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

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

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

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 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 heard only 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 is 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 managed to spend only 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

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

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

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.