The Farmers' Market at 3rd and Fairfax.

The Farmers' Market at 3rd and Fairfax Los Angeles.

Well my fellow non-Americans; we have just been through a grueling few months of wall to wall political television commercials; one person, who wanted to be governor of California spent $121 million and she failed so she is obviously the Governot – think what you could do with that kind of money; all the good you could do instead of giving it television companies to drive us all mad.

Political television commercials are not allowed in the UK and a good thing too; you have no idea how annoying they can be with their mudslinging and lies. Think yourself lucky over there the election campaigns last for a year over here and they are every two years – aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!!

I've been a bit busy of late; I always keep myself busy doing one thing or another; recently I was helping my friend Jim to cast a film we shall be doing soon. Jim writes a blog too and there it is ready for you to click on at the top right of this page. He has written about it on that blog so go and have a look and tell him I sent you.

I finished my second novel, which I told you about before, a few weeks ago and since then I have been doing other things.

I have a new guitar, after the debacle in July, and I still write songs. They are on iTunes if you want to download them but my distributors are always getting on to me to write 'ring tones' for the i-Phone.

At first I just took the intros (and outrows) to some of my songs and used them as ring tones – what's that what's a ring tone? - well you download them from the Internet and use them on your mobile phone – but because I'm only on the i-Phone you have to have an i-Phone to download them too.

Anyway whilst I was at it I recorded a horror laugh and it has sold extremely well. This week I recorded a 'Horror Santa' – let's hope it does as well.

Today I was trying to record a song of mine but had nothing but trouble from my recording equipment so I got on to the makers and they sent me some software which I will try tomorrow.

So I took the Hollywood Reporter, which was delivered today, and went to The Farmer's Market for a cup of Bob's coffee and a doughnut.

Margaret is away in Ventura at the moment till tomorrow so I sat guiltless in the sunshine, away from the political commercials and read.

I'm sure I've written on here about the Farmer's Market before and especially Bob's Doughnuts but it is one of the places in Los Angeles you need to visit; on Saturday we met a very drunk Wolverhampton Wanderers supporter who said he recognised me and he wanted to introduce us to his drinking buddies; he said he had been drinking since 9:00 am – it was 4:30pm when we met him – so he was well oiled.

He showed us the Wolves logo on his jacket and the two tattoos – one on his chest and one on his arm; I have a feeling he would have showed us his tattoos on any part of his body so it was just as well he only had the two.

We met his pals who were a lot sober than he was and left him as he was going around with a jug of beer filling glasses; I don't drink at that time of day any more and I had my Guinness to look forward to at home, so I didn't have one.

The Farmers' Marker is full of characters and we have got to know a lot of them over the years; some of the old ones just disappear and a lot of others just endure; some we speak to and some we don't. I use it as a meeting place – it's my check point Charlie, as my friend Stanley Dyrector once said to me.

If you walk around the market at around 7:00pm on a Friday evening you will see maybe a five hundred people sitting around eating. The best food is at the French Restaurant, where a French Accordionist sits and plays to accompany your bon appetite and the other places we eat are the Gumbo Pot, at the other end of the market from Bob's and the French place, where the bill of fare is from New Orleans, and the Brazilian place half way between the two ends.

But there are loads of places – a French crepe place, Patsies Pizza, were James Dean ate his last meal before heading off to his legendary meeting with Daniel Turnupspeed – I think his first name was Daniel, in any case the guy he had the fatal crash with.

Stars and well known people frequent the place and next door at CBS, even though it's on ABC, the BBC shoot their hit TV show Dancing with the Stars – Celebrity Come Dancing in the UK. It even beat the World Series in the ratings on Monday.

One day a friend of mine stopped me when we were leaving and wanted to introduce me to a friend of his as a British actor; I said 'how are you' to his friend, just as he was putting a piece of fish into his mouth with his right hand; he said 'I won't shake hands with you as I'm full of fish.'

I was grateful for that when he suddenly stood up and said 'Look! A British comedian.'

I looked around and couldn't see where he meant but he walked over to the comedian – by then I could see that it was Eric Idle with his wife.

I didn't quite hear what he was saying to Eric Idle but I saw him put his fishy hand in to his and heard Eric Idle say 'Eric Idle – I'm Eric Idle.'

It reminded me of a scene in Annie Hall where a gangster type goes up to Woody Allen and say's 'You're on television; what's your name?'

Woody Allen says very quietly 'Harvey Singer' (or whatever the name of his character was) and the gangster shouts 'Hey guys – over here; Harvey Singer.'

So Eric Idle stood there as nice as can be and then the guy introduces us to Eric Idle: 'over here' he said 'Eric Idle' and Eric Idle shakes hands with me and then Margaret - so one of us got the fish!!

By the way do you know Diane Keaton's real name – Annie Hall. Well her nick name was Annie even before she made the movie and she was born a Keaton.