The Academy Awards

Well there's the view (above) from our apartment of Runyon Canyon; you can see what the weather is like here and it's the same ten minutes walk away to the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood where today they are holding the Academy Awards.

So the whole world can see what the weather is like here – our kids in England can see as they bask in the cold there.

At the moment the red carpet is on wall to wall television and each star is being interviewed by all the TV stations. As I sit here typing this at 5.22 pm I can hear the multitude of helicopters hovering above sending pictures out to the rest of the world.

Elsewhere in Hollywood streets are blocked off as thousands of limos – some stretch and some not – are welcomed to the show; a lot of them are arriving in SUVs and to try and negotiate the streets just to get home is a pain; but I can stand it as it's only once a year.

The limos have been 'on the road' for many hours as they have to be guided to Hollywood and each has to arrive at a certain time. Then they go through a security system but before he went through the system George Clooney jumped out of his limo and walked along Hollywood to meet the fans and I'm sure they were delighted. He didn't just give them a quick hello he really stayed. There was so much fencing between him and the fans it reminded me of when I was in Belfast 35 years ago.

I've only known one person who actually went to the awards in a limo and she had to start out at 11.00 am and wait in the limo line on Beverly Boulevard; in the limo they had drinks and snacks.

The other person I knew who went was Julian Fellowes who won the Academy Award for writing Gosford Park and he told me he was surprised when he won as he thought the winners were, somehow, informed.

There are only two people who actually know the results at the moment and if it ever leaked out everybody would know where the information came from.

This is the one big event in America that the rest of the world take notice of; the super bowl, the basket ball play games, the so called World Series, The Golden Globes or whatever you can think of mean nothing to the rest of the world but the occasion today does.

On Thursday night The Roosevelt Hotel held a roof top party and today we have a notice on the front door of our building to tell us where we can complain about the noise – which I didn't hear by the way – and it seems to me that the people who would complain would be those who didn't get an invitation.

It's the same with movie shoots; there is a campaign to try and bring movies and TV productions back to Hollywood as over the last few years run away production has taken them off to far away places with strange sounding names – like New Mexico which gives a really good tax incentive.

But can you blame them shooting movies elsewhere when people complain here if you shoot in their street – just like the people complaining about the noise from The Roosevelt Hotel and the fact that for one week in their miserable lives they have to make a few detours around the streets.

Anyway on with the Academy Awards which start at 5.30 – I have my Guinness ready and the oven is cooking dinner timed to be ready for when the awards end.