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.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Amazing, Awesome, Aw, Just Shut The Hell Up 12th August 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Gotcha! LAPD's Finest Hour 8/8/10
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.
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.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Time To Go Home? 7/29/10
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Is That A Truncheon In Your Pocket, Or . . . 7/20/10
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.
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.
Monday, July 5, 2010
The Cleanest Bottom In Hollywood 7/5/10
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.
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.
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