them backwards as a result of the thousands of clips shown throughout the week.

I began the night in the Beverly Wilshire, which I have come to regard as my local. British PR supremo Neil Reading was there, and also Michelle Collins, looking stunning, and obviously fully recovered from her stint playing Cindy Beale in EastEnders. Any woman who survived (well, until her death) marriage to Ian deserves high praise in my book.

I love this hotel, and have done ever since Warner Brothers put me up there at a pre-Oscars bash over 20 years ago. Alex, the current manager of the Boulevard Bar and restaurant is an absolute sweetheart, brilliant at his job, and a million times better than his predecessor, who would have been more at home running Guantanemo Bay. For all I know, that’s where he’s been transferred. If he has, I know he’ll be very at home there.

The staff are the best in the business. I love the way Pepe calls me “My lady”, doubtless a translation he once picked up from a phrase book, and it has the desired effect of making every woman feel very special.

It’s a great bar if you are a woman eating or drinking alone, because you always meet people. On Sunday I hooked up with some Canadians, who were in town to watch the ice hockey. After the Olympics, Canadian ice hockey enthusiasts are very smug, following their team’s gold medal. Still, Canadians don’t have much to celebrate very often, so no one minds very much.

The hotel didn’t have the volume on, so I watched the Red Carpet (which is almost as big as the Oscars themselves) with subtitles. This made everything pretty incomprehensible, with phrases like “Globe All Odd” (global audience) confusing things somewhat.

And apparently, Sandra Bullock was the star of a film called “The Blend Side”, presumably a movie about getting to grips with your Kenwood Chef.

You could spot the Brits in the crowd because they were the only ones with yellow teeth; you could spot them even more easily later on, because they were the only ones not carrying any statuettes.

Over at the Grill, the sound was turned up for the event, and I sat through what has to be the dullest Oscars in living memory. If you thought Jonathan Ross’s script at the Baftas was leaden, the one spouted by Oscars co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin felt like treading mercury.

It’s a tough gig, but just didn’t work with two presenters and, more to the point, two presenters normally dependent on better writers than the ones who produced this tosh.

Still, it was good to be in town to savour the atmosphere, and at least George made quite a few people’s nights, by rewarding their long wait with signing autographs.
Lovely man, terrific actor.

And the Grecian 2000’s in the post, George.

Salieri vs Mozart 2/28/10

2010-02-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

Reader, I met him.

Finally, after months – no, years – of suspecting that Matthew Rhys was a hologram that would never materialise in my life, I got to meet him. And not just once, but twice.

The first time was at the King’s Head in Santa Monica on Friday, where all the Welsh gathered to watch our national side against France in the Six Nations rugby.

The second time was on Saturday, where even more Welsh were gathered in West Hollywood, to celebrate St David’s Day.

And yes, he is every bit as handsome, charming, funny and delightful as everyone had led me to believe. If I were ten years younger . . . (Oh, come on, this is the Cougar capital of the world).

I didn’t think I was going to make the party, as I fell off my shoes on Friday and have been in agony with a bad back as a result. Weird as it sounds, falling off my Jimmy Choos is something I regularly do. Unlike Victoria Beckham, who negotiates five-inch heels with seeming ease and grace, I have always been someone who, in high heels, bears a closer resemblance to the leaning tower of Pisa – a leaning tower of Pisa trying not to spill a pint of lager, to boot.

Sometime between Wales almost getting back into the game and subsequently losing, I slipped and did my back in. It was probably the excitement of meeting Matthew that sent me flying, but the result was that I spent the whole of Saturday laid up, watching wall to wall Law and Order, in the hope that I would be well enough for the party.

It was by far the best night I have had here so far. I’d been a bit emotional on Friday, as I always am when there is rugby happening in Cardiff and all my friends keep texting me to tell me what a great time they are having. But on Saturday, it was a home from home at the Palihouse Hotel.

Paul McKenna, who has lived in LA for two years, was there. Then Stephen Fry turned up, with an enormous leek in his jacket. I also met Luke Macfarlane, who plays Scotty in Brothers and Sisters, along with Dave Annable, who plays Justin. Lovely, lovely men, both incredibly funny, delightful company, and they each told me what a joy Matthew is to work with.

Many Brits are doing very well in LA, and every week it seems as if there are more of them here. But here’s the interesting thing: the ones who are doing really well can’t do enough to help their countrymen; the mediocrities can’t do enough to hold newcomers back.

I call it the Salieri Complex. Lacking the gifts they recognise all too fully in others, their lives here operate in a circus of paranoia and insecurity.

Their ears are constantly twitching for news of a meeting with X, Y or Z, that they have been trying for years to accomplish, without success; they clock up failures as “networking”, and harbour resentments at others’ successes by bad-mouthing them behind their backs. Just like at home, really – only worse.

In the working environment, it is very much a sheep and goats mentality. The real successes – Simon Cowell, Paul McKenna, Matthew Rhys, Ioan Gruffydd, Hugh Laurie, Catherine Zeta Jones (I could go on) – have nothing to prove. They have all achieved success through incredibly hard work, together with a fair degree of talent, and made their respective marks in the toughest of cities. And what they also have, that the Salieris don’t quite get, is individuality.

Nothing succeeds here more than being different. We Brits are instantly attractive because of our accents – they really, really love our accents and think we are all related to the Queen; we also have a quick-wittedness that the Americans really do understand (forget what they say about them not understanding irony – it simply isn’t true), but can’t quite match in terms of speed.

For every funny thing you say, you have to allow for a two second delay while the Americans wait for the dime to drop. Then, they stare in open-mouthed wonder at the brilliance of your delivery and proceed to tell all their friends that you are the funniest person in the world.

And then there is that something that just sets one person apart - the X Factor. You've either got it or you haven't. Mozart. Salieri.

The influx of Brits has been huge the past few weeks, as we are in the middle of “pilot season” here, and actors come looking for that one big series that might make their name.

But for every Matthew or Hugh, there are dozens of non-starters, and most will return to the UK with more of the shattered dreams that are so much part of the backdrop in this extraordinary, bizarre place.

The Mozarts will rise to the top; they always do. They have the talent, but also the drive, enthusiasm, passion and positivity.

The Salieris might reckon it is all down to luck; but as Samuel Goldwyn said: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

The Salieris of this world would do well to remember that.

And The Award For Bullshit Goes to . . . 2/23/10

2010-02-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

Before I visited LA in November 2008 and subsequently moved here in April last year, I had visited the city just once, over 20 years ago.

A national newspaper, which subsequently went bust (not, I hasten to add, as a result of my expenses), sent me there to cover a pre-Oscars party, and I was more excited than I had ever been about covering any other story in my early career.

Certainly a great deal more excited than when the London Evening Standard dispatched me to Hampstead to dress up for a human chess game and made a little girl cry when she was made to hand over her pawn outfit to me.

And certainly more excited than when I had my hair bleached white blonde and ended up looking like Myra Hindley’s less attractive sister.

I said yes to everything in those days. New to London and living off chicken drumsticks stolen from functions I gate-crashed and smuggled into my handbag, I was desperate for work.

I once sobbed to my dear friend, the late Keith Waterhouse, that I really didn’t want to do some godawful piece I had been commissioned to write about dogs.

“How much are they paying you?” he asked. “£200,” I wailed.

He whipped out his cheque book: “Then I will pay you £200 NOT to write the article!”
The uncashed cheque still sits in my drawer, a salutary reminder not to say yes to things you hate.

The newspaper put me up in Burbank’s Holiday Inn, a hotel without a hairdryer and miles from Hollywood, where the party was to take place.

When Warner Brothers heard that a member of the press was being treated in this way, they moved me to a suite at the five-star Beverly Wilshire at the bottom of Rodeo Drive, and there I stayed for four days, a reluctant evictee every afternoon at 4pm, when management begged me to let the cleaners in.

I did some interviews from the red carpet, including one with Joel Grey, who in 1972 had won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the Emcee in Cabaret.

At the do itself, I sat next to Tom Hulce, who had played Mozart in the Oscar-winning Amadeus, but in 1985 lost out in the Best Actor category to F. Murray Abraham, who played the musician’s rival, Salieri.

I was new to London, new to Fleet Street, new to Hollywood, and I loved it.

As the city prepares for the 82nd Academy Awards on March 7th, I am reminded more than ever of the industry that is the heart of this place.

Will it be Sandra Bullock or Meryl Street for Best Actress? Will Katherine Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker triumph over ex-husband James Cameron’s Avatar, and will Bigelow become the first woman ever to win Best Director? Will co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin pull it off? What will everyone be wearing?

At the moment, there is talk of little else, and at the pre-Oscars nominees’ lunch at the Beverly Hilton last week, everyone put on a smiling face while clearly spitting blood about their rivals.

The Bullock/Streep rivalry is barely out of the news, with Bullock joking about tripping up her rival if she beats her to the podium. Streep is maintaining a dignified silence.

Bullock did not reveal what she will be wearing on the big night, unlike Victoria Beckham who, we have learned, will be wearing a sophisticated flowing gown of her own creation. Our own Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden will also be there, reporting from the red carpet.

So far, I have just one invitation to a pre-Oscars party. It’s from my old friends, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, who on Wednesday are holding a poolside event of “treatments, consultations and amazing gifts” from their own spa and associated companies, “to get you ready for the red carpet”.

Naturally, I will be there, among the Moet and Chandon and Sprinkles Cupcakes that the invitation has promised, and although I am not going to the actual ceremony, I already feel part of what is undoubtedly Hollywood’s biggest event of the year.

It’s hard not to be caught up in it, but in the big build-up it’s also easy to forget what I have so far learned about the movie industry in my brief time here.

It’s tough. Incredibly tough. For actors, producers, directors, writers. Especially writers. It’s cut-throat. Ruthless. It’s an industry in which bullshit invariably triumphs over talent.

The movie-making process is a long and laborious one, a money-making machine that chews people up, spits them out, and moves onto the next course without so much as a backward, guilty glance.

But it’s still Hollywood.

And hey, as bullshit goes, it’s still the best bullshit in the world.

The Only White One On The Bus 2/20/10

2010-02-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

There has never been a moment in my life when I thought that “the only white person on the bus” would be a sentence in my repertoire.

But returning from Santa Monica late on Friday night, I really was the only white person on the bus.

Blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, Japanese, and a few aliens that looked as if they had been out on day release – I felt as if I was travelling on the United Nations tour bus.

Yes, I have still resisted getting a car, not least because the buses here are incredibly cheap, efficient, and run all night.

The real price you pay is that you sometimes feel as if you have inadvertently wandered onto the set of Fraggle Rock, albeit a Fraggle Rock in which, my nervous friends with cars inform me, half the residents are probably armed.

Take Friday. I was off to the coast to meet a friend in the bar at the top of the Huntley Hotel and got on a number 4 bus that goes from outside the Hilton Hotel near my apartment.

You have to choose who you sit next to very carefully on these buses, especially when going to Santa Monica, which is a place that attracts people stuck in 1963.

By “stuck”, I mean that they have failed to relinquish their hippy lifestyle, still seem stoned out of their minds, and can’t remember what a bar of soap looks like.

I chose to sit next to a lady at the front, who appeared to be travelling with the contents of her house, complete with cat. She was the best option. The seat was also the furthest I could get from the screaming woman further up the aisle.

Accompanied by two children, she was in the middle of informing the entire bus that the boy and girl were twins, the girl was autistic, the government were doing nothing to help her, she didn’t take drugs, she didn’t drink, her husband had walked out because he couldn’t handle a special needs child, and she had been forced to get off the previous bus because people were being mean to her. You don't say.

It was way more information than I needed. It was certainly way more information than the poor woman whose ear the mother was bending needed. She indicated that she couldn’t understand a word, at which Mom launched into the same version of events, but in Spanish.

“Get away from her, she’ll freak!” she then yelled at the boy. Next: “AAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!”

We quickly learned that he had smacked his sister. “You’re lucky I didn’t smack you right back,” said Mom. “I don’t know how many mommies wouldn’t smack you right back. I can’t be proud of you today.”

I learned from the lady with the travelling house, whose name turned out to be Mercy (which, ironically, I had been praying for), that Mom had, in fact, been beating the hell out of her kids before I got on. Now that the boy was screaming at a pitch even above Mom’s own shouting, she adopted a new strategy: “Shut yer goddam mouth!” she bellowed. He yelled some more.

Dad has the kids just once a week, and, we learned, had left them because he “couldn’t step up to the plate” to deal with his daughter’s disability. Call me psychic, but my guess would be that Dad left because he couldn’t deal with Mom.

The need to share every aspect of your personal life is quite common here, and especially so on the buses. I suspect that the real reason everyone gets a car isn’t because they need one to get around, but because it is the only guaranteed means of avoiding the all too colourful locals.

Mercy turned out to live up to her name, and kept me calm as the rather terrifying hysteria mounted mid-bus. “D’you have grandkids?” asked Mom, selecting a new target a bit too close for comfort, when target one got off, clearly having reached breaking point.

When Mom gathered up the troops to get off at her stop, she struggled with the leash to which her kids were attached, as the daughter fell to the ground. Passengers held their breath as she whacked the pair like a pair of shuttlecocks towards the exit.

“Try talking to them, rather than at them,” suggested Mercy, calling after the trio.

Oh, dear God. Mercy. Mom turned around with a look that couldn’t so much kill as assassinate.

“D’you have special needs kids?” she fumed. Oh no, we’re all going to die. She didn’t mean it. Please, please don’t shoot.

My nerves managed to calm themselves throughout a very pleasant evening at the Huntley’s penthouse bar, which has the most spectacular views over the city; but after my earlier experience, I was a bit apprehensive about the journey home.

In the end, it was an event-free trip back to the safety of Beverly Hills.

Even being the only white person on the bus, I felt a damned sight less conspicuous than I had starring in Honey, I Killed the Kids.

Friends, Romans, Countrywelshmen 2/15/10

2010-02-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

Does Matthew Rhys actually exist?

It’s the question I’ve been asking for almost a year now, as I continue to chase the shadow of the Welsh actor who has made it big in Hollywood.

Matthew is one of the stars of my favourite TV show, Brothers and Sisters, in which he plays gay lawyer, Kevin Walker.

Good looking, charismatic, and an actor of extraordinary range and depth, he also manages one of the most convincing American accents of any non-American actor on the screen.

Despite my living in what most would regard as the acting capital of the world, Matthew remains one of the few actors I have a burning desire to meet. Matthew, you see, in addition to being a great talent, is (in case you haven’t worked it out) Welsh.

I was told when I came here that there were dozens of Welsh people in LA. I have yet to meet one. At a Brits in LA lunch, I met a Scot, loads of English, a couple of Australians and Americans, but none of my kinsfolk.

Downtown, there is a Welsh church, they tell me, but when the words downtown and church appear in one sentence, I am guaranteed to run for cover.

But I still want to meet my compatriots. The Welsh are very tribal, and wherever we go in the world, we try to hunt down our own kind. I like the self-deprecating humour, the easy conversation, the warmth in the comradeship.

They aren’t characteristics common to all Welsh people, of course, but they are noticeable enough to call them national traits.

So when I return home to Cardiff, I am questioned not about Hollywood celebrities born and bred in the US, but about the Welsh “community” my friends imagine lurks somewhere beneath the Hollywood sign.

“Have you bumped in Catherine?” they ask. “Have you seen Ioan’s house?” “Have you been to Andrew’s for Sunday roast?”

That’s Catherine Zeta Jones, Ioan Gruffydd and Andrew Howard, for those of you not quite up on modern Welsh thespianism.

But most of all they say: “How’s Matthew?”

I wish I could tell them. I wish I could say: “Well, I was only saying to Matthew, when we worked out . . . “ Or: “Matthew mixes a mean Martini”. To be honest, I’d be happy enough being able to say: “I saw Matthew waving to me from afar”, but I can’t, because, quite simply, I haven’t had so much as a sniff of his whereabouts.

When I returned home at Christmas, I explained my dilemma to some friends in Boomerang Television. “Oh, he was filming with us,” they said. “We know his sister. We’ll get you an introduction.” They didn’t.

“Ah, you want to go to The Plough in Whitchurch on Christmas Eve; he’s always there,” said a radio producer.

Ha! This was more like it: date, time, venue.

Had I remembered the name of the pub correctly, I wouldn’t have spent the night in the Fox and Hounds, nursing a pair of binoculars.

“Yes, he was in the Plough,” said the producer, the next time I saw him. “He was there Christmas morning, too.”

With the start of the Six Nations at the weekend, and Matthew being a rugby fan, I thought I was pretty much guaranteed a meeting. “All the Welsh actors go to Santa Monica to watch the games,” said my Boomerang friends. “We’ve filmed them there.”

Great. Another date, time, place.

This is the first Six Nations I will have spent in LA, and for Saturday’s game against Scotland, if it meant getting to the pub for the 6.00am kick-off to bump into Matthew, then that’s what I was going to do.

I had heard that the lads go to the Britannia or the King’s Head to watch the Wales games. Alas, I slept late and only made it down to the King’s Head for the France/Ireland game, by which time all the Welsh had left.

It transpired, though, that there weren’t many Welsh out anyway. BBC America is, for the first time, showing the games live, so everyone can now stay at home in their dressing gowns.

Everyone tells me that Matthew is a delight to be with, both personally and professionally, and he still feels his roots very strongly, not least because Welsh is his first language.

I am therefore brushing up on my Welsh in readiness for St David’s Day, when I have been assured there is a big Welsh event at which Matthew will most definitely be.

I can already hear the words “You’ve just missed him,” ringing in my ears.

Is There Anybody Out There - And Does Anybody Care? 2/9/10

2010-02-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

Dead never means dead in Hollywood, which, I have discovered, is the Lazarus town of the west.

The promise of connecting with loved ones on the Other Side is ever alive, and an enormous volume of programming is devoted to it.

They don’t say the word “dead” here, though. Ever. It is too dramatic a sounding syllable; too final. They say “passed over”, which is more in the spirit of “Just nipped into the kitchen to put the kettle on”.

And, when you want to contact a loved one in said kitchen, you only have to talk to the right people – any number of psychics, whose speciality is conveying messages from the next room in order to comfort those left behind.

If you want to experience how the more glamorous corners of the other side operate, Psychic Hollywood is the show to watch and leads the field in its ability to contact the star-studded heavens.

Take Farrah Fawcett’s best mate, Alana Stewart. She was worried that Farrah might be feeling her friends had let her down and might be a bit stung about Michael Jackson’s death taking the limelight away from her own. She was also writing a book and wasn’t sure whether it would meet with approval.

Well, not to worry, psychic James Van Praagh was able to to talk to Farrah directly and come back with some answers.

No, she didn’t feel let down, no she didn’t mind about Michael Jackson, and she was thrilled about Alana’s book.

Lucky, that, because it reached the top of the New York Best Sellers' list. I wonder what would have happened if Farrah had replied in the negative; something tells me that Alana would not have shelved the project, psychic or no psychic.

Just to be on the safe side, James took Alana to a quiet place, where her friend allegedly told her: “Just scream at me in the air like you’ve been doing.”

This she did. Loudly. “It was like being with her!” cried an excited Alana. Phew. I’m glad I was never around Farrah’s place for a barbecue.

Psychic Hollywood also features Derek Ogilvie, who goes by the title “baby whisperer”. A man called Ryan came to him because his two-year old son Max was scribbling strange pictures and words.

Derek sensed “strange energy around the genital area” and was able to ascertain, from this, that Ryan had “intimacy issues”.

Derek wondered if he had been molested, but it transpired that Ryan had once had a tumour in one of his testicles.

Somehow, from this melee of information (and I’m still not sure quite how the connection was made), Derek and Ryan pinpointed the intimacy issues as having stemmed from Ryan’s childhood, when the family dog had to be put down.

I am now wondering whether any issues I have had in my adult life might be traced back to when Sally our Chihuahua and Tara our poodle paid their last visit to the vet’s.

It might explain a lot. Or not.

Derek sent Ryan and Max off to the park, where they were to address the intimacy thing that might explain Max’s drawings. After a group hug, Ryan tried to strike up a conversation. Max, however, had other ideas.

“Plane!” he cried, pointing to the sky.

For poor old Ryan, it was like pulling teeth. “I try to talk about the relationship issue . . . you just wanna look at aeroplanes,” he said, sorrowfully.

“Plane!” said Max, pointing to the sky once more. Ryan reported back to Derek that he thought Max wasn’t understanding what he was getting at.

He’s two, for goodness sake! I’m over 50 and I wasn’t getting it, either.

Derek’s speciality as a “baby whisperer” is helping people “use old knowledge for modern times”, and one aspect of this is clearing away negative spirits to make room for new energy. Having failed with Ryan (who he claimed had not done what he asked him to), he moved on to Mark.

“We’re gonna start off by sageing you”, he said, an operation that required calling forth the Archangel Michael, who would open Mark’s mouth and push the Jagwar spirit (whatever that is) through his body.

“Archangel Michael, push deeper into his body!” he cried. “Lock him down, angels! It’s really time for you to be who you’ve come to be!” I don’t know about Mark, but I was exhausted.

Mark insisted that he felt an “emotional connection” and something leaving his body. Miracle of miracles, Mark suddenly felt his fears subside and able to face life head on.

Quite what Farrah and Michael in the next room think about it all is anybody’s guess; but I suspect they are both in a safer place than a world inhabited by the likes of Derek and James.

Rumble In The Media Jungle: Leno vs Conan 2/2/10

2010-02-02T22:08:00.000-08:00

You know when something is really big news here when the essence of the story can be reduced to just four words.

One of the hottest topics of recent weeks has been “Rain in Los Angeles”, a headline of such cataclysmic proportions, it dominated not only local news bulletins, but every dining table conversation within a 50 mile radius.

You would think the city had never seen water, let alone seen it pour from the heavens.

People caught unawares emerged from restaurants, staring blankly into the street like assistants of Dr Who arriving at a designated departure point, only to find that the Tardis had already gone.

Coming from Cardiff, one of the wettest cities in the UK, I was invariably one of the only people on the street with an umbrella (habit - I never go without one, even in LA), as soaked pedestrians gazed on enviously.

Ha! I thought. They hadn’t read their Bibles; I was all too aware of the parable of the ten virgins, five of whom hadn’t taken enough oil for their lamps, while waiting the arrival of the bridegroom.

Some say the story is a warning to people to be prepared for the day of reckoning; to me, it means never, ever, go without an umbrella, bridegroom or no bridegroom, so there.

“Will Brangelina break up?”

That’s been another four-word obsession and a topic for which people have an almost pathological obsession in Hollywood.

The ongoing saga about the celebrity couple’s marriage, and whether Brad Pitt will leave current wife Angelina Jolie to return to first wife Jennifer Aniston, is one of the major soap operas of the day.

At Sunday’s Grammy Awards, E! (Entertainment) Channel reliably informed us from the red carpet that the previous night, the couple had been seen very much “into” each other. Purely on this evidence alone, said an interviewee, they were definitely not going to be breaking up.

I don’t care two figs one way or the other, but I do wonder how Angelina manages to sleep at night next to Brad’s weird new beard. Waking up next to that facial yeti must put more of a dent in her love than ever our Jen could manage to do. To be honest, the only way I can see Angelina could get “into” Brad at the moment would be if she were to employ a topiarist to pave the way.

Even bigger than the rain and Brangelina, however, has been the “Jay Leno versus Conan” story. This plot has rumbled on for weeks, both on and off screen, and the network NBC, on which both men have shows (at the moment), continues to be strangely fascinating.

In brief: Veteran Jay Leno was hosting the Tonight Show at 11.35pm, and, when he moved to primetime last year, failed to attract the same ratings. Now, in March, he’s getting his old show back, while his replacement, Conan O’Brien, who didn’t want to move to a later slot (and why should he, having landed the top prize – it’s humiliating), is leaving with £20 million.

To be honest, in the humiliation stakes, I’d strip naked and allow myself to be pelted with cow dung (thrown by Sarah Palin) for that sort of dosh, but I’m new to LA and doubtless I will learn.

Humiliation? Drive it over here in that fleet of Ferraris.

But I can’t help noticing that successful US male hosts are known only by their surnames (Leno, Letterman), and the females by their first (Oprah, Ellen, Chelsea). In this, Conan was doomed from the start. He will doubtless rue the day he was not Christened a boy named Sue.

The Leno/Conan story has become one of the major sources of material for comedians, coast to coast. David Letterman, who hosts his late-night TV show from New York, is enjoying it hugely, reportedly never having forgiven Leno for taking over the Tonight Show from Johnny Carson when he so wanted it for himself (I wanted it for Letterman, too, but if I’d known the queue of adoring women was as long as we now know it to have been, I might have hitched my flag to another, er, pole, as it were – but that’s another story).

Meanwhile, in LA, Conan puts on a brave face, trying to make light of what is clearly a very hurtful situation.

Leno continues to milk it, sparing viewers no details about the whole history of the story, right down to the nitty-gritty of NBC executives’ part in the drama, adding that he bears Conan no animosity. I’ll bet he doesn’t.

It is inconceivable that any British TV host, in the light of such a debacle, would ever spend 15 minutes of their show making jokes at the expense of the network on which they were appearing. The most Jonathan Ross, for example, has ever managed, has been a couple of light-hearted jokes about what he can or cannot say in the light of “Sachsgate”, the now infamous phone-call he and comedian Russell Brand made to the actor Andrew Sachs.

Yet Leno, telling viewers that they had a right to know what had really been going on behind the scenes, made fun of NBC executives in the most extraordinary manner – after he knew he was being handed back the best gig.

It made a very funny story and he told it well - bemused, baffled, and, let's not deny it, faintly smug. The fact that he was allowed to tell it at all was, in itself, hilarious.

Viewing figures are, of course, important to any network, but in the US they are everything, and late night TV has a kudos here that it has never managed to acquire in the UK.

Quite why this particular story should be deemed to be a ratings puller is anathema to us Brits, yet O’Brien’s ratings have increased dramatically as the story has unfolded.

The difference is, that in the UK, our TV scandals are played out in our newspapers, especially where licence-payers’ money is concerned.

Personally, I think it’s a shame.

Leno versus Conan is the new Rumble in the Jungle, and I, along with millions of others, just can’t get enough of it. Leno? Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee, is my guess.

But the real winner? Letterman.

At least it’s distracted viewers from simply wondering why he can’t keep his flies done up.

The Not So Golden Globes 1/18/10

2010-01-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

How upset can a locker be?

What on Earth do you say to a locker to produce such an effect?

“You need a paint job”? “You smell of stale sneakers”? I mean, come on: even if upsetting filing cabinets were your number one aim in life, would you want to go and see a movie about it?

These were just some of the questions I asked (along with When did Tom Hanks get so fat? Has Martin Scorsese shrunk?) to pass the time through Sunday’s coverage of The Golden Globe Awards.

Having established that The Hurt Locker was not about a sensitive piece of storage furniture, but a bomb disposal unit in the Iraq war, I lay on the sofa and gave thanks that I wasn’t at the actual event a stone’s throw from my apartment.

There was a time when I would have carried out contract killings just to get into an awards ceremony. Back in my early days of journalism, I even managed to crash a few, one night taking a place on the South Pacific table at the Laurence Olivier Awards, oblivious to the fact that people had purchased tickets in advance for members of the company.

If the legitimate guests on the table were shocked or horrified, they were too polite to say so, and by the end of the night I was singing I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair like an old pro.

Sunday’s Golden Globes, which celebrate achievements in both film and television, were taking place at the Beverly Hills Hilton. From my apartment, I can see the hotel, where, for the big event, a plastic tent had been erected on the roof for the NBC/Universal post-show party.

The hotel was closed to the public for the weekend, and when once I would have taken wire cutters to the fence I know can quite easily get me to the pool area, I was happy to stay at home and watch the event on television.

Awards ceremonies US style are very different from those in the UK, not least because by the time you have cleared security to get in, you probably would have died of stress, or even old age.

To get into the Globes, journalists had to apply back in November, and the list of requirements and credentials was so long, I could have founded a newspaper and seen it go under in the time it took me to read the rules, let alone get round to acting upon them. Getting into the White House is easier – as people have discovered.

My friends who have been to the Oscars assure me that the event is not worth sitting through for the privilege of nursing a full bladder for eight hours; and even those with tickets to the Golden Globes said they were going for the experience of seeing Ricky Gervais live, rather than getting the chance to rub shoulders with the superstars.

There was, nevertheless, an air of excitement in the air that permeated the city, irrespective of whether one was attending the event. The Regent Beverly Wilshire, a short distance from the Hilton, and The Peninsula, which is even closer, were packed with celebrity spotters who looked to the door every time a new person entered (and, in my case, looked disappointingly away again).

After I watched the event on TV, I hung out at the Peninsula where, if you happen to have a miner’s lamp in your handbag, you might be able to make out a few faces in what has to be LA’s darkest bar.

Everyone who was no one was there. A university lecturer, a very drunk Estonian woman, whose head looked in immediate danger of separating itself from her body, and an even drunker man who introduced himself with the question: “D’you mess around?”

He also said that he was waiting for a call confirming that Quentin Tarantino was hosting a party nearby. It was now getting close to two in the morning, an hour when, for me, messing around always takes second place to tuning in to yet another interminable CSI marathon on the telly; but heck, this was Quentin - who knows, he could direct my movie - and if I had to kiss a boozed up guy in a penguin suit just to get to Quentin, what the hell.

In the event, I didn’t even have to debate the issue. The man received a call to say that there was no party, news that instantly turned me into the Mother Teresa of the night and telling the bloke where to get off. Inglourious Basterd as he was.

Meanwhile, the lecturer was telling the Estonian how interesting she was, while the management were trying to throw her out for losing touch with gravity. “Is she with you?” they asked me.

I was horror struck. “No!” I squealed, disgusted.

Even more horrifying, I remembered that that used to be me. But if there is one thing that LA has taught me, it’s that sitting at your desk, doing the work you care about, really is more enjoyable than falling about in bars, stalking celebs.

When I saw my final bill from the Peninsula, I realised that it’s cheaper, too.

Sunrise, Sunset 1/9/10

2010-01-09T22:17:00.000-08:00

Above clouds, you can believe in anything.

Flying west to east, into daybreak, the sun is always rising; east to west, it sets in silence, always perfect.

Sometimes, I feel close to the heaven of my childhood imagination.

Up there. Beyond. Closer to the God I was told lived in the sky.

The transatlantic journeys that, just a year ago, were filled both with excitement at the prospect of change in a new country, or coming home to see family and friends, are now times of strange, intense reflection in a year that has seen so many loved ones disappear from my life.

My screenwriter friend Blake Snyder, who inspired me to come to LA, and who I have written about so much, died suddenly in August. My dear friend Keith Waterhouse died in September. Yes, he had enjoyed a long life, but that never makes a loss less keenly felt.

My Auntie Monica, who had known me since I was a baby, died suddenly in October. And, this week, my dear, beautiful and talented friend Angharad, who had been ill for some months, died, suspected of having taken her life at the age of just 47.

Each time I fly now, it is to attend a funeral, memorial service, or to be close to people with whom it is possible to share memories. This week, in particular, knowing the devastation that Angharad’s siblings and young daughter must be feeling back home, I just wanted to get on a plane again and head back to the UK.

Until I know what plans there are for any service, I am staying in LA, but have again been astounded by the enormous comfort Facebook has provided during this time.

I found out about Blake’s death on Facebook, and shocking (literally) as that was, over 600 people left messages on his page that made one feel part of a community united by a shared grief.

On Saturday, messages started to appear on Angharad’s Facebook page, too. A clever, funny and insightful woman, she still seems very much there, and it is hard to imagine the pain and desperation that brought about this tragic end.

Having spoken only to a couple of friends and left messages for one of her sisters, being such a long way away I felt able to make some kind of contact through Facebook, with strangers feeling just as helpless as I did.

The experience of these very personal losses is in stark contrast to death Hollywood style, and makes life here seem even more unreal. In 2009, the non-stop TV coverage of Michael Jackson’s death, and the way the town came to a standstill for what felt like weeks, turned death into the must-have accessory of the season. Some people have indeed turned their experience of the star’s passing into a full-time job.

Celebrity death is always big news here. Before Christmas, we saw the death of actress and singer Brittany Murphy and, last week, the Johnson and Johnson heiress Casey Johnson. TV cameras were outside the latter’s home for hours, continually reporting that there was no news and nothing to report. But that didn’t stop journalists standing outside the dead woman’s Hollywood home, continually reporting that there was (still) nothing to report.

Then, on Friday, there suddenly was. There was a fracas outside the home, from which Casey’s two small dogs were being taken, allegedly to be put down so that they could be buried with their owner. Casey’s girlfriend/fiancee Tila Tequila, was hysterical, as the pooches were bundled into another friend’s car.

Hollywood death is such big business here; there is even a site called hollywoodmemoir.com, which features “recently died famous Hollywood celebrities, actors’ health, accidents, and major news”. “Searching for Hollywood death?” says one headline, before pointing you in the direction of “Death Hollywood at Amazon”.

There are discussion boards and blogs to which you can contribute, too. “Is it just me?” asks one, “or are there almost no deaths in Hollywood lately?” Moral: never write a blog like this on 8th December.

Death can be a niche market, too: for example the section detailing “Wrestlers Who Died” (Bad News Brown, aged 63; Hercules, 46; Johnny Grunge of Public Enemy, 39 – of sleep apnea complications - there really is a Hollywood movie just crying out to be made here).

And should you wish to do your research according to method of passing rather than profession, you can just click on one of the headings under “Major Causes of Death”, which are: accidental, cancer, drug, heart attack, heart failure, lung, natural cause, suicide.

It all feels a far remove from the real thing, yet for every one of these Hollywood deaths, too, there is a band of friends and relatives mourning their loss.

Life doesn’t get any easier.

But above clouds, you can sometimes believe.

New Year Chimes At 4pm 1/3/10

2010-01-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Did everyone go to Barbados for New Year?

Simon Cowell, Sir Philip Green, Emma Forbes, Michael Winner . . . Oh, no, I forgot: Michael Winner decided, for the first time in 30 years, to spend it in Miami, with Michael Caine.

Knowing that neither of them would be in Barbados was the only thing that made the island sound remotely appealing to me, both men having been appallingly rude to me at various points in my career; but still, I was happy to be spending the festivities in LA.

I can’t ever remember a New Year’s Eve when I have been so hot, I thought I would have to don a bikini. As my friends froze in temperatures of minus six back at home, I delighted in texting them to inform them that I was off to Santa Monica to celebrate in Ye Olde King’s Head, a British pub near the beach.

Transport is so ridiculously cheap, not to mention efficient, here (the buses run 24/7), I still have no need of a car. The journey from Beverly Hills took just under half an hour and cost $1.25 (about 75p), and as a bus is going to be sitting in the same traffic as any car, it still seems to me the best way of getting around.

I also ensure that I make friends only with people who come to Beverly Hills in their cars, or who are on my bus route, or within walking distance of my home. So far, it’s worked out rather well.

Ye Olde King’s Head was so packed, I had to beg to gain entrance. It’s the place to go if you want to watch sport, too, although I didn’t make it to their 5am showing of Leeds United’s 1-0 FA Cup victory over Manchester United on Sunday morning.

A pity. I am a lifelong Leeds United supporter and remember their only FA Cup final win over Arsenal in 1972. I only became a Leeds supporter because they beat Manchester United in some game, and there was a big anti- Man U faction even in my day.

I adored Eddie Gray and when I met him in southern Spain last year, spent an hour reminiscing about the good old days. It’s just a pity that it was Andy Gray to whom I was chatting, and when I later realised my mistake, Andy confessed that he had been a tad confused as to why I had been banging on about Leeds for so long.

Clearly, after my Gareth Edwards/Tom Shanklin case of mistaken identity two weeks ago, I need to pay more attention to sports personalities’ photographs.

The sun was streaming into the YOKH as customers counted down the last minute to midnight/4pm local time, and that was really weird. In the UK I am usually wiping somebody’s vomit off my dress by that time, but YOKH was a very civilised affair, and I met some really terrific people – French, German, American, as well as Brits - in what appears to be quite a friendly community down in Santa Monica.

I returned to Beverly Hills, thinking what a strange year 2009 had been. I came to LA to do a writing course in March, and, encouraged by the screenwriter and teacher Blake Snyder, moved here on April 1st.

Under his guidance and support, I felt more creatively inspired than I had done in years. When he died suddenly on August 4th, I felt, and continue to feel, a hole in my life that makes me breathless with the disbelief of losing what once filled it with such joy and love.

I can only try to work as I know Blake would have wanted me to, and try to fulfil the potential he recognised and which had lain dormant for so much of my pre-LA life.

Blake’s third book on screenwriting has just come out (Save the Cat! Strikes Back), and I know that it will it inspire me just as much as his first two did.

I’ve also been reading Rilke (not in the original German, I hasten to add), a poet whose verses and prose are full of such wisdom and insight, it is impossible not to feel the stirrings of optimism, even in the face of grief.

In Letters to a Young Poet, he writes to Franz Xaver Kappus on the nature of sadness, a “new thing” that enters our hearts and changes us “as a house changes into which a guest has entered.” It is these moments, he says, in which “our future sets foot in us”, “in order to transform itself in us long before it happens.”

Blake believed in the power of transformation; it is what predominantly informed his life and the screenwriting techniques that he so brilliantly taught.

At the end of the decade, I regard my coming to LA and meeting him as one of the most transformative, blessed, and, yes, lucky, experiences of my life.

The American Dream may not be all it’s cracked up to be, but there are still some pretty good slumber parties to enjoy.

Welcome, 2010.

Another Year, Another Decade 12/27/2009

2009-12-27T03:14:00.000-08:00

As 1999 moved towards the new Millennium, I was sitting down for a New Year’s dinner with my mother and brother in the St David’s Hotel in Cardiff.

This year, I will be spending it in LA with a whole new set of friends that I didn’t even know at the start of the decade. Heck, I didn’t even know them at the start of the year.

Isn’t life strange?

I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing on Thursday night. I’ve always found New Year’s Eve a bit depressing, but if there is one thing worse than paying over-the-top prices for a bad meal and clinging to strangers as the chimes strike, it’s sitting alone watching people do the same on TV – especially if the post-midnight revelry is taking place in Scotland to the tune of bagpipes.

Was there ever a more hideous sounding musical instrument? I swear that the bagpipes are the suicide watch of the musical world, and I am just praying that LA will be a bagpipe-free zone for the festivities.

I suspect that I may not be able to escape them if I go to Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica. This is a British pub that, at 4pm, is celebrating the UK New Year, which will be followed at midnight by the LA one.

I quite fancy celebrating the New Year in daylight, which might make it marginally less depressing than it normally is, although if they have bagpipes on the telly, I might be reaching for that razor blade and not even make it to my first US New Year.

I mustn’t be too horrible about Scotland’s national instrument, because a man called Jim from Scotland saved me from the razor blade on Christmas Eve.

I arrived back in the UK to discover that my Sky Plus box had gone kaput. Now, for a TV critic to be without TV at all is bad enough, but at Christmas, with several couch potatoes to keep happy, it is an event of monumental devastation.

I phoned Sky – no one was available until well after the New Year. I wailed, I cried, all to no avail. Despite having paid for a special plan in case of breakdown (my own, in addition to the equipment, I had presumed), there was just no one around.

Hurumph! The Sky’s the limitations I screamed at my family, munching peanuts and staring hopefully at the blank screen in the corner of the room.

I tracked down Sky’s VIP service, on whose list I had once been, but they couldn’t help because I didn’t have a special code from the “plan” department. So it was back to them. Back to VIP with the code, only to discover I am no longer a VIP.

“You’re going to lose a very good customer,” I whimpered.

“I’m very sorry about that,” said Scottish Jim.

Then Scottish Jim rang me back. He was going to see what he could do. Suddenly, I wanted to marry Scottish Jim; then I wanted to marry Welsh Kevin, who was on my door within half an hour, taking away the defunct box and replacing it amid such screams of delight that have not been heard since the Wise Men delivered their gold, frankincense and myrrh to a woman who, a couple of hours before, didn’t have a Marriott Reward point to her name.

Fair play, that was great service. Having constantly praised LA service as being infinitely superior to its UK counterparts, I have to say that Sky surpassed itself. I might even take up the bagpipes as a tribute to Scottish Jim.

For the most part, my LA life allows me to stay in the UK loop. Rolling news on the internet, and also Facebook, mean that I am never out of touch with anything or anyone for very long. Oh, yes – and Sky! Lovely, lovely Sky!

But ten hours on a plane is a long time out of the loop, as I discovered when I arrived back home for Christmas and was instantly told by my uncle that: “Gareth Edwards has come out as being gay.” Apparently, he said, it had broken up his marriage, and he had also contemplated suicide.

‘GARETH EDWARDS?!” I screamed. The great Welsh rugby scrum half of the Eighties? “No wonder he never fancied me.”

I reached for my phone to text Gareth, offer support, blah blah, while trying to conceal my delight at hearing the most exciting news to have come out of Wales since . . . Well, Henry VII’s ascension to the throne, to be honest.

I rang my brother with the bulletin. “No,” he said. “Gareth Thomas.”

Oh, good grief. That wasn’t news. The ex-Welsh captain? Those of us in the rugby world had known that for years. Still, I was pleased for Gareth and thought his coming out in the macho world of rugby, and also Wales, was an incredibly brave move on his part.

So much so, that I went up to him in my local club, the Cameo, to tell him when I saw him there before Christmas. All well and good – had it not been his lookalike team-mate (well, both balding) Tom Shanklin.

Apparently, in the bus on the way back from Cardiff Blues’ match against Toulouse before Christmas, Gareth received a call from Elton John. The team celebrated by singing Candle in the Wind for the remainder of the journey.

Much as I am looking forward to celebrating my first New Year in LA, there are some things about home that you just can’t beat.

A Christmas Treat For Your Cervix 12/20/09

2009-12-19T18:35:00.000-08:00

Christmas shopping in LA promised to be a darn sight cheaper than it has been in Paris the last couple of years.

Where the exchange rate between the pound and the euro just gets worse and worse, the dollar against the pound has been pretty solid around the $1.60 mark for some time (and even higher). With consistently falling prices in the US now reflecting the depth of the recession, I was looking forward to a bit of a spree.

US TV commercials have been full of gift suggestions, although not many that really appealed to me.

“Give her a gift that even Santa can’t deliver,” said one, presented by a man in a suit. “Give her a pap smear.”

How does that work? I don’t know about you, but a pap smear isn’t something that would have me rushing down the stairs on Christmas morning, checking to see whether Santa’s reindeer had drunk their saucer of milk, and squealing: “Oh, I really hope this is the year there’s a pap smear in my stocking!"

Breast enlargements, yes; a tummy-tuck too (you might as well be sliced for a sheep as a lamb, if you’re having the general anaesthetic anyway); but I ask you, a pap smear?

For men not in the know and really, really stuck for a present for the lady in their life (or ladies – I’m sure they could run to a discount for a bulk purchase), pap is short for Papanicolaou, and is a screening test in gynaecology to detect abnormal cells in the cervix.

I didn’t check out the details, so have no idea whether the gift is just the appointment with a doctor, or a DIY kit to conduct your own test while the turkey’s browning; but either way, any man who bought me a pap test for Christmas wouldn’t live to taste the pudding.

Williams Sonoma e-mailed about yet another set of pointless holiday-themed gadgets and foodstuffs, none of which I want but suddenly feel I cannot live without. Having missed out on their mandolin chipper, I was thrilled to see a mandolin dicer, before remembering that I buy everything ready-chopped, sliced and diced these days (I suspect it is only a matter of time before I start buying “ready-eaten” to save time).

I also resisted buying their gingerbread house – a snip at just under $60. I’ve always associated gingerbread houses with paedophiles, after a child-devouring witch lured Hansel and Gretel to one (child-eater my arse; we know what that was all about). I could no more eat a gingerbread house than . . . well, do my own pap smear.

The American Tea Room has taken over from Williams Sonoma as my favourite gadget shop, even though tea-pots and kettles are the main gadgets on offer. But oh, what pots and kettles.

Exquisite sculptures from China, ultra-modern electric kettles that keep water at different temperatures, according to what tea you are making; a tea-pot and kettle in one, that you can keep boiling on the stove.

And dozens upon dozens of teas – my current favourite being the fruity Martinique (it is actually a bark) that I drink hot, but also make by the gallon and keep chilled in the fridge.

The ATR is not a shop, it’s a shrine to the best drink in the world. I’m not quite at the stage when I can give up my three mugs of PG Tips in the morning, but I now have an entire cupboard containing nothing but exotic leaves.

The only problem with doing my Christmas shopping there was that I ended up keeping everything for myself.

The Beverly Hills branch of the Taschen bookshop kindly provides me with PG Tips when I am out and about, but this week there was champagne, as Hugh Hefner (whom I interviewed a few weeks ago) launched his six-volume autobiography.

It was the only Christmas party I went to and was rather jolly. Centrefolds Stacey and Deanna, dressed as Bunny Girls, greeted me, and Beautiful Barmaids had provided waiting staff for the night – all women well over six feet tall.

I even met Benedict Taschen, the man behind the great bookshop, and stacked up on several Christmas presents, which, like the teas, are sitting on a shelf in my apartment.

I took respite from this exhausting gift-buying for myself in the Montage Hotel, where a man sidled up to me and said: “Is that your perfume I can smell?” It was Estee Lauder’s White Linen, which I told him women really like, should he be looking for Christmas present ideas.

“Yes,” he said. “It smells . . . oily. Would that be right?” I wasn’t sure whether he meant oil as in aromatherapy, or oil as in Castrol GTX, but it just didn’t have quite the ring of compliment I normally hope for from a man.

But then the kind of men I meet generally aren’t the complimenting sort; they’re the kind who’d buy me a pap smear for Christmas, but check on Amazon before ordering from the TV, in case they could get it just that little bit cheaper.

And if you do happen to be one of the unfortunate women who gets given one on Friday, worry not.

Remember, a pappy is only for Christmas, not for life.

Campaign For Hug A Martini Day 12/9/09

2009-12-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

Each time I go back to the UK, it takes me a while to get back into the spiritual groove I have been establishing since I moved here.

It’s tough, when you’re surrounded by a hundred Welshmen, spilling their pints of Stella over you, while drowning their sorrows at another Welsh rugby loss, to stay calm.

So when I come back, I have to re-group, as they say, and have to immerse myself back in the culture that seems such a far remove from home.

My bookshelves here are packed with self-help books of various sorts. My latest read was Eat, Pray, Love, a rather earnest quest by US journalist Elizabeth Gilbert to “find herself” in Italy, India and Indonesia.

It all sounded a bit energetic for me, and I specially wasn’t drawn to the India bit, where she rose every day at 3am to meditate.

Good grief: I’m hardly ever in bed by 3am.

I’m a bigger fan of Andrew Gottlieb’s take on it – Drink, Play, F@*k – although having no hash key on my Apple computer keyboard (as I have just discovered), I have had to insert a star where a hash should be. Life’s never easy, is it?

Outside my local grocery store, I picked up a magazine called Awareness, billed as “California’s premier bi-monthly holistic magazine”. It’s a rather unprepossessing publication – all muted colours and men who look like aliens on the cover – but I thought it might serve as a pick-me-up for my dilapidated spirit.

The cover provided information about forthcoming events, including a “Raw Spirit Festival” (rustic 100% proof Russian vodka, I wondered? Somehow, I doubted it). There was also an “Alchemy Conference”.

The only thing that would draw me to that would be if it were to alchemise into a Jimmy Choo "all shoes ten cents" sale before I got there.

Inside the magazine, there were even more treats – a tree-hugging day in Santa Monica, for instance. I’ve never quite got tree-hugging. Why would you hug a tree while there are still men in the world? And why is there not a Martini-Hugging Day?

People have told me that tree-hugging is a very rewarding experience – well, not people I hang out with, you understand, just people who don’t wash their hair much and prefer Glastonbury digs to a Marriott. Weird people.

The magazine is very big on angels (and disturbingly, I really do know people who claim to hang out with their angels), and there is even a website on which you can “Listen to Archangelic Messages”.

I don’t think that Christmas is the time to tune in, to be honest, a time when archangels have a habit of delivering messages along the lines of: “Lo, you will become pregnant without having sex and not be able to find a Marriott within walking distance.”

If you’re not keen on chatting to angels, guess what: you can “Get in touch with your personal gatekeeper”. Should you be as ignorant as I am on this, your gatekeeper is “The producer/director of the play your soul wrote before you came into this lifetime.”

Having just had possibly the worst year of my entire life, here’s a message, gatekeeper: you should have done a re-write of the middle act; it’s shit.

Despite some strange practices described within, Awareness is quite encouraging about money and does not rule out material riches going hand in hand with spiritual ones (just as well, the packet these people must be making on the back of the gullible and/or stupid).

Niurka, for instance, is a glamorous businesswoman and author of Supreme Influence; she offers techniques on how to become aligned with your true nature in order to increase prosperity and yet stay true to your spiritual self.

I am quite drawn to this you can have the penny and the bun philosophy, and Niurka has a strong background in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), of which I am already a strong advocate.

“Make a decision to go deep within yourself,” advises Niurka. “Focus on the essential nature of your being and everything around you will change.”

My bank balance, in particular, I hoped, although I suspect my damned gatekeeper wrote: “No money. Ever” into my script in his/her first draft.

I already meditate twice a day, but decided to up it a bit, in the hope of changing a few things.

When I first learned Transcendental Meditation, I found that it lowered my blood pressure and made me generally less anxious and depressed – well, apart from on the day when I went for my initiation ceremony, couldn’t find anywhere to buy the required handkerchief on Oxford Street, and nearly went under a double-decker bus in my rush to get there.

It’s a powerful tool, though. Within an hour of upping my 20 minutes to 40, I was in Sports Club LA spa, asking for more information about the Four Seasons Amex special massage offer.

“We’re not the Four Seasons,” explained the receptionist. “Yes, you are,” I insisted. “The Beverly Hills Hotel is, and you, the Beverly Wilshire, are part of the same group.”

“But we’re not the Beverly Wilshire,” she said.

Oh, no, you’re the gym. Silly me.

It’s all very well diving into your psyche in search of greater awareness, but nobody ever tells you that it can make you mad.

Barking mad, if you’re a tree-hugger.

Keeping A Welcome In The Welsh Beverly Hillsides 12/2/09

2009-12-02T15:31:00.000-08:00

Hiraeth.

It’s a word I used on my Facebook page this week, saying that I was suffering from a rather severe bout of it. It is a Welsh word that, as far as I can gather, doesn’t have an English equivalent, and it means, quite simply, a deep longing for home.

It’s not a longing for your house or any specific individual, and the only way I can explain it is in terms of its being a longing for one’s homeland: the place where you left your heart.

No matter how far you travel and how much you enjoy every new experience and people that you meet, hiraeth is the rhythm of your innermost being, always reminding you of the place from which you came and gave you life.

There is also, in my case at least, the inevitability of its returning there.

It came upon me suddenly this week, and although I described my sudden feelings of isolation in terms of homesickness to my non-Welsh friends, I could say “hiraeth” to my countrymen and know that they would know exactly what I meant.

I love LA. I love the sun, the easier pace of life, the lower utility bills, the great service in bars, restaurants, and at the end of the phone. I love the fact that you can eat out at a really good restaurant without having to take out a second mortgage; and I love being able to go to the gym and eat healthily with such ease and without being considered a bit of a freak.

In contrast, there is very little I miss about the UK. Appalling train services, expensive gas, electric and phone, rudeness pretty much everywhere you turn – on a point by point chart, LA would win over the UK every time.

But then there is that little corner of a foreign field that is, to me, forever Wales, and I am as attached to it now as the day I came out of the womb at Glossop Maternity Home in Cardiff in 1958.

I know how lucky I am to be living in Beverly Hills, where the sun rises in my living room and sets in my office. I know that for many people, this would be the trip of a lifetime, and that even to see the Hollywood sign on the hills just once, let alone every day, would be one of life’s great joys.

And I know that I am blessed to have a job that enables me to travel and meet new people all the time, and that I have been equally blessed to have the good health that enables me to do that.

All of this I know in my head. But then there’s hiraeth. That aching, longing, tugging of the heart that, this week, has seen me sobbing uncontrollably to go home – to my family, my friends, my homeland. To where I belong.

I’ve been looking at the languages of other cultures to see if they contain a word that conveys the same sentiment.

Arabic has the word “ghurba”, which is a derivative of the word for stranger, and in the Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic is explained as: "absence from the homeland: separation from one’s native country, banishment, exile; life or place away from home.” it is also often translated as “Diaspora”.

Like hiraeth, “ghurba” also carries with it an intense, melancholic feeling of longing, nostalgia, homesickness and separation: of, according to the Canadian newspaper columnist Ghada Al Atrash Janbey (thank you, yet again, Google), “a severe patriotic yearning for a place where one’s heart was not only living, but . . . to a place where one’s heart danced to the silence of a homeland’s soul.”

There is a word for it in Portuguese, too – saudade – and it expresses a feeling of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one loved but is now gone.

It also carries fatalist undertones and the repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return – or even, as one translation puts it: “a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist.”

Apparently, this state of mind has subsequently become pretty much part of the Portuguese way of life – a feeling of absence, something missing, and yet a desire for presence rather than absence – or, as they say in Portuguese, a strong desire to “matar as sauddasa” (literally, to kill the saudades).

I don’t know about you, but that kind of thinking isn’t going to put Lisbon top of my must-see holiday destinations next year.

My favourite word so far to describe my 6000 miles away from home hiraeth is the Dutch one, “weemoed”, which is apparently a “fuzzy form” of nostagia. Being Dutch, their definition means that we don’t have to guess for very long quite why it might be regarded as fuzzy, but I like the word.

The Fins have “kaiho” – a state of involuntary solitude, in which the subject feels incompleteness and yearns for something unobtainable or extremely difficult and tedious to attain (I tell you: my Welsh hiraeth buddies and I are a veritable choir of laughing policemen among this lot).

In Korean, “keurium” is the closest to saudade, and reflects a yearning for anything that has left a deep impression on the heart – a memory, place, person etc. The Japanese word for a longing of the heart is “natsukashii”. While in Armenian, the word “karot” describes the deep feeling of missing something or somebody.

Different words, same emotion, but to me there is something about just saying the Welsh word hiraeth that pulls at exactly the part of your body from which the longing comes.

It’s the part I feel when seeing my friends’ names on Facebook late at night, and the pictures of my close friends Mary and Liam's first grandchild.

It’s my Mum’s voice, 6000 miles away on the phone, telling me about Maddie the bichon frise’s latest crimes (breaking into my old bedroom and opening the M & S biscuits, an aunt’s Christmas present).

It’s knowing that there’s a rugby game being played just a couple of miles from my house, and my brother calling me from my home to tell me who was asking after me.

I want to know how Sioned and Gareth’s wedding plans are going.

I want to see Leisha who, for my birthday when I went back home, decorated my table with flowers, bought a cake with candles, and reduced me to tears with her thoughtfulness.

I want to know what Liz and Ronw are filming and share with them the hysterical laughter than never fails to leave me uplifted.

I want to go to the Robin Hood pub, chat to Dave, and hear Gwerfyl and Heulwen's latest adventures.

I want to see the Tuesday lunchtime rugby blokes in Llandaff's Butchers Arms, still reminiscing about the Lions tour 30 years ago.

Although "hiraeth" is a word not linked to specifics, all of these people are inherently linked to the home I love. And each brings extraordinary qualities and joys to a life that, even as I look to the sun setting on Beverly Hills, fills me with a longing I haven't felt in many years.

It’s a longing for the warmth of the Welsh, the humour and laughter (oh, God, how I miss the laughter here), Sunday roast in the Cameo Club, the wet leaves in autumn – yes, the rain. I never thought I’d say it: but I really miss the rain.

I miss being among people who "get" me. The rugby team were shit against Australia, but I don't care. I miss being Welsh.

Whatever you want to call it in any language, it’s a longing for home. Like most clichés, "Home is Where the Heart Is" didn’t earn its cliché status for nothing.

Poem For McDonald's At Thanksgiving 11/23/09

2009-11-23T14:12:00.001-08:00

Now the dads and mums
with fatty bums
and kids with zits
and endless shits
were just passing by

And the lazy cooks
who can’t read books
and can’t bake lean
and don’t like green
were just passing by

And the poor old tramps
with four legged scamps
on scruffy rope
and losing hope
were just passing by

And the money guys
with gleaming eyes
in disbelief
what passed for beef
were just passing by

And anyone with any sense
or even just a few more pence
or sense of smell
and taste as well
were just passing by

On the other side

Thanks at Thanksgiving 11/22/09

2009-11-22T12:34:00.000-08:00

Independence Day, Darwin Day, Veterans Day, Columbus Day, Halloween – there is no person or event too big or too small that the Americans will not commemorate.

And on Thursday, it’s the real biggie - Thanksgiving.

It was in this very month last year that I came to LA for only the second time in my life and decided that I wanted to live here. I was enjoying my 50th birthday treat to myself and staying at the five-star Beverly Wilshire at the bottom of Rodeo Drive, the outside of which features in the film Pretty Woman (the interior was filmed on a set, as I disappointingly discovered).

I also discovered that Thanksgiving is no time to be alone in the US. The few people I knew had either gone away for the holiday or were entertaining family and, like Christmas, it seemed a time only for nearest and dearest.

So I decided to have my Thanksgiving dinner in the hotel, surrounded by families and couples too lazy to cook their own turkey. One problem: my dinner never arrived. I waited. And waited. But it never came. The hotel is my favourite in the world and they rarely get things wrong, but being the only person in America who didn’t get to nibble a bit of turkey on Thanksgiving was rather galling.

They made up for it by giving me a complimentary meal on my return in March this year, but by that time I was heavily into my new healthy lifestyle, and a leaf is no substitute for a juicy chunk of ugly animal.

This year, I’ve been invited to Santa Monica for my dinner, but don’t want to have to worry about transport, so have had to pass up the offer. The group Brits in LA have a dinner for waifs and strays at the Hudson club and restaurant; and the Beverly has its usual spectacular menu (or so I understand, according to the people who have had the privilege of tasting it).

I was considering all my options, when it suddenly hit me: Thanksgiving isn’t a big deal to me, but it must be to the many homeless in the city; and in the UK, there are so many organisations begging for volunteers to make Christmas just a little bit special for people less fortunate than themselves, it was probably the same for Thanksgiving in the States.

So I went online and, sure enough, discovered that Thanksgiving is a really dreadful time for the homeless. Of course, every single day is a bad one if you have no home, but there is something about festive occasions that reinforces the desperation with added poignancy.

So I decided to sign up to do volunteer work, serving food and beverages down on Skid Row.

It was a place I had heard about only in movies and on TV; in the musical Little Shop of Horrors, there is a song called Skid Row, which is a rather jolly little number that has me tapping my hands on the gym treadmill when I exercise to it. Yes, Skid Row was where I would spend Thanksgiving.

After all, the books I had been reading to further my emotional and spiritual “journey” as they are wont to call it here, kept emphasising the importance of being of service to others, and what better opportunity was I going to get than being precisely that, on one of the most special days of the year.

I went online and saw Ally McBeal/Brothers and Sisters star Calista Flockhart in an apron and brandishing a spoon at a dinner for the homeless last Thanksgiving; and the web was full of stories of other stars who did their bit for the downtrodden.

I was about to join them and started to make calls. But guess what . . . I couldn’t get in! Be a volunteer at Thanksgiving? You have to be bloody joking, was the general riposte. Join the bloody queue.

The queue to be a volunteer helping the homeless in LA at Thanksgiving turned out to be longer than the one of people in the queue for their dinner. In fact, I had even missed the boat for Christmas and was looking to next year’s Thanksgiving if I stood a snowball’s chance of doing my bit.

How far we have come since Mary, Joseph and Jesus couldn’t find any room at the inn? I was trying to be an innkeeper and they still wouldn’t let me in. How weird was that? Too many celebrities looking for a photo opportunity, I reckoned.

Is the volunteer list as long in the UK? I have no idea, but it warms the heart to know that there are so many people who will give up their time, rather than just open their wallets, to make their fellow beings’ lives more comfortable. And it made me want to get on that list and do something for real.

A homeless person isn’t just for Thanksgiving.

BA - Bugger All Again 11/17/09

2009-11-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

Air New Zealand came through spectacularly in giving me my upgrade as a reward for my having given up my favourite seat last month to La Toya Jackson.

British Airways, meanwhile, aren’t budging on the £3.60 for a flight I wasn’t able to take. Their view is that as I didn’t turn up at the check-in desk, they are not responsible for my not having taken the flight.

Never mind that I had to re-schedule an entire week’s worth of meetings and go to Paris on the Eurostar (hence my not “turning up” at their check-in desk), after they left my luggage in London when I flew to Toulouse; nor that in 19 months of correspondence, sending them everything they asked for three times, they never once said they would not refund the flight.

It is, I now learn, their policy not to (pity they hadn't thought to mention it 19 months ago), but guess what? In addition to my £3.60, they have credited me with thousands of Air Miles.

When I told them I would never be flying with them again, they said that if I did, I could have an upgrade. Fair play to the press office, they really have tried their best, but their hands are clearly tied, and something tells me that upgrade won’t be from Business to First, London/LA.

I have yet to talk to anyone who has a good word to say about BA at the moment. Rude onboard staff, dreadful food, lost luggage, general inefficiency.

Last month, a friend of mine turned up at Heathrow with her family to fly to LA, after checking in online. It transpired the computer hadn’t worked, and, 40 minutes before take-off, she was told the plane was then full and she couldn’t go on it. She had to wait another five hours to catch a Virgin flight.

Following the company’s recent merger with Iberia, BA’s Chief Executive Willie Walsh has just said that BA’s services are not going to be affected. Blimey. That can only be bad news for all of us.

Dealing with BA hasn’t been my only travel stress. The Atlantic haul that I have been doing quite regularly is starting to take its toll. Having just come back from visiting the UK and Paris, I am fairly wiped out after having my French mobile stolen on the Eurostar and then, I thought, my US/UK wallet, complete with every card, stolen from my hotel room.

I spent well over an hour in the police station, reporting every detail, and another hour cancelling various cards – only to remember that I had left it at home for fear of losing it.

Even buying a train ticket at Paddington brought stress, when an elderly couple admonished me for going to the First Class window to buy a First Class ticket, instead of standing in the long Standard ticket queue.

I had to shout at the guy to get his hands off me when he started grabbing my shoulder. When I told him to go away, he kept repeating: “Oh yes, I’m just a pathetic Englishman.” It saved me from having to say it, anyway.

Road rage and air rage have clearly extended to rail rage now in the UK, a country in which people seem to be more and more angry every time I return. The States has its problems, but the Californian sun really does seem to put people in better spirits for much of the time.

The only pleasure in UK travel is getting into a London black cab; they really are the most amiable taxi drivers in the world. The French don’t want to drive anywhere, the LA drivers can’t understand a word you say, even if they do want to take you, and in Wales you can never get a taxi of any sort if it’s raining – which is most of the time. There are some rotten apples in the black cab barrel, true, and some of the drivers’ views are a tad extreme, but they are courteous, knowledgeable, and, on the whole, pretty honest.

But it’s good to know I’m going to be car/train/plane free again for a few weeks, returning to my LA routine of white tea/gym/fresh fruit, after eating bread and cheese in a small French hotel room because the British pound is now about as appealing as a stale baguette.

Four euros for a cup of tea – that’s nearly £4 now. Next time I go, I’m taking a travel kettle and a box of PG Tips; actually, on second thoughts, I think I might just stay at home and look at the Eiffel Tower on the Internet.

Paris is still the most beautiful city on Earth, and it’s always good to go to the UK, too, and touch base with friends and family. I also loved doing another stint with the great people on ITV1’s Alan Titchmarsh Show – and this week I was able to say that I sang on the same show as Ronan Keating. Not in the same item, unfortunately, and my contribution was only one line from the Welsh national anthem, but it was still the same show.

I also enjoyed broadcasting again about I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! which has returned to ITV1 in its ninth series.

And with my last Air New Zealand flight from LA to London taking just a little over nine hours - and certainly the way my First Great Western journeys by rail are going - ANZ will soon be the fastest – and probably the cheapest – way to travel.

You Say Tomato, I Say What The Hell's That? 11/15/09

2009-11-15T02:45:00.000-08:00

Will I ever taste a real tomato again?

Will I ever again taste a tomato that is distinguishable from a sprout?

These are some of the questions I find myself asking every week as I dive among the bruised supermarket pulp here and try, in vain, to find just one ripe, full, firm fruit that smells and tastes as a tomato should.

The smell that greets you in your greenhouse when those first tomato plants start to grow; the smell of summer when you pick the fruits for your first salad; the smell that comes upon you suddenly, after the fish, the freshly-baked bread and the mouldy cheese in a Paris market.

The smell that is unmistakably, gloriously, sweet, earthy and beckoningly, nothing but tomato.

Everyone warned me that Californian fruit and veg tastes of nothing, and they were right. And I never feel more homesick than on a Sunday morning, when I remember my weekend routine in Paris, where I lived for eight years before coming to LA: waking to the sun climbing between ancient rooftops, walking along the Seine to the Bastille, drinking coffee while listening to the debate in the philosophical café, and wandering the length of the market where sea salt, Indian spices, chicken cooking on a spit, wine and lettuce compete for attention.

And tomatoes. Yes, real tomatoes. Baby tomatoes. Plum tomatoes. Tomatoes on the vine. Tomatoes as big as pumpkins (okay: small pumpkins). Red, green, purple, yellow, white.

The only Sunday market in Beverly Hills features a few over-priced stalls next to the busy Santa Monica freeway, where you might as well buy a cabbage as a peach, for all the difference in taste.

So, last weekend, it was a joy to re-experience my old routine when I returned to the City of Light that is my favourite place on Earth.

Well, it is my favourite place on Earth for tomatoes, but, as I discovered this time round, there are ways in which California spoils you that make Europe, and in particular France, feel as if you have been sent to Coventry by entire nations – a bit like getting nul points in the Eurovision Song Contest.

When I lived in Paris, I was never someone who complained about the service, which I always found so much better than in the UK I felt blessed if a waiter so much as acknowledged me within the first ten minutes of sitting down. On Saturday afternoon, however, I left four restaurants after being seated and then ignored for well over ten minutes in each one.

I went to Orange to sort out a problem with my French phone, and despite speaking French throughout, could not have endured less communication than if I had tried to make a trunk call by holding an elephant to my ear.

The problem with France’s service industry is that wherever employees are on the ladder, they know that they are pretty much going to stay there; that’s why some restaurants have staff who have been there for decades.

In the States, the spirit of optimism that infects the nation makes service staff always feel as if they are en route to something bigger and better. That optimism might often be misplaced, but it is as if the whole country is in permanent audition mode, knowing that if they tread the boards just that little bit longer, they will hit the big time.

As a middle-aged woman who regularly dines alone, I am never made to feel like a second-class citizen in LA. I am not shunted off to a dark corner of the bar if I express a preference to sitting at a table, and the best staff also remember their customers, irrespective of how often those customers frequent the establishment.

Take Greg of the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge. Greg hasn’t seen me since last November, but still remembered that I had been there before. Greg is the happiest barman in the world and possibly the only one in LA who doesn’t want to be an actor.

The staff at the Beverly Wilshire, where I last stayed in March, continue to address me by my name and treat me as if I were a fully paid-up guest.

The British staff at the Taschen bookshop provide me with cups of PG Tips when I am out shopping, I feel practically related to the staff at the kitchen store Williams Sonoma and my Chinese foot masseuse (yes, I have one) at the Eden salon, and I join in with my fluent Italian in my favourite local restaurant Il Pastaio (Well: I can say “Excuse me, is there a bank in the vicinity?” but if it isn’t second on the left after the church, as the book says, I will be totally lost).

My heart leapt when I arrived in Paris on Friday, coming up the steps at St Germain des Pres Metro, and meeting the smell of the Nutella stall at the top.

When I woke to the sun shining above the Paris rooftops on Saturday, I felt again that this was where I belonged. Then it pissed down. And when it takes you two hours to get a damned mediocre crepe placed in front of you, it’s enough to set you off California Dreamin' again.

As for the tomatoes: heck, I’ll buy a tin.

Earning My Ears At The Playboy Mansion 11/11/09

2009-11-11T04:07:00.000-08:00

There wasn’t a moment in my childhood when I dreamt of being a princess.

Nor did I sit and daydream about the day I would walk down the aisle in a meringue with the man of my dreams. I didn’t want to be a beauty queen or a ballerina.

What I wanted to be, more than anything when I grew up, was a Bunny Girl.

I had always been keen to meet Hugh Hefner, the man behind these iconic creations and who was something of a hero to me on the sexual wasteland of my youth.

And now, living in Los Angeles, and the publication of my Hefner’s
6-volume, illustrated autobiography, I was finally going to get my chance.

Maybe it was not to late to fulfil my Bunny aspirations.

The Playboy Bunnies were waitresses at the Playboy Clubs between 1960 and 1988. A direct spin-off of the magazine of the same name, Hefner established the clubs and bunnies after he founded the men’s magazine Playboy in 1953, with just $8000. To earn their floppy ears, prospective bunnies had to undergo intense audition procedures and, if successful, adhere to strict guidelines.

They had to be able to identify 143 brands of liquor and know how to garnish 20 cocktail variations. They were not allowed to mingle with customers and had to perfect certain manoeuvres, including the “Bunny Dip”.

This required a Bunny to lean gracefully backwards while bending at the knees, with the left knee lifted and tucked behind the right leg. This allowed her to serve drinks, while keeping her low-cut costume in place.

Yes, the costume. Oh, the wonderful costume. That was what I really wanted. A pair of ears. A bow tie. And a pom pom on my arse.

I kid you not. If you were a young person growing up in Wales in the Sixties, your fantasies began and ended with dressing up as a druid and/or winning the “Chair” (heaven forbid; talk about crap prizes) for having written incomprehensible verses for the National Eisteddfod - and at that time, only men had been the recipients, anyway. So what were we girls left with?

Well, dressing up in black hats and pinafores every St David’s Day on March 1st, with a leek pinned to our chests, belting out Calon Lan in the school hall. The life of a Bunny seemed a world of sophistication and freedom a long way away.

The not so glamorous life of the Bunny Girls was exposed by the feminist writer Gloria Steinem in 1983, and also, most recently, by ex-girlfriend Izabella St James in her book Bunny Tales – Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion. Hefner has always had girls installed at his home, but St James writes as if she was little more than a slave, pandering to an old man with outdated sexual attitudes and sleeping with up to four girls a night – also adding that he’s not that hot a lover anyway.

Like others, though, she took the deal and writes that upon picking up the $1000 from Hef’s bedroom every morning (the time when he would discuss their failings), girls also received a $10,000 down payment on a car, and all the plastic surgery they wanted. Apparently, breast augmentation is the first and most urgent of Hef’s requirements in his girls and costs him over $70,000 a year.

It’s not the life that every woman would want, but one that St James, like many others, was quick enough to buy into, in her own quest for fame and fortune. And despite the bad press ex-girlfriends continue to heap upon their sugar daddy (but come one – nobody held a gun to their heads), there is a lot more to the story.

With the publication of Hugh Hefner’s 6-part autobiography on November 8th (at 6 volumes and over 3500 pages, it begins with childhood and covers Playboy’s first 25 years), a much fuller picture of this extraordinary man’s life emerges.

Artist, writer, dancer, businessman, husband, father, film buff, eternal romantic – it is a story of someone who undoubtedly changed the world, for better or worse, depending on your viewpoint.

For me, it is undoubtedly for the better. There is nothing we take for granted more than our freedom, and in particular where sexuality is concerned. In 1960, Penguin Books, which had published DH Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act; seven years earlier, on the other side of the pond, Hugh Hefner was refused the special rate postal permit to transport Playboy which, on the cover of its first edition, featured Marilyn Monroe.

In 1945, Esquire had also nearly lost its permit for the same reason – the publication of nude shots of women – and became more conservative as a result – but Hefner took his case through the Washington courts, and won.

Hefner reminds me a great deal of Lawrence, who is my literary hero. Both men stood up for the free expression of sexuality at a time when it was not only unfashionable to do so, but illegal.

Far from being a slap in the face to feminism, both men, it seemed to me, allowed women to celebrate their sexuality in the same way that men always had. In Playboy, that sexuality went hand in hand with other aspects of a traditionally male lifestyle – drinking, smoking, having fun – and far from being exploited, women were finally competing on the same terms as the men who had been doing the exploiting.

The Playboy Mansion is just up the road from me in central Los Angeles. Home to dozens of charity events (Hefner raises a lot, for many different charities), it is a Tudor style house, homely rather than ostentatious, and set in beautifully kept grounds that also house a waterfall and a zoo. Hefner is a big animal lover, and visitors must take heed of the sign on the road leading in, warning “Playmates at play”.

I don’t see any playmates, but know they are there. The new lot. Holly Madison, Kendra Wilkinson and Bridget Marquardt departed in October 2008, after starring in the TV series The Girls Next Door, about life for Hefner’s girlfriends living at the mansion.

In their place, Hefner has installed his new “Number One” girlfriend, 22 year old Crystal Harris, and identical 19 year old twin models, Karissa and Kristina Shannon, who are starring in the new series.

I know the twins are lurking somewhere, when a lady approaches the PR and whispers that the twins require assistance in the drawing room. Maybe they need help with pumpkin carving practice, a traditional Mansion Halloween activity that will feature in the series and about which Crystal wrote about on her blog. There are worse things women have been asked to do.

The house surprises me. St James’s description of a decrepit time-warp, old, stale, and with a stench of wee from Archie the house dog allegedly relieving himself on the curtains, isn’t what I find.

There is exquisitely calved wood in the hallway and up the staircase; stained glass looking out onto the magnificent grounds; and the tiniest dog that greets me like . . . Well, a new Playmate, though I may be jumping the gun.

I am placed in the library, next to the enormous viewing room where, on different nights of the week, Hefner holds film nights for his celebrity friends, complete with introduction and well-researched notes, which he delivers.

There are dozens of film books lining the shelves; the six-volume autobiography sits on a rather fine coffee table; the adjoining bathroom is a shiny black palace containing Listerine, aspirin and stomach soothing liquids (clearly, entertaining ladies can take its toll physically).

Hefner appears, in his trademark red smoking jacket and looks remarkably youthful for his 83 years. He is still undoubtedly good looking, and the years have given him a rugged charm.

He moves easily to the sofa, although it is clear that his hearing isn’t great, when he notes my accent and tells me that his “best girl”, Crystal, was conceived in England but born in Arizona, even though I have stressed I am from Wales.

But he is keen to put me at my ease, and he is gracious when I express my pleasure at meeting him. Even so, I suspect that my British connections won’t be enough to get my suitcase through the door. So, what qualities does he look for in women?

“Smart, sincere, funny . . . “ So far, so good. I feel I am several steps closer to gaining my ears. “What I look for by and large is somebody I’m physically attracted to, who has a sense of humour, common interests.”

Alas, judging by the photographs of girls dotted around, I can see, as Izabella St James said, that physical attraction also involves a whacking great pair of knockers, and no Bunny Dip in the world is going to give me those. In fact, I think I would probably take up about $68,000 worth of the 70 Hefner allegedly sets aside for these ops.

It is instantly clear that Hefner is used to giving interviews and that he is not going to be giving anything away that he doesn’t want you to know. His answers are articulate – some a little too well-honed, considered, and unlikely to stray into unchartered territory.

But when he laughs – which he frequently does – it is the most delightful guffaw, like a boy in cahoots with another behind the bike-shed, plotting, and taking delight in the misdemeanour they are about to commit.

I quickly discover that it is not overt sexuality that really turns Hefner on; it is love, a subject that he warms to with a longing in his voice that has the air of a life fulfilled rather than one of regret. Growing up during the Great Depression, his dreams and fantasies were fuelled by pop culture and the movies, and they were a world away from his Puritan home life.

“My younger brother and I were raised in a home in Chicago, with no real affection; we knew we were loved, but there was no display of affection. I think that my quest for romantic love and the adventure of romantic love was filling the space that was left because I didn’t get the affection when I was young.”

It did not, however, affect his own ability to show affection, much of which has been heavily documented in stories about his many conquests over many years. “I was very demonstrative, because I’d seen it in the movies. Most of us learned, in that time frame, how to be cool, sophisticated, whatever, from the films.”

The little boy looking for love is a far remove from the image of the playboy with a roving eye, so has he been engaged in a lifelong pursuit of female affection because he didn’t get it from his mother?

“I think so, yes. What I’m really saying is that my own conscious and unconscious, my own definition of love, has been an essentially romantic perception of love . . . I am romantically driven. If I’m not in love, if I don’t have a primary relationship, at minimum, I don’t really feel fulfilled or happy, no matter what else is going on. I’m a big fan of Dennis Potter, and in Pennies from Heaven – I’m paraphrasing – he says somewhere there must be a world where the words to the songs are true; and I think that my life has been a quest for – that impossible quest – for that perfect world of those old-fashioned songs.”

He nevertheless recognises that it is an illusion, and romantic love an invention and not part of nature: “But I’ve managed to dream impossible dreams and make most of them come true beyond anything I could possibly have imagined.”

There is still disbelief and incredulity in his voice.

The dreams that are rooted so firmly in childhood fantasies feature most heavily in volume one of the autobiography, the first half of which is Hefner’s favourite part of the work.

It reveals him to be an exceptional artist, heavily influenced by the likes of Flash Gordon: the male protector against bizarre interplanetary forces; heroes and monsters, fighting in an exclusively male world.

It is a childhood that he still feels very much connected to, and when he talks about it, he does so with such passion, the years fall away from his face and you can see the little boy, still taking delight in, and living again, those youthful pleasures and touching base with his young self.

“I always felt, from a very early age, that I was a one-eyed man in a blind world. I see things in terms of human behaviour and the way of things that most people seem to miss. Most people live religious myths, superstitions, that confuse the way they live their lives, and I have always been fascinated with, from a very early age, why we hurt each other the way we do, and a lot of it has to do with sex.”

This fascination led him to major in psychology in the University of Illinois, where, as a post-graduate, he wrote a paper on sexual behaviour and US law. While he believes that the State has a place in legislating for sexuality on some issues – to protect children, for instance - its interference in the private activities of individuals mystified him, as it continues to do. Religion, he says, is largely to blame.

“The idea that the only purpose of sex is procreation is a ridiculous view. Think about the morality of that – no population control, when one of the major problems we have on this planet is the need for population control.”

Despite the sexual revolution, in which he played so significant a part, does he believe that with the rise of Right wing fundamentalism, that the US is as sexually repressed as ever?

“I don’t think we’re more sexually repressed, but I think we’re very screwed up. This is a very strange country, and in a curious way it’s become more apparent with the election of Obama. I’m a big fan and a supporter of Obama, but him becoming President has brought out from under the rocks this really dark, Right wing part of America. Once religion got really actively involved in politics in 1980, with Ronald Reagan, we were on our way down a very slippery slope. And what we had with Bush was really bizarre, because he was anti-science, he was anti-education, and his Presidency was based on a Right wing, religious view – very scary. Those views are scary if they’re in a Muslim country, they’re scary if they’re here.”

Hefner is an erudite man, with an innate sense of fairness and would have made a great lawyer – for the defence; the logic he applies to all subjects, which he expresses with great precision, makes it hard to disagree with his views, but there is nothing didactic about him; he would have made an effective politician. Politics, however, never attracted him – “not for a moment”. But that hasn’t stopped the State fearing him as a political animal with influence.

“The real problems I had, back in the Sixties and Seventies, had less to do with naked women than the fact I was trying to change the world. I had provided money to de-criminalise marijuana and they came up with a bogus drugs case that resulted in my secretary committing suicide, when they were trying to get something on me.”

Although never into drugs himself, he still believes they should be legalised and abhors a system that puts people in prison for taking them.

“You have to solve these problems in a social/medical way. What is the rational justification for these laws? Moral views based on what. Not on reason. These laws are truly hurtful to society. Prohibition gave us organised crime. Our laws in terms of drugs not only put all kinds of people who have drugs problems in prison, but in the process completely corrupt entire countries.”

He is also fearful of the wider international problems he sees his country at the forefront of creating, in particular since the Second World War.

“The last moral war America had to do with was World War II. The rest were for all the wrong reasons. World War II had two sides to it, and the same thing goes for Israel and Palestine. They should be solved amicably. You can’t force the rest of the world to live by your particular values - because some of your values are a little suspect. A lot of it has to do with oil – economic considerations. You have to be very suspicious of what really lies behind some political actions.”

It strikes me that Hefner is one of the most moral men I have ever met. Not hurting people, whether that be socially, politically or sexually, is always at the top of his agenda, and his sense of doing the right thing is clearly something that has influenced him both personally and professionally from childhood.

He was, for example, desperately hurt when his first wife was unfaithful to him when he was in the army for two years and remained faithful to her. Likewise, his second wife. He also says that he and his various girlfriends are faithful to one another – just not within a monogamous relationship.

How that apparent contradiction and sense of morality sits alongside his role as the founder of Playboy and its various spin-off enterprises is something that many might question, but the attacks still leave him as confused as they did when first aired.

“I was blindsided by it; I couldn’t make any sense out of it because as far as I was concerned, the women’s movement was part of something larger, which was the sexual revolution, and the major beneficiaries of the sexual revolution were women. It was women who were historically held in bondage by church and state.”

He began Playboy with funds raised by putting his furniture in hock; his mother also gave him $1000. While she disapproved of the venture, she said that she believed in her son, and of course her risk reaped huge financial dividends. His father even went on to work as an accountant in the organisation, and then treasurer. What gave Hefner the self-belief that the magazine would work?

“I think it was by and large a eureka moment that came immediately, but at the same time, in retrospect, I think I was in preparation for it all my life – doing cartoons, creating stories and doing mini-publishing. I did my first penny newspaper when I was nine years old. I remember a specific day when I stood on the Michigan Avenue Bridge and looked out at the lake and thought: Is this all there is to my life? I was working as a circulation manager for a children’s magazine and immediately I began making plans for this men’s magazine – what it seemed to me Esquire had been in the Thirties and then stopped.”

The autobiography is packed with fascinating material from the magazine’s first 25 years. All the great American writers are there – John Cheever, John Updike, Saul Bellow – and the six volumes are a slice of international history like no other.

There is a fascinating interview with Martin Luther King in 1965, at a time when the notion of a black President was almost laughable. There are hilarious adverts, in particular items featured in The Men’s Shop – a lampshade that is really a TV antenna, for instance. There are regular Drinks Quizzes and, of course, women: all of them what I would call classy broads.

“If you’re a man between the ages of 18 and 80,” the first issue reads, “Playboy is meant for you.” It points out that it is not a family magazine and comes with a warning: “If you’re somebody’s sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the men in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion.”

You can see why the feminists didn’t like it, but Hefner insists he wrote the introduction with his tongue firmly in his cheek. “We like our apartment,” it went on, “and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex”.

It was, it claimed, to be “a diversion from the anxieties of the Atomic Age.” It was certainly that.

Today, with the proliferation of internet porn, the Playboy empire does not appear to be as powerful or influential as it once was, and there have been whisperings of financial problems. But, says Hefner, “the brand itself has never been more popular.”

Far from finding a man poring over a salacious empire of exploitation, I left the Playboy mansion with a strong sense of the importance of Hefner not only within the sexual history of the world, but in history as a whole, a Renaissance man in the fullest sense of the word – and the brilliant autobiography confirms this.

It is the best history book the 21st century has so far produced, and the limited edition of 1500 copies also comes with a 7cm x 7cm piece of the man’s infamous silk pyjamas.

I realise, upon leaving, that it’s as close to them as I’m going to get. I will never be a Playmate – the “wholesome girl next door” that Hefner says is the number one criterion, and I didn’t earn my ears – or my breasts. And I’m a really crap pumpkin carver.

But that’s okay. I’ve been a girl at the Playboy Mansion, and that has to beat dressing up in Welsh national dress anyday.

Shrinking Violence 11/4/09

2009-11-04T07:20:00.000-08:00

You don’t hear any references to midgets for years, and then three come along together.

I was re-watching Martin McDonagh’s brilliant In Bruges, which is one of my favourite films of all time, and which features a midget - Canadian actor Jordan Prentice – who gives rise to some of the funniest quotes from hit-man Ray (Colin Farrell).

Then I was reading American comedian Chelsea Handler’s book, My Horizontal Life, in which she describes the various men she has been to bed with – one of whom happens to be a midget.

And then, this week, I was trying to dodge the traffic to get to the Beverly Centre on La Cienega, and a motorist leaned out of his window and yelled: “Idiot midget!”

At first I was most offended by the “idiot” part of the abuse. Cars in Los Angeles are allowed to run anyone down at anytime, because although the white man on the sign is technically telling pedestrians to cross, motorists can ignore it at their leisure.

When four lanes and about half a dozen feeder roads choose to ignore it at the same time, making it to your destination without losing a limb becomes something of an achievement.

So I was not being an idiot. I was doing what the little white man was telling me to do (ie cross the road), and it was hardly my fault if the people in the cars chose to ignore the possibility that someone might wish to take up his offer.

Then the “midget” bit started to bother me. I haven’t been called a midget since my schooldays. When I was in my early teens, Bridget the Midget was in the charts, which was a disaster for small people everywhere.

I had survived my primary schooldays being called Titch, after the children’s ventriloquist show, Titch and Quackers (a small boy and his pet duck – how we laughed), and also Short Arse; but Bridget stuck with a few people, most notably Robin Davies.

I met him a couple of years ago and reprimanded him for ruining my youth, but, quelle surprise, he had no recollection of it.

In one fell swoop, “midget” brought back those painful years, and I felt quite tearful. Also, I am not a midget; I am five feet tall, which to a midget is a giant.

But I have discovered that LA is a very size-ist place – although not where men are concerned.

If you are a man with money and/or success, it doesn’t matter if you are two feet or ten feet tall; but all the women seem to be over six feet, which is just as well, given the gargantuan breasts they have to carry around.

I recently met Verne Troyer, the famous American actor (actually, that’s four recent midget connections – weird!) who appeared in the UK’s I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! last year.

I was introduced to him by La Toya Jackson, to whom I had given up my seat on an Air New Zealand flight to LA. Verne is just two feet eight, and when I excitedly approached to introduce myself, he shrank to about 12 inches in terror, as if in an effort to disappear altogether at this strange giant’s advances.

Nobody, I suspect, calls Verne an idiot midget when he attempts to cross a road; but then maybe he has tall people to carry him.

As a small woman, however, I stand out as a bit of a freak – or so I keep being told, albeit couched in less offensive terms. I have been called “unique”, “interesting”, “sweet”, “different”, and when I went looking for a new apartment, all the potential landlords expressed worry over cupboard height and recommended stores where I might be able to purchase a set of steps to help me reach the top shelves.

I have been told that I can capitalise on this uniqueness, though so far I am finding it hard to see precisely how. I suppose I could put myself forward in Hollywood to play Verne’s tall girlfriend, but then from everything I’ve seen, he has a preference for women over six feet, too.

With Christmas coming up, there must be shortage of elves somewhere (unless Verne’s mates have already nabbed all the best jobs); and if Stephen Spielberg ever decides to do ET II, with the actor inside the prosthetics no longer with us I might be able to audition for that – although Verne will probably nab that one for himself.

No, unless they are planning on making Gulliver’s Travels starring Welsh midgets invading Lilliputia, it seems that I am going to have to be content to live my LA life out on a limb – or separated from it, if I keep encountering the drivers like the ones on La Cienega.

Idiot giants.

Exorcising the Exercises 10/21/09

2009-10-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

Seven months after joining the Beverly Hills branch of Sports Club LA, I am no nearer to finding a group sport that I enjoy.

My daily workouts are undoubtedly enhanced and encouraged by seeing the exquisite form of Victoria Beckham on a nearby treadmill, and even more so last week when Mr Beckham also turned up in the gym, a sight that induced in me so severe a case of Beckhamitis, I swear I had two birthdays in the time it took the paramedics to bring me round.

Exercising by myself enables me to go at my own pace, and I have discovered that if I exercise to music rather than watching marathons of Law and Order or NCIS, I go a lot faster on the treadmill.

Musicals are particularly effective, and this week alone I have exercised my way out of prison (Les Miserables), shot my twin brother (Blood Brothers), and had plastic surgery to enable me to sing Tits and Ass with sufficient verve (A Chorus Line).

I gave Phantom of the Opera a miss because Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was very offhand with me at Simon Cowell’s 50th birthday party. I can be mean like that.

But put me in a class, and all my concentration and good intentions go to pieces.

First, I tried boxing, because I have always been a huge fan of the sport. As a child, my brother and I were allowed to watch Mohammed Ali’s fights, which always began at 8pm – but only if we first went to bed at six and slept for two hours. Punching somebody’s lights out took on metaphorical as well as real significance in our household, and to this day I love watching boxing.

Before LA, I had tried it just once before, in the St David’s gym in Cardiff, where, in a class of young men, I felt I had to compete - despite being a 40-something woman.

I managed to push the enormous punch-bag on its stand more quickly to the other end of the room than they did (I am, and have always been, extremely competitive), but did in my knee in the process and couldn’t exercise again for six weeks.

My first and only boxing class in LA ended in similar disaster. When I entered the empty gym, I just wasn’t prepared for the rotating mechanical punch-bags zipping their way round as I waited in line for the class to start. Zap! The first one arrived and smacked me square on the gob.

After that, I found the class a little stressful. “I give you ten seconds, I give you nine seconds, I give you eight seconds . . . “ On and on and on. The teacher counted every damned second of the hour-long class to every single movement we made – all accompanied by ear-splitting disco music.

Having enquired at reception as to what might be a quieter, less dangerous class, I decided to try Anusara Yoga. It was very, very calming.

At the start, the teacher said she had been “talking” to a 16 month old child, with whom she had been sharing the youngster’s enthusiasm of the new world the little girl was experiencing.

Enthusiasm. That was the “intention” she asked us to focus upon over the next 75 minutes; or, failing that, any other intention (mine was ensuring that I record the last episode of Sunday’s My Antonio, a show for which I have immense enthusiasm, so I felt I was killing two – actually, I don’t think killing is a Yogic term, so let’s say I was anaesthetising two – birds/intentions with one stone).

It was all going well up until the Cobra position, lying on our stomachs with our chests stretched upwards and our backs in an arc. Then we had to move into an arch, passing a child/cat/dog/antelope position (I was losing concentration, if I’m being honest), with our backs in the air.

It was an exercise I had done in the past, when I taught myself a bit of yoga and needed to release trapped gas. I tell you: the class was the entire wind section of the LA Philharmonic.

If the point of yoga was to co-ordinate breathing with movement, I couldn’t see that having to hold my breath for the next five minutes to avoid the smell was going to do me any good at all.

I tried Power Yoga instead, in the hope that the speed of the thing might at least circulate any bad odours that might manage to permeate the room. This time I lasted just half an hour, when the teacher encouraged the class to make noises while they inhaled and exhaled – “like sea-shells”.

Somehow I found myself among the tidal wave contingent and just wanted to tell them all to shut the hell up.

My concentration also wasn’t helped by the teacher again telling us to focus on any “intention” we liked – world hunger, if we so wanted: something that, he added, was always on his mind . . . starving people the world over . . . and yet nothing was ever done about it . . .

Look, mate: I know, but you’ve just said that this is MY time, MY space, and MY body to do with what I like with MY intention. Now you’ve gone and blown My Antonio right out of my psyche. I rolled up my mat and skulked out.

I have decided that I am just not a group exercise sort of person and am therefore returning to the treadmill and the stepper with just my ear-phones and the TV on the machine for company. And Dave and Vic, of course. Now there’s a couple you won’t hear breaking wind in public.

How To Kill A Pumpkin In 3000 Easy Moves 10/17/09

2009-10-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Before I moved to LA, I could think of no circumstances in which it would be necessary for me to purchase a Pumpkin Carving Kit.

But then before I moved to LA, I could think of no situation in adulthood (given that I don’t have kids) that would ever require me to go out and buy a pumpkin.

Pumpkins, like dolls, are something you grow out of. Every Halloween during my childhood, days would be spent hollowing out pumpkins with . . . Well, what did they use before Pumpkin Carving Kits came into being? Chisels, I suspect . . . and shopping for apples in readiness to stand around in the cold, choking to death in a bucket of water for an apple that you could just as easily have taken from the fruit bowl.

The work didn’t stop once you had removed the innards, either. Next, you had to make a mouth and two triangles for eyes (by which time you had usually made such a mess of it, you had to go out and buy another pumpkin).

On the one occasion my mother decided not to waste the insides of the beast and make pumpkin soup (not great – and she was an amazing cook; seriously bad product), I think we all decided that enough was enough. Too much work. Too old.

If, as Shirley Conran said, life was too short to stuff a mushroom, it was certainly too short to hollow out a pumpkin.

But this week, I found myself at a local store, Crate and Barrel, ardently trying to work out which tool did what in the Pumpkin Carving Kit (as I see it, you can prepare the thing in just marginally less time than it would take you to build a house) and contemplating Halloween.

It’s difficult to escape it here. My neighbour has a 20-foot shroud in her garden, complete with an iron chain of Alcatraz proportions, and topped with an all too realistic skull.

On the 1st of October, everyone put pumpkins out – on their lawns, in their windows, on their steps. They are there for any closet pumpkin kleptomaniac to steal at any time, yet nobody touches them; they have an air of the Holy relic about them, and people pass the best displays with reverent awe, almost bowing at the altar of pumpkin-ness they see before them.

For me, it is just an excuse to buy another appliance that I will use once and then put in a drawer and forget about.

Crate and Barrel is my second favourite kitchen/furniture store in Beverly Hills, surpassed only by Pottery Barn (I want to roll up in one of their bath towels and hibernate) and, for kitchen equipment alone, Williams Sonoma.

So regular are my appearances in Williams Sonoma, I dreamt that I had created a successful TV detective series, the hero of which was called William Sonoma. I think it’s not a bad idea: he could solve a series of murders that had been committed with kitchen implements alone . . . But I digress.

I love Williams Sonoma. I love the French, country-style pasta dishes with paintings of vegetables; I love the rows of shiny toasters as big as baking ovens; I love the $2000 dollar collections of saucepan craters that I pine for, as I contemplate the three egg-cup sized ones I bought from IKEA.

I specially love the e-mails they send me that have such an air of exotic mystery, I am back at the store within the hour to conduct further investigations on the latest pointless invention they have written to me about.

Take the ”mandolin chipper”. Was it a mandolin-shaped contraption that chipped potatoes, or a machine that cut potatoes into the shape of baby mandolins? Or was it a machine for those odd occasions in life when you find yourself with an excess of mandolins in your closet and you say: “Oh, if only I had a mandolin chipper to reduce these down to trashable size”?

Whatever it was, I wanted that mandolin chipper. No: I had to have that mandolin chipper. Unfortunately, I never made it to the store to see it, as I had to take back the pressure cooker I had bought from World Market because it didn’t work, and the mandolin chippers went like hot . . . er, chipped potatoes.

Why I suddenly thought I needed a pressure cooker when I haven’t had one since I was a student in the late seventies, I don’t quite know, but they didn’t work then and they don’t work now.

By the time I made it back to base, my detective was no longer featuring mandolin chippers as the definitive buy of the week. That will teach me to be nostalgic.

Williams Sonoma hasn’t been too hot in the pumpkin assassination department, though, hence my going to Crate and Barrel – although I have to confess to being slightly tempted by WS’s No-Bake Halloween Haunted House: an edible house, complete with icing “glue” and candy decorations of bats and ghosts. Maybe I’ve already been living here too long.

I am not going quite so far as to organise my own Halloween party, although I might just knock on the door of the Addams Family with the skeleton garden shroud on the actual night.

Or I might just buy a pastry case, open a can of ready pureed, ready-cooked pumpkin, bake a pie and watch Halloween on the telly. Who needs a Pumpkin Carving Kit when you have a tin-opener.

My Role In The Jackson Five K 10/11/09

2009-10-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

For ten minutes this week, I had more in common with La Toya Jackson than any other human being on the planet.

Waiting to board an Air New Zealand flight to Los Angeles, I was sitting in the Star Alliance lounge (more of that horror later), when an announcement came over the speaker: “Would passenger Stephen please come to the reception desk.”

Given the dreadful year I have so far had in every respect, I was expecting another bereavement, or at the very least a doctor standing by advising me not to travel, as I had less time to live than the flight took.

I was therefore shaking when I went up to the desk, where I was greeted by a lady speaking in hushed tones. “Miss Stephen?” “Yeeeeeees.” “We wondered whether you would be willing to change your seat on the airline.”

Now, whenever I travel, I am extremely particular about my seating arrangements. Eurostar: have to be travelling backwards, odd number in the aisle and near a toilet (73, 77, 11, 13), but not right next to the staff kitchen where they uproariously get the meals together (usually carriage 8).

Flying: next to the window, provided there is no one seated next to me, near an emergency exit, no upper levels, near a toilet (I have a very small bladder and drink at least three litres of water a day, hence the toilet obsession).

On Virgin Atlantic, I am less fussy, as I love their Upper Class lounge so much, I am so relaxed by boarding time, they could strap me to a wing and I wouldn’t care.

I have no idea about BA because I refuse to fly with them at the moment. I am still chasing a claim from 16 months ago, when they lost my luggage on a flight to Toulouse, and I had to re-schedule meetings, cancel the flight back, and take the Eurostar to Paris.

This week, they wrote to say they had credited me with £3.60 and thanked me profusely for choosing my "preferred airline". I will strap myself to a pigeon before I fly with them again.

But on Air New Zealand, I am quite particular about my seat. Their LA service (where they break before travelling on to Australia and New Zealand) is second to none. Terrific food, wonderful staff onboard, and although they don’t have a great lounge, they know how to look after people.

At the LA end, I have the amazing Lounge Concierge, Thierry. He sees me on and off the aircraft, gets me through Customs, and looks after me so well I think he now even beats the Virgin lounge in terms of my priorities.

The problem for ANZ is the Star Alliance lounge in the UK, which they share with what seems to be 100 other airlines. Awful food, screaming kids, bad lighting and, this week, no internet.

And then the request: would you give up your seat, because . . . even more hushed tones: “We have a celebrity on board who would like it.”

Oh, for God’s sake: who is it? La Toya Jackson.

United, at last: she wants 7K; I have it. But I melted. I have a soft spot for her, after her appearance on I’m a Celebrity last year, and it is clear what terrible pain she has been going through since her brother’s death.

So I said, okay: suddenly, 7K was gone. My seat. My special, special seat, quiet, away from the throng. I had surrendered it in a rare act of martyrdom to someone not who I thought deserved it more than I, but who I thought really needed the privacy more.

“Okay,” I said, “as it’s her.”

“If it was a Royal, I’d have TOLD you to,” I was informed.

Then I saw red. Quite frankly, if it had been a Royal, I would have told them where to go. And it’s a darn sight further down under than even New Zealand is.

My friends are mystified as to why I did it, but I was quick to point out that I expect an upgrade next time I travel, as reward for my sacrifice.

I had also requested that La Toya thank me in person – which she did. I suspect that if the poor lamb had realised she was going to have to show grateful thanks for the entire 11 hour journey, she would have stayed in 5K.

Anyway, at least it got me talking to her wonderful business manager Jeffre (lost the card, J – please get in touch!), and in La Toya I found a person of such extraordinary gentleness, sweetness and charm, I was even more won over by her than ever.

Mind you, if I’d had the chance to spend 11 hours in 7K, I’d have been Miss Sweetness and Light when I landed, too. Thierry, poor man, ended up seeing what 5K can do to a girl.

Remembering Blake 9/30/09

2009-09-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Six months ago tomorrow, I was boarding a flight to come to LA, where, following Blake Snyder’s scriptwriting course in March, I had been sufficiently inspired to pursue my writing career 6000 miles away from home.

Last night, I attended Blake’s memorial. He died suddenly on August 4th, and the outpouring of grief on his website, together with the grateful thanks from those whose lives he had changed, made his death an all-consuming experience.

I heard about his death on Facebook; his longest-standing friend, Tracey, who had known Blake since they were two, heard about it on Twitter. Social networking is the new bearer of both good and bad tidings, and it is also the 21st century means by which the dead live on.

The many tributes to Blake that appeared on an hourly basis on Facebook extended the grieving process; tortuous as it is, I continue to dip into them; it helps me to feel that he is still among us. His words, and the encouragement and support he gave to so many, is, to me, the way he lives on.

Blake’s friends organised a wonderful tribute that, despite the sadness of the occasion, was full of laughter and happy memories. Colleagues and friends shared their thoughts at the Writers Theater in LA, and despite the air of disbelief that still hangs over his death (I still felt that electric shock when Tracey said: “When Blake died . . . "), the evening felt not like an ending but a new beginning.

Blake believed in the power of transformation; it is what informed his own work and his teaching. In his brilliant screenwriting book, Save the Cat, he addresses the Finale of his 15 part structure as the place where “we wrap it up”; the place where “the lessons are applied . . . " The Final Image, he says, “is your proof that change has occurred and that it’s real.”

When I left London six months ago, I was very unhappy. For financial reasons, I had been forced to leave Paris, where I had enjoyed a very happy eight years, and I was miserable being back in the city I have never liked since I first moved there 25 years ago.

I had hit 50, many friends were sick or had already died, and the recession was biting hard in the media industry, as it was (and still is) elsewhere.

Blake’s passion, energy, and support of my writing got me to LA, and in the short time I knew him I felt ensconced in his bubble; that’s the only way I can put it. I drank in every word he said, both professionally and personally, and began to regain much of the confidence I had lost in the UK.

Blake and I talked or e-mailed all the time, and when we met for lunch shortly before he died, we talked about where the “act three” of my story – the autobiographical one that is the subject of the book I am writing – might be heading.

I was expressing fear; Blake, in his eternal optimism, expressed excitement that I didn’t know. Who could have predicted this cruel twist in the narrative that, ironically, has led me into my act three, alone.

Blake spoke often of the mentor figure who, in screenplays, sometimes dies at the end of act two, the point at which the hero decides whether he or she puts the lessons learned into practice, or reverts to the place they were in before.

Over the past six months, I have learned many lessons: about people, writing, and myself. My mentor has gone, but his teachings live on, and fearful (even more so) as I am about where act three might be going, this is undoubtedly the start of it.

I feel that Blake came into my life for a reason: right time, right place. I am blessed to have known him and to have shared in his wisdom.

At the memorial, one of his writing partners, Sheldon Bull, said that we should ask ourselves whether, when we died, people would share in such an evening as we were doing for Blake. If not, he said, we were not living, and we should get out there and make some mistakes.

I don’t know what my act three holds, but of one thing I can be certain: there will be many more mistakes; and they, just like the things I learned from Blake, will be valuable lessons, too.

Nobody’s life is perfect, but despite the sadnesses, there is still enough good to make it worthwhile, and it is by our mistakes that we grow.

April 1st 2009. The day I came to LA. October 1st 2009. A new beginning, Blake. As you say in Chapter two: “The same thing . . . only different!” - thanks to you. Good-night, sweet prince.