Clearing of the Mist

I needed this. 

Long periods of time spent just in front of the computer, doing what I do best. 

Writing, revising, reading, re-reading . . . While the sound of the Pacific hitting the shore plays in the background. One morning, a gentle, pale white break, and a sun struggling to light the day on the foam; today, an angry effort as waves try to make themselves heard. 

But always, for me, the most calming sound in the world.

    

This is a part of LA with which I am not familiar. Having lived only in Beverly Hills and 30^th in Santa Monica, I know only street life and the handful of bars and restaurants that became my regular haunts. I regularly went to West Hollywood when I lived here, too, but found it too congested. I still do.

    

And while I think this oasis of calm between Venice Beach and Marina del Rey would not suit me full time (I really don’t want to have to drive around here, and the buses are less regular in this part of town), I welcome this period of calm to re-group. My friends have given me their spectacular place while they are back in the UK for ten days, and they will never know how much it means to me.

   

 It’s hard to get silence and stillness these days. At my home back in Cardiff, three sets of neighbours have had building work going on for nearly a year. My dear friends in Hollywood put me up out here, but I had to move out because there is a celebrity having a house built close by, and I swear Beirut at the height of its troubles was quieter.

    

Living in hotels is a nightmare – which part of the “Do not disturb” sign on the door do staff not understand when they come knocking to ask if I want my mini-bar refilled? Living in a hotel where they try to charge you $6 per tea-bag (get it sorted, Thompson group) is even worse.

    

So now, I am in heaven. I am working on a script that I am developing with a TV company and finishing my book (writing, not reading). The phone doesn’t ring and I rarely have to call anyone. Every time I look out of the window, a painting stares back at me: a Hopper single figure, caught in a moment of contemplation; a Turner water colour; a blank canvas, even, just waiting for the next person to paint their story upon it.

   

It’s a grey, cloudy day at the beach today, but still those waves: always the promise of renewal, tide after tide. 

And I am thinking that this is the most content and calm I have been in a long, long time.

Twin Towns - Cardiff and Miami (yes, really)

I am not good living out of a suitcase. My suitcase is bigger than I am. In fact, I am thinking of dispensing with my clothes and living in said suitcase to save on rent.

    

I have been desperate to get a place back in LA, not only because of the suitcase issue but because I just love the city. The fact that everywhere you go, people are talking about TV and film; the great service in almost every restaurant and bar; the terrific bus service (people still laugh at me, but it’s mega cheap and regular, and the drivers are a darn sight nicer than the taxi drivers - and, more to the point, know where they are going); the weather – it’s my kind of town (as the song goes).

    

But it’s impossible to find an apartment that is exactly right. I took one of my landlords (who charged me a fortune for a place that was mediocre, at best) to court last year (and won), so nice as anyone seems at the outset, it can still turn sour. In my experience, it is better to go with a company, even if you have to pay a little above the odds and compromise a little on space. But at least, unlike private landlords, a company is professional and doesn’t try to do you over when you leave.

    

So while I’ve been looking, it’s been suitcase time, and I also returned to Miami for Britweek Visits Miami. The annual LA Britweek event (now two weeks), set up by UK TV producer Nigel Lythgoe and ex-diplomat Bob Peirce and his wife Sharron, has been running for seven years. This was its first showing out of California and a jolly time was had by all.

    

There are apparently plans afoot to twin Miami with my local home city of Cardiff in South Wales. Miami is fairly hot for most of the year; Cardiff is the second wettest city in the UK. We have the M4 and the Severn Bridge that carries people with ease from England into Wales; Miami is a congestion of taxis in a tortoise marathon, and if you want to get anywhere, you should have set out yesterday.

   

 Cardiff has the Millennium Stadium and rugby; Miami, Marlins Park and baseball (and if you want to get there in a hurry, you should have set off last week). Cardiff has the River Taff on its doorstep; Miami has the Atlantic Ocean. 

You can’t get a drink in Miami after 2am (and most places, apart from nighclubs, are wiping down tables before midnight; Cardiff was recently names the drinking capital of Europe (as the packed police cells and A & E on a Saturday night bear witness).

    

Yes, it’s easy to see why, given how much the two cities have in common, they should be paired.

  

I actually hope it comes off. Justin Jones, who with his wife Taima pulled off Britweek in Miami, is Welsh. Many local businesses participated in particular events, while some big businesses from other parts of the US sponsored others. And I even got to have my picture taken with Lennox Lewis, who was a guest speaker at the opening gala. He’s a big boy.

    

My trip back to LA was not without incident. Having been somehow downgraded on American Airlines, I found myself hemmed in next to an enormous woman from Virginia who might even have been Virginia, such was her bulk. Her knitting needles were already clacking away at a jumper clearly intended for her 60 stone niece, and the eight gallon carton of Pepsi was sitting precariously on the tiny table between us. Her leg, which was about the size of Gibralter, was up on the dashboard in front of us.

    

It was all too much. Too big. Too much. Too in my face. Too overwhelming for my five foot stature. And I had a massive claustrophic panic attack and almost passed out. The plane was full, so moving to the better seat where I belonged was not an option. Getting off appeared to be the only one. Ground staff were called, but I was told I would have to be on stand-by on any other flight (which would have been a whole lot of other stress). The captain came to see me and asked if I was afraid of flying. No. I do it all the time. Was I on any meds? No. Are you sure you’re not on any meds? NO!

    

He explained that he didn’t want to have to land somewhere mid-flight to get me off, and I told him that this was precisely why I was bringing it up before the doors closed.

    

Anyway, Virginia and her continent of sweater kindly moved to the window seat and I spent a calm flight back to LA in her aisle seat, from where I watched All About Eve and Hitchcock, starring Anthony Hopkins in the lead.

    

I love the way his accent keeps slipping into his native Welsh – I will never be able to think of Psy-kaw in quite the same way again. 

Come the great twinning programme with Cardiff, they’ll all be speaking like that in Miami by Christmas.

  

  

  

Mama Mia-mi - Part One

SOUTH BEACH - JANUARY 2013

No mice, no lice, no spice. 

All the plays on the title of the TV show Miami Vice I had been hoping to adopt in writing about Miami Beach, came to nothing.

   

Miami Gripes was the best that I could do. And there were so many. Oh, so many. The dreadful music, the rudeness, the darkness, the service, the dirt, the runners, the cyclists, the internet connection, the rip-off merchants, the motorists, the shouting . . .

   

I could go on. And will. But let’s start with the positive. The Atlantic Ocean: a perfect aqua: white waves meeting equally white sand and an empty beach before breakfast.

   

And now back to the gripes. Because, once you have taken in the beauty of the ocean, what you are left with is Ibiza on Sea.

   

I had gone to Miami to escape the January winter in Cardiff, and friends offered me a good deal on their apartment. Having fixed up to write a travel piece, too, along with the host of my favourite US TV show, Judge Alex, it was almost cheaper to go to Miami than to heat my Cardiff house for the month.

   

But I quickly discovered that Miami Beach is right up/down there (depending on your viewpoint) with the least sophisticated parts of the Spanish coastline.

   

If I didn’t get killed there, it was entirely likely that I would have turned killer. There was just too much hair, and women tossing their manes with absurd regularity, seemingly intent on taking out one of my eyes in their efforts to invade my personal space and take it for themselves. First comes the hair, then the lit cigarette, brandished with equal carelessness. I had a choice between either being follicled to death, or burnt.

   

And another thing . . . They’re all gay (well, it seemed that way)! Now, I have nothing against gays, male or female; loads of my friends are gay. In fact, most of my friends are gay. And while I have zilch interest in finding a partner, a little flirtation doesn’t go amiss. In South Beach, this was about as likely as a mole getting a suntan. 

I was definitely the only non-gay in the village. On board the Virgin flight over, I had stood at the bar next to two men and tried to make conversation, but they had eyes only for the two men on the opposite side, who had eyes only for each other. We were joined by two women who, I quickly discovered, had been an item for two years. Suddenly, I regretted boarding a flight to  Miami.

  

“What did you expect?” friends asked, with incredulity, when I returned. “It’s Miami.” Yes, I knew that. But I was expecting beefy coppers, muscled personal trainers . . . Not that gays can’t be either, but I’m a sucker for what I see on the telly.

   

Then there were the people who I never knew were gay or not, because they were too busy trying to kill me as they jogged along the boardwalk. Those that weren’t jogging were whizzing by on upright two-wheelers; others were on bikes. The boardwalk is apparently the empire of the outdoor enthusiast, and you risked your life if you paused to look at the ocean. I could see my autopsy report already: “Killed in the path of oncoming jogger”.

   

So why, in March, did I find myself back in the place I swore never to go again? 

It's coming up in part two very shortly, when I have recovered from the trauma of my pre-take-off, claustrophobic panic attack on the American Airlines flight back to LA. 

Long story. But let's just say: don't put a five foot tall Welsh woman next to an 84 stone Virginian knitting a sweater for her 60 stone daughter, drinking from an eight gallon cup of Pepsi and blocking your entrance to the inflatable slide (which she would burst anyway)  with her leg.

Like I said. All in part two.

Bottom Patting - Is it Really Such a Crime?

John the Baptist pats women on the bum. Worse, John the Baptist says if they don’t like it, they should F**k off.

   

Small wonder he ended up with his head on a platter.

   

John the Baptist was the first acting role in which I saw Jeremy Irons. I was a young teenager on my first visit to London with Hope Baptist Chapel in Bridgend. David Essex was Jesus, but Jeremy stole the show as the soon to be headless prophet.

   

And he likes to pat women’s bottoms.

   

The story re-surfaced again this week, in a different context, and I confess to never having heard it before. But it’s the type of headline to instantly grab the predictable barrage of complaints in an age where, it seems, any sign of affection towards another human being is misconstrued as a personal, offensive and unwanted invasion.

   

Jeremy, I applaud you. 

I have touched men’s bottoms all my life and now, in my Fifties, hope I continue to do so. I like bottoms. Round ones. Square ones. Big cheeks. Small cheeks. They are usually the first part of a man’s physique that a woman looks at (if his back is to you, that is). I imagine those cheeks trouser-less; I have been known to try to make them trouser-less; I have also been known (less rarely) to force them to put their trousers on when they want to take my friendly pat to the next level. But I have never put anyone under threat by being the patter, or put any man under threat (I don’t think) being the pattee.

   

So why the big fuss?

   

In the wake of sexual scandals worldwide and, in Britain, the Jimmy Savile abuse of young people that came to light only after his death, everyone is running scared. Don’t touch, don’t grope, don’t try it on, don’t say Fancy a quickie . . . Don’t do or say anything that might be interpreted as an invasion of personal space – hygienic or emotional.

  

  

It’s out of hand – literally and metaphorically, and if you are of a pattee persuasion, don’t hold your breath; it doesn’t look as if it’s going to change.

   

We might be alone, Jeremy. But I saw where your last allegedly errant act ended up - as Salome’s dinner on a big plate.

   

I might still take the risk. I don’t have many bottom-patting years left – not without risking arrest, anyway; and I can always plead insanity. 

I’ll tell them John the Baptist made me do it.

    

  

    

   

The Day I Saved the World in Paris

The difference between French and American humour was made very apparent this weekend. 

Actually, the difference between French humour and everyone else’s in the world was made very apparent. 

D’you know, I am going to clarify that still further. The French are warped.

   

So, I am sitting in a Paris bar in the Gare du Nord, celebrating the Welsh win over France in the second weekend of the Six Nations’ annual rugby tournament. 

There are a lot of very drunk, happy Welsh people and a lot of very drunk, sad French. 

I am facing the door. 

What happens next does so in a millisecond. 

I see a man with his face covered not only in a black motorcycle helmet, but also what appears to be a black mask under it. He is dressed in black leather, moves very fast, brandishing something in the air and he is yelling. My French is probably about 70% fluent and I understand enough to know that this is a hold-up.

   

I have no idea whether throwing yourself to the ground is the best thing to do in these circumstances, but it is what I do. And I suddenly hear myself screaming to everyone else to get down too, and words coming out of my mouth that I think might have been along the lines of: “Stay down, everyone! Give him what he wants!” In a language that may be French. Or Norwegian. Who knows. It is a gurgle of syllables; a sound of trapped terror.  

   

My voice is loud. Very, very loud. So loud, in fact, that it appears to stun the “gunman”, who turns out to be nothing of the kind – just a friend of the owner “having a laugh”.

   

The first I know of the jest is when I uncover my head, open my eyes and realise I am not dead. Not only that, I am the only person lying on the ground. And still speaking Norwegian. The Welsh are still drinking, but now the French are not sad; they are laughing hysterically at the woman in a little black dress, fishnet tights and Jimmy Choo shoes, prostrate before them.

   

They say that your life flashes before you when you think you are going to die. Mine didn’t. My instinctive reaction was to save everyone else. On an airline, when they tell you to “Fit your own oxygen mask before helping others”, I have always thought that it was stating the bleedin’ obvious. Why would you help anyone else when your own life was in danger?

   

Yet I went into rescue mode. I wanted to be a saviour, even if it meant that my own life would be sacrificed in the process. I felt strong. Invincible. I would be dead, but my actions would have saved a generation.

   

When I stood up (oh, how they were laughing, those bloody French), I went into shock mode. Serious, serious shock mode. My whole body started to shake, I was sobbing uncontrollably, I couldn’t breathe. I felt every fibre of my being convulse.

   

What sort of idiot, in these times, thinks it is funny to enter a bar – particularly on a day when there is a high profile event in town – and pretend to the assembled throng that they might be about to die?

   

Why does anyone think that is even remotely funny?

In the US, he would have been shot on the spot.

  

In the UK, he would at least have been arrested.

   

But, more than anything else, the thing that worries me is: Why did nobody else react?

   

I lived In London during the worst years of terrorism. In the UK and, having been living in LA for nearly three years, I am acutely aware of the necessity of being vigilant at all times – 9/11 transformed the US in that respect. Lone bags, people acting in a shifty manner, things that don’t quite add up – I watch everything very closely. Yes, it’s my job as a writer to do that, but I also think it’s our job as ordinary citizens to try to make our environment as safe as we possibly can. As Jerry Springer says: Look after yourselves – and each other.

   

Talking of Jerry . . . I wondered whether my work as a TV critic made me extra-sensitive to these particular circumstances or, indeed, events in general: reading high drama into everyday situations that might pass other people by?

   

Possibly. Probably. But, to me, it is still an act of total stupidity to play a gunman – ever.

   

I have been trying to laugh it off and it has made a good story; but really, it ain’t that funny. The good news for all my friends and family, however, is that they know when push comes to shove, my instinct is to put their lives before my own.

   

Call me St Jacqueline. 

Or buy me a pint. 

Just not in Gare du Nord.

  

   

The Day I Saved Paris (the place, not the woman)

“This dog is black, but that dog is white.” 

I had been in France just two weeks in 2001 and that was all I had learned from the daily Berlitz class I signed up for. I was in a group with two young American women who took four hours one morning to establish that when the teacher said “hier”, she meant “yesterday”, and we were talking in the past tense. “Je suis . . . “ they kept saying, the present first person that they insisted on using in response to every single question about anything. They would have taken a lot longer than four hours to establish the move to the past tense, had I not screamed, shortly before lunchtime and fearing another morning totally wasted: “IT’S THE PAST TENSE FOR GOD’S SAKE!” which endeared me to no one.

   

The teacher was annoyed that I had introduced any English into the proceedings, but not as disturbed as she was when I led the two Americans astray one afternoon and we enjoyed a lunch that finished about 2am the following morning in a local bar.

   

Each day, we had to come to class and say what we had been doing the night before. I decided to confess: “J’ai bu trois bouteilles St Emilion” (I drank three bottles of St Emilion). “Non, non, non, trois verres” (glasses) corrected the teacher. “Er, non. Trois bouteilles.” “Non! C’est impossible!”

   

As it happened, I learned more of the language in the bar that one night than I did in the classes, where, in addition to being able to describe the colour of different dogs, I was now able to say that they had four legs, two ears and liked to go for walks. At the end of the course, I felt just about confident enough to order a coffee, an orange juice and a shandy. I didn’t drink any of them, but it was marginally useful to know that, if so required, I could order one for somebody else. Where Berlitz and all the language books I bought to assist me fell down, was in their failure in teaching me how to say: “There is a man on board who says he has a bomb.”

   

I had always wanted to pull the emergency cord on a train and had come close so many times, usually on the First Great Western between Cardiff and Paddington when, in the days of smoking in public places, somebody lit up in a non-smoking carriage. I once came close to pulling it when someone refused to stop using his phone in the quiet carriage, too, and was probably just one can of Strongbow away from doing so; but the inate knowledge that you pulled the cord only in a state of real emergency, such as one that was a matter of life or death, always held me back. That, and the fact that First Great Western replaced cords with a box involving hammers, double-sheeted glass and incomprehensible instructions. 

I never dreamed that the first (and only) occasion (to date) that I would pull an emergency cord would be on the Paris Metro. Nor did I imagine that I would bring the whole underground system to a crashing halt with a security alert that sent half the Paris police force running down into the confines of the Rue de Bac station, guns at the ready. Alcohol had been consumed.

  

It had been a normal sort of day. My Auntie Barbara and Uncle Brian were over from Canada in the summer of 2003, and we had just been to the Champs Elysses in the 1^st arrondisement, where we saw the largest railway exhibition ever to be mounted on a road (we had come across it by accident; I had no interest at that moment in any locomotive other than one that could take me to a bar quickly). Next, we went to Montmartre, where there was a food and drink fayre, the kind that can be found in villages and towns over France all year round. There were dozens of wine growers, as there always are, encouraging us to sample their wares. 

The clichés of Montmartre are best enjoyed on a Sunday, when, despite the increased number of tourists and dodgy artists drawing them, it still seems to provide a haven, a place suspended in time, in its old streets and lamp-posts lighting up rows of steep steps at dusk. Relaxing over a long lunch and taking in the view from the steps of Sacre Coeur, of the whole of Paris stretched out below, including the Eiffel Tower, which lights up at dusk, is one of the most enjoyable activities the city has to offer. We ate at the tiny Au Virage Lepic in the rue Lepic, which is less touristy than the many Prix Fixe restaurants in the main square, and if you manage to get a seat you can pass away hours admiring the paraphernalia on the walls and shelves while sampling the best boeuf Bourgignon in the city.

   

Topped up with more sample wines from the stalls, we took the bus from Montmartre to Pigalle and caught the Mairie d’Issy metro that would take us to Rue de Bac, the closest metro to my apartment on that line. The carriage was crowded, and although we found three seats together, we were prevented from taking them because a man with a case was taking up two seats: one for himself, and the other for a large black bin liner. I wanted to sit down, but worrying that he was carrying something delicate that could not be moved, asked him what was in the bag. 

“A bomb,” he replied. I laughed nervously, but his face remained impassive. “And the case?” “Another bomb.” He was reading a newspaper written in a language I thought looked like Arabic, and in the wake of 9/11, I, like many others, was nervous of anyone of even slightly Arabian appearance who didn’t have a copy of The Times in his hand. And if someone of that appearance is running round the country telling you they are carrying a bomb, you tend to take it more seriously than you might once have done. 

We decided to move carriages, one at a time at each stop. But I was still worried. In Britain, you could be put in prison for making hoax calls or joking about carrying bombs; in my eyes, he had already committed a crime, merely by the suggestion of it, and what if he really was going to blow the place up? I returned to our original carriage to check that the bomber was still there. 

“He’s reading an Arab newspaper,” whispered my aunt, fully entering into the drama of the situation. I was cautious at being spurred to action by the assumptions of others and recalled the last time I had been encouraged to take action against an alleged miscreant in 1995 in Bath, where I was then living - this time, over lunch at the Theatre Vaults pub. There were Wanted posters up all over town, as the police, who had been trying to catch a rapist for over a decade, at last had a likeness. They were warning women to be wary of men trying to lure them to night clubs, as the rapist had been doing, and so, when a man joined us at our table and started asking us if he wanted to go with him to a club later on, bells started to ring. The more time went on, the more he resembled the man in the poster. I went to the other side of the bar, where the gay men hung out and asked them to look first at the poster and then at our new friend. “It’s him! It’s him!” they screamed. Never ask a gay man for an objective opinion if there is a drama to be made out of a mini-crisis. “You should call the police!”

   

I looked again, from poster to villain, villain to poster, and back again. Yes, I agreed; it was definitely him. I went back to my seat, grabbed my mobile and went outside to phone the police. I didn’t have the local number, so dialled 999, which gave events an air of urgency they didn’t actually warrant. I explained that a stranger had been acting suspiciously, trying to whisk us off to night clubs, but urged the police to take just a subtle look.

   

Within the minute, three coppers in full uniform were in the pub bar, demanding that the interloper go outside to answer some questions. They interrupted the man’s rendering of a Verdi Requiem; he had just come from his choral group and was excited about a forthcoming concert, the details of which we would never hear, because he came back crying and wanting to know who had shafted him with such a cruel joke. He left us to our guilt and, when we sobered up, noted that the man in the poster bore a greater resemblance to The Muppet Show’s Fozzie Bear than it did to any living human being.

   

So my record when it came to policing the streets was not a good one, and my inebriated judgment certainly dubious in deciding who to rope in to support my case. But my aunt and uncle were sure we had got our man, and with thinly disguised mounting hysteria, turned to me with anxious faces, expecting me to take action.

   

Right. I had a plan. We would go to the far end of the carriage, away from the bomber, and wait for our stop. Then, and only then, would I pull the emergency cord (I wasn’t that stupid; I wanted to get home, even if was not necessarily going to be in one piece).

   

We moved up the carriage until we reached the last door before the driver and, when the train stopped at Rue de Bac, I grabbed the cord and pulled. Heck, it felt good. All eyes turned to me immediately, angry passengers clearly convinced I was the proverbial train nutcase. I turned desperately to a French woman standing beside me and tried to justify my actions. As all British people do when they don’t speak the language, I shouted way too loudly: “L’HOMME DANS LE TRAIN – IL M’A DIT IL A UNE BOMB!” 

The French woman let out a little scream that acted as a trigger to spread panic further along the carriage. When the doors opened at rue de Bac, I leapt out and went to the front of the train to speak to the driver, who was also rather put out by the unscheduled stop. She said she had a timetable to meet and she had to get to Montparnesse, so what was the hold up? 

“L’HOMME M’A DIT IL A UNE BOMBE!” I cried again, panic now rising in my own voice on a par with that which was spreading through the whole train. Suddenly, there were bodies and noise everywhere. A group of German girls with rucksacks emerged from the middle of the train and started running frantically for the exit; frowning faces were leaning out of doors, asking each other whether they should run or risk being blown up; an old woman with a Chihuahua practically broke the poor thing’s neck as she yanked it off the train and up the station steps. 

The word “bomb” travelled from carriage to carriage; movement was everywhere, panic spreading. I ran back up the platform to check whether my bomber had joined in the melee, but he was still sitting there, oblivious to the terror he had created around him. I ran back, struggling against the tide of chaos and madness where, just five minutes before, there had been utter calm and an easy route on the train’s way to Mairie d”Issy. 

The unfolding drama now convinced the driver that she should call security, and very quickly a woman in uniform arrived and I once again became fluent in French. “Dans mon carriage, l’homme m’a dit il a deux bombs.” It was definitely two bombs now.

 “And he can’t speak French or English,” said my uncle, even though the bomber had only spoken four words to us. “And he’s reading an Arab newspaper,” added my aunt, helpfully. 

The official asked if the man was still on the train and I dutifully led her to where he was sitting, now with his black plastic bag on his lap. Apart from him, the carriage was empty, word having quickly spread that the whole of Paris was about to go up in smoke.

 I don’t know what happened next because no one asked me for a statement; I, who had foiled Al Qaeda’s latest mission to annihilate the west, was redundant and ordered away, along with the last straddling passengers. We left the station and made for the nearest bar, meeting, running in the opposite direction down the Metro steps, the Paris police force, batons and guns poised for action. 

We ordered a drink and contemplated our adventure. Had I done the right thing? I think so. If ever I was going to pull an emergency cord in life, this was the time to do it: one small pull for mankind, one great haul in the battle against terrorism. My bomber deserved to go to the guillotine for posing a threat, irrespective of whether there had been any intention behind it. 

My aunt, uncle and I toasted our victory with a fervour not seen since the Storming of the Bastille in 1789. An hour later, we were not quite so confident of the validity of our actions or our pigeon French. Maybe he had said that his bum was on the seat.