The Men who Run Hollywood.

There we are above – the men who run Hollywood. On the left, wearing a baseball hat, and red shirt, is a film director; he has directed, among many other things, quite a few episodes of the TV series Star Trek, The Twilight Zone and many movies. The next one across the back with the white hair is me – and you know me; Hollywood actor and novice novelist - and to my left, wearing sun glasses and the inevitable baseball cap, is a Hollywood agent. He has represented many of the actors you may have heard of and seen work throughout your life. Then we have a writer: he writes screenplays and is wearing the aqua marine zipper jacket, the baseball hat and a big smile. He has written many movies, which have been produced, and a couple of books and, as you can see, is about to get stuck into that breakfast we were all enjoying a couple of Sundays ago. In the background you will see The Pacific Ocean and yes that is a man wearing a cowboy hat playing a guitar behind the bullet proof glass; click on the photo if you want to see it large. Oh the girl? She is a guest of one of the above. She was telling us that she has started to make guitars. As you can see, we have the best table at the Fig Tree Restaurant and on the right, by the door, is our security 'back up' in the white trousers. He is talking to someone and getting them to bring the limo around with our bikes and making sure the paparazzi are kept out! The girl taking the photograph is Angelina Jolie, by the way, but we didn't take one of her. Of course there are other people who think they run Hollywood: people like Tom Cruise, agents like CAA and the rest of them – but as you can see they don't have the best table at The Fig Tree and we do. Hollywood is run by agents, actors and writers and there we are – we even have a guest who makes guitars but I have told you that already. Actually I am a guest too, these days, as I now live in London where I am pursuing my career of trying to run London; but there is no one to run it with me yet. My wife isn't interested; she's far too sensible. We used to meet each Sunday, as above, and report to each other the comings and goings, happenings and shenanigans of our busy week; they still do that – I don't and I miss it. We would tell of the movies we'd seen, sometimes even telling the whole plot, which would save the others from going to see the talked about movie at all. Sometimes one of us would tell the story of the same movie t wo weeks in a row forgetting it had been relayed the week before. That is called a senior moment but, as you can see, none of us were spring chickens.

Abdulmutallab, the Cuba connection and the wise men not finding their way.

We have been inundated here on news shows with the Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab since it happened – or nearly happened if you like; every news programme, every magazine programme - every day.

There are a few things about the whole episode and Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab which fascinates me.

First of all I am using his full name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and not just Abdulmutallab in case there are lots of other Abdulmutallabs and you get mixed up as to which Abdulmutallab I am talking about.

Number one: doesn't he look a lot like Tiger Woods? He does, doesn't he – will they be asking Cuba Gooding Jr to play him too?

Another thing which I find intriguing is the list of bad guy countries that have been red flagged for special attention; you know countries like Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen and Cuba; Cuba??? Cuba?????

What has Cuba got to do with anything?

Can't the Americans get rid of the 'hard on' they have for Cuba after all this time? It's all over - the Cubans have no plans, I'm sure, to invade or even attack America.

After Hurricane Katrina Castro offered help and the USA ignored him; what does America want Cuba to do now?

Castro got rid of a very very corrupt government run by the American Mafia, turned the country from being mostly illiterate to mostly literate by sending young student teachers into the rural areas to teach reading to workers in isolated spots throughout the country; he established a universal health care system and before he reached towards the USSR Castro reached towards the USA to recognise his government and the USA refused.

The USA recognised the Batista government in Cuba immediately after the Batista military coup which happened overnight a short time before a general election; after the coup Batista worked with the mob and the mob had their own country which Castro got rid of – I am still bewildered!

Castro is reputed to have done some bad things too but show me a leader who hasn't!

But back to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab; I know we have seen a lot of 'after the event' wisdom with the accusation that the USA security services didn't join the dots.

Well you know sometimes there are so many dots that they are hard to join up.

I have heard that the embassies around the world get one hundred and thirty five tips per day about some individual or other being a bad guy so Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father's information must have been lost in the mix; the fact that the security services had heard that there was a Nigerian in Yemen who was being trained by Al Qaeda must also have been lost in the mix and when he booked his ticket one way and paid cash and had no baggage for his trip must also have gone astray.

An ex-CIA man on the radio the other day was asked why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was refused a visa to enter Britain and granted one for the USA and he answered 'because the British are better at this game than we are.'

I think he meant that there are so many law enforcement agencies in the USA that they seem to fight each other and they don't have computers that speak to each so things tend to – get lost in the mix.

But what gets me about Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the other terrorists from Al-Qaeda who carried out the nine eleven attacks is why they didn't buy round trip tickets, why they didn't have luggage with them and why they paid in cash.

These are the three things that WE all know about so why didn't Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the nine eleven terrorists go through the motions of packing bags and buying round trip tickets? To pretend they were regular passengers? WTF?

By the way my friend Jim wrote in the comments after my last post about the Christmas trees and the fact that the Americans tend to take them down too early:

For the record, my mom who's 86 celebrated Christmas with me in Canada with a tree I cut down with my handy axe (actually my friend's axe)in the real wilderness of Northern Manitoba and had a cousin's two 6-yr olds and myself and some people in their 70's decorate it. And it's still standing in my mom's living room, although she thinks it might come down this week-end. Cheers to trees staying up as long as they can, don't we owe it to them?

I can vouch that Jim did cut down the tree and there's a photo up at the top to prove it but the reason the trees are supposed to come down on twelfth night (apart from being a fire hazard when the needles fall off) is that it is supposed to be unlucky and according to the traditions of man, and not the Bible, January 6 is the Epiphany - sometimes called "Little Christmas" or "Little Epiphany" - and is the day the Magi met the newborn King and presented him with his royal gifts.

It is explained to children that, if you take down your lights before January 6, the Wise Men may not be able to find their way, even though all the Christmas lights in the world, combined, would not be as bright as the star God used to guide them.

Taking down ornaments on January 6 is a European tradition still followed by many people of German, Polish and Czech ancestry. The tradition, in part, dates before 1900 when ornaments were often real fruit, nuts and marzipan and would be eaten.

My second bike - the Raleigh.

                                                      BUDDY HOLLY

Hey!! A lot of people liked the story of my first bike last week and the frustrations of the 13 year old boy that I used to be when it came to girls; well things didn't get better with girls for years.

I might have said this before but I left school at the age of 15; that was the legal age for leaving. It was not called a high school and the only thing we received when leaving was a 'leaving certificate.'

I remember receiving that as if it was yesterday; we had to line up in the school hall to shake hands with the headmaster who would shake our hands with the one hand and slip us the certificate with the other. I can remember the look on his face; it was a look of concern as I wasn't at all ready for the big wide world of work; I was a child.

His name was WH Griffin and he would sign our end of term reports in red ink – this is disgusting! - or could do better!

I think he was a nice man but the little bit of authority had gone to his head as he sat in his Ivory Tower of an office. He really didn't want me to leave and had many a talk with me about staying on; but what would I do? Look through the window to see what the weather was doing and dream of playtime?

I used to pretend I was in a movie playing a school child and whenever I was excused to go to the lavatory I would walk the corridors of the school pretending to be one of Flash Gordon's guards; it's a wonder they didn't put me away; my parents used to call me John Barrymore.

I left school that day and hardly saw any of my school friends again. I had loads of friends at school, I was never bullied and never bullied anybody. I had my fair share of fist fights, mostly when I first started the secondary school, I was no trouble and I was popular with my mates but that was it. None of them lived near me so I lost touch.

I left school with no job to go to and no idea of what I wanted to do; the first thing I had to do was to register at the Labour Exchange and they sent me for a job in the centre of Birmingham at an Army and Navy Store called Oswald Bailey.

It was my first interview and they offered me the job as a warehouseman – 'starting Monday.'

I was delighted; I would be earning money and I had a job – a job!! I was a working man and when I got home I found that that was my new nickname; The Working Man!

My dad gave me his Raleigh bicycle, or said I could use it to go to work, and off I went on that first day; it was a 'sit up and beg' bicycle with old men's handlebars and brakes but it saved me bus fair.

The job was great for five days or so; I had to receive goods at the 'goods inward' door and put what I received into stock after checking them and signing them in.

I had to climb ladders and when I was up the ladder the supervisor would put his hand up my legs to try and feel my arse and genitals. Well I was at a Secondary Modern Boys School and I was used to such foolery. I did what I did at school and lashed out with my feet. He didn't like it and said he was only joking but it didn't matter how many times I kicked he still did it.

I wouldn't tell my dad as he would have killed him; my dad taught me and my brother to box so we could always look after ourselves at school but at work with the really big fella and me being so little the boxing lesson didn't really work – I have to say it didn't really shock me; but I didn't like it.

I heard some tall tales from other boys of bullying in the work place and initiation ceremonies so what I was getting was quite tame. The big thing I remember from Oswald Bailey's is that Buddy Holly died when I worked there and that was the worst day of my life. Nobody there knew who he was and a fella called Ken Lloyd, who was a jazz fan, said it was a good thing he died as he was a terrible influence on music. Little did he know what influence Buddy had on all people of my age but I didn't take offence as most of them were squares and they liked Johnny Mathis and people like that.

Oh the other thing I remember about the place was a blonde girl called Brenda Smith. She worked in the office and was the only other person of my age who worked there; I have no idea how we kind of became buddies – that's all I can say we were – buddies.

I didn't know her that well but when I was offered a job on the post office she asked me if I would still be able to see her. So I started meeting her after work, on my dad's bike, and I would walk her to her bus stop.

She would get the 45 bus along Pershore Road to where she lived.

We had many a conversation on the way and sometimes I would leave my bike and take the bus with her so far and when we passed the cinema on Bristol Road she would say things like 'when are you going to take me to the pictures?'

I never caught on to that.

She told me she lived at 99 Baldwin Road and so I would take a bike ride up there later in the evenings and then the next day I would tell her and she would say 'let me know next time you come and I'll meet you.'

Again I didn't catch on.

I have often thought about that first job at Oswald Bailey; there were many departments there. They had a shoe and boot department, a tent department, clothes and other things to do with camping or the military.

The salesmen wore suits and were all ages. An older gentleman would take his hat off to women in the street – he was old school – and was nearing retirement I would say.

There was a strange hierarchy; the salesmen thought they were a cut above us poor buggers in the warehouse; they wore suits and we wore brown cow gowns.

The owner of the company was the son of Oswald Bailey and there was a Mister Robbins, who was the managing director, and a Mister Sharrat,who was the manager of the shop; Mister Robbins was the man who gave me the interview and hired me and asked what my plans were if I got the job and I told him I was after promotion – as if???

We worked a five and a half day week having a half day on Wednesdays.

On the first Wednesday we exited the building through a side door and standing there by the door was Mister Sharrat.

Dressed in his light grey suit which showed off his pot belly and slight balloon figure, he stood there puffing on his cigarette as people filed passed him; 'good afternoon Mister Sherrat', they would say, 'good afternoon,' he would say.

Sometimes he didn't puff on the cigarette but would let it burn in his fingers leaving a long piece of ash.

Everybody smoked as they filed passed. I don't know why they felt they had to smoke as they smoked all day in those days without restrictions: news readers smoked, politicians smoked everybody smoked all the time.

And so it went on - 'Good afternoon, Mister Sharrat,' 'Good afternoon' and then I passed him – 'ta ta Mister Sharrat,' and off I went into my first afternoon off and the bike ride home.

The next day when I got into work the warehouse manager came up to me and said – 'ta ta Mister Sharrat!! Ta ta Mister Sharrat!! You say Good afternoon Mister Sharrat! Say it!!'

Yes right – little did they know, 1959, that The Beatles were only around the corner.