Doris Day

Doris Day!! One of the movies stars of my youth; I liked a lot of the films she was in especially the ones with Rock Hudson and James Garner.
The 1950's clip from Annie Get Your Gun, The Deadwood Stage was shown on British Television almost weekly. I used to watch the film programmes on TV and another weekly event would be Gene Kelly Singing In the Rain and Judy Garland's Trolly Song.
Over the years I saw most of the films the clips came from but I never saw Annie Get Your Gun.
I had nothing against Doris Day but she wasn't Jane Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe – they were really sexy and dangerous but Doris Day was safe and played a virgin. She was just too good for my imagination.
When I got older I went for sexy movie stars like Simone Signoret – she was with Laurence Harvey in Room At the Top one of the angry young men films of the 50s.
He took her in his sports car to the top of a hill; stopped the engine of the car and looked at her; she looked at him and then as their lips touched and she was enveloped in his arms the screen faded to black.
My mother said oooooo!
Yes I went with my mother to see films that you had to be 16 to see as I didn't look old enough; I was only 14.
I didn't know that the oooooo was a little signal for them 'doing it.'
I also used to like Jack Lemmon films especially the ones where he had a bachelor pad – that was going to be me when I grew up; of course I didn't need to be taken in by my mother to Jack Lemmon films; or Doris Day.
Later on when hippies and trendies and topless beauties came onto the screen I went for those too and didn't really go and see a Doris Day film.
So she wasn't really sexy to me. It was a bit ironical for this seemingly un-sexy bird to record one of the most sexy records ever released; Move Over Darling. I know Je t'aime came along a few years later but if ever I was in a situation with a young girl and that record came on she would almost melt in my arms.
Our lips shouldn’t touch
Move over darling
I like it too much
Move over darling
That gleam in your eyes is no big surprise anymore
Cos you fooled me before

I’m all in a spin
Move over darling
I’ve got to give in
Move over darling
And though it’s not right, I’m too weak to fight it somehow
Cos I want you right now

The way you sigh, has me waving my conscience bye-bye
You can call me a fickle thing
But I’m practically yours forever, because

I yearn to be kissed
Move over darling
How can I resist
Move over darling
You captured my heart, and now that I’m no longer free
Make love to me.
Yes how can you resist such a lyric and the tune and tempo were just plain naughty!!
When we went to see the film, Move Over Darling, the song wasn't in it as far as I can remember, and ironically it was the last film that Marilyn Monroe worked on; she worked with Dean Martin in it and I have seen some of the footage; he was patience on a monument but she was very sick and they fired her.
In the movie she was lost at sea and living on a desert island, with Chuck Connors, and on the day she returns to the USA she finds her husband is about to be married; good fun.
When Richard Harris worked with Doris Day he fell for her hook, line and sinker. He chased her all over the set but she would have none of it. I remember thinking at the time what does he see in her?
Obviously with a bit of maturity I can see; I've seen all her films over the years, except Calamity Jane, but the one I have seen more times than I can remember is Love Me Or Leave Me with one of my favourite actors of all time James Cagney; she played Ruth Etting and he Martin Synder. They were based on real life characters: she was a singer of the 1920s and he a gangster.
In real life, when Doris Day's husband died she found he had squandered her money and she was broke. So she had to do some television and worked on The Doris Day Show for a number of years till 1973.
Since then she has led almost a reclusive life with her animal sanctuary but recently, at the age of 87, Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff is back in the charts with her new CD, MY HEART; good old Doris Day; pity she's supposed to be a bit right wing but that happens to a lot of old people; I forgive her.

The IMDb being sued by mysterious actress.

Clint Eastwood

(all 6'2" of him according to the IMDb)

Well what about that aye? The almighty IMDB is being sued for being amateurish; well they are amateurs they are run by a computer which is owned by Amazon. Yes Amazon.com or more likely Amazon.co.uk by people who know nothing about the film business.

Most of the contributions are made by people of the profession who write their own biographies and then deny it and put bits of information in themselves about themselves.

I was in a movie a few years ago and before I got home from the audition it was on the IMDB and put there by an assistant director who wanted his first credit to be on there.

When you put a film up on there you need at least 3 or 4 heads of department and they had that and put me in as the only actor in the movie – and I wasn't playing the lead.

Let me tell you what this is all about: the IMDB or the IMDb, as they like to be known, publish as many films and TV productions details as they can. They have a page for every film and everybody in that film from the top producer to the poor fella who has to wipe the shit from the stars' arses have another page to themselves. Incidentally the arse wiper is usually called the Associate Producer.

On that page the IMDb like to put as much information as possible including our age. Now if we look 15 years younger than we actually are we won't ever play our true age. But if they show your age and the casting director casts from the IMDb, as they do these days in Hollywood, they will presume it's an old picture and won't see you or audition you.

The Spotlight in London and The Academy Players, in Los Angeles, would never dream of publishing an actor's age; they have been in the business since the 1930s and they are the professionals.

An actress has sued Amazon.com for more than $1m (£639,000) after her age was posted on its Internet Movie Database.

The unnamed actress says the website misused her legal date of birth after she signed up to the IMDbPro service in 2008.

She says revealing her age on the site will lose her acting opportunities.

Amazon and its movie database subsidiary are accused of breach of contract, fraud, violation of privacy and consumer protection laws. (source BBC.co.uk).

The IMDb is a Johnny come lately and novice casting directors with novice directors have given it more credence than it deserves. It is here to stay and is an important new tool in American TV and film and this will spread to the UK and because of this it needs to be professional. I don't know what the answer is as they don't charge anybody to have a page, as the others do, but if they are that important they should answer to somebody; the profession??

Years ago I did a fringe play at the Soho Poly Theatre, in London, and I played a rebellious 25 year old. I was 34; my pal the director knew roughly what age I was but one day the writer found out how old I was and was shocked – I suddenly looked 34 to him.

The performance was successful so nothing really happened.

People tend to believe you look the age that you are and directors and casting directors have no imagination. In Hollywood if you go for the part of a cowboy that is how you go to the audition. I sat outside a casting directors office one day when I first went there and saw about 30 actors walk across the parking lot as if they were on their way to the OK Corral!

I've spoken about suits before.

So we will see what happens with that case.

But it struck me, if they are so determined to get the ages right for whatever stupid reason, maybe they should be sure to get the other information right – the height!!!!

I have read loads of biographies and interviews of actors and in a lot of them their height is mentioned.

I know that Steve McQueen was 5”7”, Marlon Brando 5'8”, Mel Gibson 5'6” - I put those actors heights down as they are leading players and usually thought to be tall; Humphrey Bogart 5”8” - these actors never minded playing with taller actors unlike a certain actor in a TV series when I first went to Hollywood who wouldn't allow people to audition who were over a certain height.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford about 5'7” each!

So why don't they go up to these actors and measure them. Let's have some phantom measurer (I know no such word) approaching actors with a tape and getting the truth?

But who puts these false height on the IMDb? Why their publicists, of course! Did you really think James Dean towered over people?

And what height am I? I am a half inch taller than Sylvester Stallone – no matter what is says on the IMDb!!

By the way – here I am; http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0838002/ you'll have to copy and paste it, I think, as it probably can't be hyper-text for you to click on to. No it actually works on my computer so give it a go.

James Cagney (5'6½" according to the IMDb)

Charlie Chaplin (5'5" according to IMDb)

Farmer's Market to South Mimms!! 5434 miles.

South Mimms Services.

It sure is a million miles between the Farmer's Market in Hollywood and South Mimms Service Services in Hertfordshire on the M25. I have written about both places recently, the M25 and The Farmer's Market, and the contrast between both of them is vast.

Number one you can get really decent coffee at The Farmer's Market.

But more than that; driving along Fairfax Avenue, in Los Angeles, you do a left turn, if you are travelling south, or a right if travelling north and you are in to the market.

Travelling on the M25 you go all around the Mulberry Bush and get lost to get in to South Mimms Service Station; let's get familiar; let's call it South Mimms!!

One time you would travel on a motorway in Britain and the service stations would be easy to get to; there would be a bridge across the motorway and when you entered the service area you would be able to meet people heading in the opposite direction as you munched on your very expensive sandwich.

In fact one time, when I was a student, I had the job of a van driver - just a small van - and one day I had to meet someone travelling in the opposite direction and give him a piece of micro-film!!!! All cloak and dagger stuff?

Another difference between the two places – let me remind you as I digressed – South Mimms and The Farmer's Market, is that The Farmer's is in the open and usually sunshine and when we called there to South Mimms on Wednesday evening it was pitch black at night, about 7:00 pm, and bitter cold.

But we found the place and I have to say, I thought about The Farmers and the people we used to see there.

Now what is this about? I hear you cry; I've said all this before. Well it is a million miles from The Farmer's Market to South Mimmns in more ways than one – maybe about five thousand miles or so.

South Mimms is not a place where people go to on a regular basis; it's more like ships passing in the night and the chances of meeting people there more than once, unless they work there, is very unlikely.

At The Farmer's Market we met people every day that we had met before; we were familiar faces to them and they to us. We knew the butchers, the coffee shops, the vegetable stalls and even the parking lot attendants; none of them miss us and have probably not noticed we haven't been there.

There are loads of people who suddenly stop going there and loads more who suddenly start.

In fact when we were last there there was an English couple, some of the people who would go to the movies at The Bing Theatre on Tuesdays to see old classic movies, who told us they were going back to live in Britain too; he was 91 and she 86 and they still loved their movies.

I remember they had bought their single tickets back to London, even though they were from up north, and I told them they should have bought round trip tickets as they were cheaper – maybe $1400 for a single as opposed to $800 for a round trip – crazy isn't it?

So it was coming up to 7:05 when we decided to stop at South Mimms; if we'd waited till we got back to Ealing we wouldn't be eating till late and it was too early to eat when we started out from Suffolk.

The big thing about 7:05 in Britain is The Archers; a daily weekday soap opera on the radio which lasts about 12 minutes and which my wife listens to. So I left her in the car to listen to it whilst I used the loo.

When she came in she decided she didn't want anything to eat at all so I bought a half a rotisserie chicken with chips and mushy peas, which she could 'pick at' too, and as she wasn't eating the memsahib went off and found a seat.

I saw her as I approached with my tray and sitting on the next table were the English couple from The Farmer's Market. Looking as dapper as always; he looks like a Colonel and has a very tiny pencil thin white moustache!

Now if that's not a coincidence I don't know what is!

He, at the age of 91 don't forget, had rented a car from Heathrow Airport and driven the 25 – 30 miles to South Mimms after arriving from Los Angeles on the 10 hour flight.

We sat with them when I finished my meal and they told me they were going to stay at the hotel, which is at the services, and that as soon as they could arrange it they were going back to Los Angeles.

The next morning they were setting off for Carlisle which is way up north – about 250 miles.

They told me their stuff had arrived in Britain and was with the shippers but she said she would call them the next day and tell them to send it back – it's too cold here, they both said.

Well they are getting on.

The Clock Tower, Farmer's Market, Los Angeles.
(I know - you've seen it before)

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves!!!

A Romany Caravan.

Well the last post touched a nerve. Not the bit about Osborne Robinson or the class but the bit about the Travellers – for want of a better name; the pikies, the didicoys, the Gypsies – whatever you want to call them.

Only one nice comment on the blog but quite a few emails – 'are you mad?' 'You don't know what you're talking about' etc. When did I ever say I knew what I was talking about?

Let me visit the subject once more today – this black day!!

I have an affinity for the travelling folk, the itinerant people or whatever you want to call them.

I remember when I was a child, when we were sent back to Dublin for the summer, and we stayed in Finglas which is just outside Dublin. Not one of the boonies more like a burb in distance but there were fields and fields that we could wander through, avoiding those cows that might be bulls, till eventually we would smell the camp fires of the Gypsies and getting close we would see their Romany Caravans and see and smell the horses and would be given fresh Turkish Delight wrapped in grease proof paper as we were offered a seat by the fire.

So they were a bit rough but I can only remember kindness.

A couple of years before he died the actor, Corin Redgrave, was trying to help the Travellers from Basildon with some legal documents and he collapsed. People stood back in shock as the poor fella lay there but a Traveller, an Untouchable, a Gypsy got down on his hands and knees and gave him the kiss of life; and it was a kiss of life as it resuscitated Corin and brought him back to life.

Their caravans, near Finglas, were beautiful and were always warm and cosy and the old ladies inside seemed to have more lines on their faces than the average women of their age but they seemed to burst with knowledge, know how and nous.

I was just a poor lad out late but wanted to stay and sleep in one of the caravans but it wasn't to be; I had to go back to my aunt and civilisation.

Some of the Gypsy lads could ride the horses without a saddle; they would get on the horse and ride it full pelt as if animal and man were one and the horses always looked to be loving it as they got up to about 25 miles per hour without a whip.

How they stayed on without a saddle is beyond me but they did . . .

So I had quite a few emails berating me for being on the side of the underdog but I'm as bad as you; I'm not helping the Travellers but it just seemed to me that they are heading the way of The American Indian. They're heading for the Res.

The Travellers in Basildon set up camp on a piece of concrete that was built by the council and as they stayed there and a community was formed. This particular lot seemed to have had enough of travelling and settled. Their caravans disappeared and they started to live in a settled community - not all of the caravans as you can see below.

But they are not welcome – so where should they go?

Apparently these Travellers are not proper Travellers – they are Pikies; probably on their way to being chavs. They are not Travellers because they don't travel. Some of the Travellers in Basildon don't like some of the other Travellers because they don't think they are Travellers because . . . . . ah you know!

We are not very tolerant to our fellow man. Christmas is coming and how many people out there will be inviting a homeless person in to their home for Christmas? Might be a bit iffy – their feet might smell!!

But today, as I mentioned before, is a black day. The police and the bailiffs have moved in – people have been tasered – people have been taken to hospital - but pictures speak more than words:

A Caravan Burns at Dale Farm today.

Dale Farm today.

Osborne Robinson, Gypsies, and more class!!

(Tom) Osborne-Robinson.

I think I will follow up on the last post which touched on class and the lack of Jewish humour in Great Britain. I had a few emails on the subject and a few complaints from people not being able to add their comments to the blog; I'm afraid I don't have an answer to that maybe people who leave comments would give the others tips????

First of all – what class am I? I was asked that! Well a very good friend told me last week that it is the arts & crafts class as with other actors, poets, singers and artists. This was a line from the film Sex and Drugs and Rock an' Roll and attributed to Ian Dury – the late Ian Dury a real diamond geezer.

By the way – geezer, unlike in America, is any age - a mensch.

He was portrayed in the film by Andy Serkis – a great movie actor who played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings films. Great 'movie' actor I said; I will come to great actors in a later post.

The other thing is I don't hate the middles classes – some of my best friends are middle class; sorry to use that terrible line which was used a lot, years ago, by racists but there we are.

No it is the middle class values that I abhor. Kids go to school full of life and ambition. They make their pals laugh and they like that. They want to grow up, run away from home and join the circus. They want to be pirates, Indiana Jones and live like a gypsy – but middle class teachers knock all that out of them. They teach them words like God and Jesus and expect them to grow up normal and when they leave school they either wear a tie or carry a tool.

I never wanted to join a circus I wanted to be a pop singer; I wanted to be a gypsy. I wore a gypsy scarf when I was young (maybe not that young) and had a couple of days growth on my chin to make me look darker.

The trouble was the teachers didn't quite get through to me and I used to see the funny side of everything and I would crack jokes in class which made Mister Jones, the teacher in the 3^rd form (aged 14), throw chalk at me. Sometimes I could catch it but I never threw it back. He was a jazz loving Welshman (he would be with a name like Jones) who encouraged us to bring guitars to school and play skiffle in front of the class.

My pal, Clive Bishop got up in front of the class and sang an Elvis Presley song and another pal, Alan Chance, also sang an Elvis song.

I got up and played the harmonica; Mister Jones stood at the back of the class, whilst I played, and he couldn't see the faces my pals were pulling at me to try and make me laugh as I tried to play; eventually I had to laugh and stop playing.

Jones would record our efforts; the harmonica, the singing and the skiffle and play it back to the class on numerous occasions. He also let us listen to a football match on the radio when a local team got into the semi final of the FA Cup.

So he never tried to knock anything out of me.

I was chosen for the road safety quiz and was on the stage in front of the whole school but dropped from the team when I made the whole school laugh. It was a wonderful belly laugh from about 600 kids and Mister Jones almost burst a blood vessel laughing as he covered his face.

So some teachers were okay although I think he had a violent streak in him as that chalk would be thrown at full pelt – I was good at catching.

There are a load of gypsies parked in Basildon, Essex at the moment and the Basildon council are breaking up their community – that's what they are a community. The Gypsies are not sticking to the rules by wanting to live in a different way – just like the Indians in America. You never see any Indians in America; they have been put on reservations out of the way of the white man; the middle class white man and that's what they will do to the Gypsies here, one day.

Most of them are Irish and a lot of those, even though they have Irish accents, have never been to Ireland. They probably don't have birth certificates and a lot of them don't read. But they live off the land, off their wits and is it wrong to want to live in a different way?

The Travellers, as the gypsies are called, are too close to 'normal people' and they might affect the prices of property in the area; oh dear!

Who said all property is theft? Of course you know who said it and you know it is correct.

People don't 'own' the houses they live in. They think they do but they are only leasing the house whilst they live in it. Most of the vandalism to property is by the so called owners. They take out original fittings, demolish pantries, dump wonderful Rayburn Cookers just to sell their houses – I know! I've done it!

I remember a wonderful old pub in Little Houghton, Northampton-shire, called The Red Lion and it had a very interesting building outside which was the lavatory. The landlord had the building demolished to make room for two more cars in the car park.

The lavatory had been there for many years!

The people who worked at the garage opposite called him a vandal and he was – in any case where would they pee?

That Landlord has gone but the beautiful shit house is no more; everybody has to cram into the plastic one they built inside.

It might be changed now as it has been many a year since I've been any where near the place supping their ale.

That man at the top of the page is Osborne Robinson. He was a brilliant stage designer and devoted almost 50 years to the Royal Theatre, Northampton. I think it was in his 49^th year of service there that the board fired him. He died maybe a year later, a broken man and the middle class untalented hysterics on the board or the alcoholic artistic director didn't care or probably didn't know.

I worked at the theatre in 12 plays and he designed the sets for most of them and I also lived in Northampton afterwards and saw him wandering around asking me if I would ever go back to work at the Royal Theatre again and I shrugged and said no. I knew he was dying as he was losing weight at an unnatural rate.

The Emporium Arcade, Northampton.

Before my time there he had campaigned to keep The Emporium Arcade in the market place from demolition.

They eventually did demolish it and the newspaper building next door and replaced it with a monstrosity of a shopping centre called The Grosvenor Centre.

The Grosvenor Centre people asked him to paint some murals of the history of Northampton to display inside the building and he painted, I think, 12 but they only displayed 11.

They wouldn't put the last one up because it was the modern Northampton he was depicting in that one and in the painting it showed someone holding a placard saying Save the Arcade.

The owners just couldn't bring themselves to be criticized.

A rebel to the end - The Royal Theatre, Northampton – it should be called The Osborne Robinson Theatre.

Northampton Market Square with the Arcade in the background.

Chavs, comedians, Jewish Humour and the Estuary accent.

chav!!!!

Since being back here I look for new things, things that have come in to vogue since I lived here in 1994 and somehow, at the back of my mind, I knew one thing would still he here; the class system.

That will always be here; in the USA if you have a lot of money you are considered upper class. Here, most of the upper classes are broke. They can't even afford to heat their stately homes and have had to give them or sell them or whatever to the national trust.

Notice I said 'most' – there are still the men in the grey suits who run the place.

But class doesn't stop there; I know of people who live in council houses who's house is on the end who look down on the people who's houses are in the middle of the block. They are all renting houses from the same authority and the ones on the end think they are superior.

If you make a lot of money here you are considered, by the upper classes, as being nouveau riche – or in the USA new money. Now they have invented another word, and this word has been invented by the dreaded middle class and that word is chav. If you look up chav in the dictionary it will give it's meaning as a young working class person with appalling, if expensive, taste.

Chav, by the way is traced back all the way to 2004 and probably comes from a Romany word Chavy, I think; the middle class had to come up with some word to put down people with different taste from theirs.

The middle class taste is awful – they hold their knives like pencils, they have fitted carpets, dark clothes, dainty little cars and they are just like Mrs Bucket in the well known TV sit-com; the title has slipped my mind. They don't swear, they don't show any passion and don't have any idea about politics and these people are allowed to vote!!!!

I jest of course and I'm generalising and – well you know all that but some of it is true.

And the names of their children!!!! A slight miss-spelling of the regular name and I'm sure you've heard them. Billy Connelly noticed they were naming their kids with surnames such as Crawford!!!!

If you go to Los Angeles Tattoos are very popular – if you have a tattoo here you're a chav. In Los Angeles a lot of people wear baseball hats – some pubs here will not allow people in wearing hats. I have also seen 'no white socks' at a pub entrance – no white socks!!!! Whatever could they mean?

But the big thing about being back is the Television; all the garbage that British TV has exported to America – Pop Idol (American Idol), Big Brother, Survivor, The X Factor is still on TV here.

They do have quality drama, mainly on the BBC, but the big thing they don't have and which I miss is Jewish Humour and hardly any Jewish slang. Some people started to use the word Schlep a few years ago but it disappeared in a wave of retentiveness years ago.There are loads of Jewish comedians over here but they are really comedians who are Jewish.

Woody Allen

Larry David.

There is no Woody Allen, no Jerry Seinfeld and no Larry David but they have the same, maybe, 10 comedians who are on TV 3 or 4 times a week. The are on mock quiz shows and laugh – at each other.

A team of 2 comedians sit on one side of the studio opposite another team of 2, separated by the quiz master, who is also a comedian, then they make each other laugh.

The audience, and there is an audience, laugh as if they are canned – it's unbelievable and crass.

Apart from Stephen Fry, who speaks like a toff, they have either the red nosed comedian's northern accent or the estuary accent – yes that one again. The Estuary accent, they think, makes them classless so they can fit in with everybody else and their favourite thing to do on these shows is to show a photo from a newspaper and think of a funny phrase.

Come back Jack Benny; Les Dawson; Tommy Cooper. Let's have some comedians who are comedians and not smart arses laughing at themselves in fact – let's have a Chav Comedian!!!!

I heard on the radio this morning that one of the actors in Little Britain, who is Jewish, is starting a Jewish comedy series here. It's about a middle aged man who gets divorced from his wife and is taken for every penny he has which means he has to move in with his son; also he cannot afford to keep his mother in a home any more so she moves in too. So you have 3 generations of Jews living together which sounds promising.

Tommy Cooper.
25 years after his death people still tell 'Tommy Cooper' jokes.

The pound sign V the hash key.

a telephone key pad with the hash key/the pounds sign below the 9.

I first went to America when things were changing in communications. They hadn't quite started the dreaded menu system on the phones in Britain but arriving in America I was dropped in to getting used to it; it might have started at the same time in Britain I don't know but arriving in the so called New World I was confused.

I managed to get a few contacts on the way; on the flight over I met James Woods' manager's next door neighbour. Think that one through. The neighbour was one of the female flight attendants and would 'put a good word in for me.'

I also chatted people up in Dan Tannas, a show business bar and restaurant, and Ben Franks another show biz restaurant. But when I called their numbers there was a strange sound from the other end. I know what I didn't do now but it's too late; James Woods' manager had to make do with looking after James Woods instead of me.

Of course it was the bloody menu and the fact that they changed the exchange in Los Angeles from 213 to 213 and 310 – just accept that bit.

At the time it was not cool to have a cell phone or a mobile phone; the only guys who had them were chauffeurs, the crew or the extras. Important people just did not carry one and would rely on their acolytes who were in tow.

It's much the same now but some important people have them – Barack Obama.

People relied on their answer phone and called in to hear their messages and I remember asking someone how they did this and they said 'I press hash, star, star, hash!'

What were they talking about?

Well star was * and hash was # on the keypad.

Memorise all of the above.

When I opened a bank account in America with Wells Fargo Bank I could call in a get my balance and they would say 'please dial your password followed by pound.'

I knew what they meant; I knew what they by pound they meant the hash key!

My apartment was number 508 – in other words #508.

Over there they call it the number sign or the pound sign – I think the pound, by the way was for LB pounds; in weight – I'm not sure but I think so (see later; I was right).

So ever since then I have thought of it as the pound sign; I mean I lived in America so why not?

But now I noticed , being back here, that the British still call it the hash key and the Americans still call it the pound sign – or the pound key or . . . . the number sign.

So what a to do??

Let's go to Wikipedia:

Here's what is says under hash:

Hash key can have several meanings.

• For its use to describe the key on a telephone keypad, see number sign.
• For its use in data base and cryptographic applications, see hash function.
  

Hey – if I'm not confusing you I'm certainly confusing myself!!

It goes on to say

Number sign is a name for the symbol #, which is used for a variety of purposes including, in some countries, the designation of a number (for example, "#1" stands for "number one"). The symbol is in Unicode as code point U+0023 #​ number sign (35_decimal); it is also present in ASCII with the same value.

In Commonwealth English, the symbol is usually called the hash and the corresponding telephone key is called the hash key. In American English and Quebec English, the symbol is usually called the pound sign (outside the US, this term often refers instead to the British currency symbol“£”) and the telephone key is called the pound key. In Canadian English, this key is most frequently called the number sign key. Beginning in the 1960s, telephone engineers have attempted to coin a special name for this symbol, with variant spellings including octothorp, octothorpe, octathorp, octotherp, octathorpe, and octatherp; none of these have become widely accepted.

In many parts of the world, including Australia, Canadian, French, Russia, and parts of Europe, number sign (or equivalents in local languages) refers instead to the numero sign (“No.”).

The symbol is easily confused with the musical symbol called sharp (♯). In both symbols, there are two pairs of parallel lines. The key difference is that the number sign has true horizontal strokes while the sharp sign has two slanted parallel lines which must rise from left-to-right, in order to avoid being confused with the musical staff lines. Both signs may have true vertical lines; however, they are compulsory in the sharp sign, but optional in the number sign (#) depending on typeface or handwriting style. Thus, only the number sign may have an italic appearance.

Now isn't that clear? Doesn't it clear everything up?

Look at the second line it is also present in ASCII with the same value – does that look like hash? No.

It goes on:

Mainstream use in the US as follows: when it precedes a number, it is read as "number", as in "a #2 pencil" (spoken aloud as: "a number two pencil").

In the United States and Quebec, the symbol is traditionally called the pound sign or the number sign. The pound name derives from a series of abbreviations for pound, the unit of weight. At first "lb." was used; however, printers later designed a font containing a special symbol of an "lb" with a line through the verticals so that the lowercase letter "l" would not be mistaken for the numeral/digit "1". Unicode character U+2114 (℔) is called the "L B bar symbol", and it is a cursive development of this symbol. Ultimately, the symbol was reduced for clarity as an overlay of two horizontal strokes "=" across two forward-slash-like strokes "//". Keith Gordon Irwin, in The Romance of Writing p. 125, says: "The Italian libbra (from the old Latin word libra, 'balance') represented a weight almost exactly equal to the avoirdupois pound of England. The Italian abbreviation of lb with a line drawn across the letters [℔] was used for both weights. The business clerks' hurried way of writing the abbreviation appears to have been responsible for the # sign used for pound."
In Caanada (except Quebec), the symbol is traditionally referred to as the number sign. Major telephone equipment manufacturers, such as Nortel, have an option in their programming to denote Canadian pronunciation, which in turn instructs the system to say "number sign" to callers instead of "pound sign." This same option causes the system to say "zed" instead of the United States' "zee" for the letter Z

Isn't this easy now you know?

Let's go back and look up hash!!

Its says this (and I know you are still interested):

A hash function is any algorithm or subroutine that maps large dats sets to smaller data sets, called keys. For example, a single integer can serve as an index to an array (cf; associative array). The values returned by a hash function are called hash values, hash codes, hash sums, checksums or simply hashes.

Hash functions are mostly used to accelerate table lookup or data comparison tasks such as finding items in a database, detecting duplicated or similar records in a large file, finding similar stretches in DNA sequences, and so on.

What the . . . what????

Let me leave you with one thought:
The square on the hypotinuse of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

I was taught that in my very first maths lesson and I knew I would have an opportunity to use it one day!!

Aren't you glad you read this today – aren't you really glad?

By the way – hold down the alt key (below the x) now type in whilst still holding down alt key type 0163 and what do you get - £ of course. The real pound sign.

My last Complaint.

A Car Park.

I am really loving it back here but let me give one up for Los Angeles; I've had my moan about the coffee here and complained about the humidity.

Well there is nothing you can do about the humidity but sometimes people here let things happen without complaining and I think that's why the regular coffee is crap; someone should have said enough is enough but there are other things.

The price to park a car is ridiculous, the price of public transport equally so and the cost of mobile phone usage for people calling mobile phones is outrageous.

I think the later is a diabolical liberty and I'll come back to that.

I realise that cities like Los Angeles are built to accommodate a car but the car parks/parking lots there are subsidised by the shops. To park at my favourite place, The Farmer's Market, it is free for the first 2 hours; the same with the shopping centres. The select shopping area of Beverly Hills has free parking lots and you don't need to shop there to get it. You can stop for a pee free for the first two hours.

Sometimes you have to be validated but Beverly Hills has no strings attached as I mention.

Here - Edinburgh $6.75 per hour; Birmingham $6.75 per hour; Ipswich $6.75 per hour - London??? through the roof. How do you expect to have people come in to your shop and boost the economy without subsidised parking?

National Car Parks seem to run the whole thing and here is information from their Wilipedia Page:

National Car Parks (NCP) is the United Kingdom's largest private car park operator, with over 200,000 spaces across more than 700 locations in towns and cities, railway stations and at airports.

NCP also had a growing service business, but this demerged from NCP in 2007. It is called NSL Services Group, and was previously called NCP Services Group. They also operated a bus company in London called NSL Buses, and this was previously known as NCP-Challenger – that sounds simple doesn't it????

When I moved to Los Angeles 16 years ago the bus fare cost $1.25 to go all the way from Los Angeles to Santa Monica – recently they put that up to $1.35; there were a lot of protests.

By the way in Los Angeles they don't believe that because you live a mile from where you work that you should have to pay less to get to work than someone who lives 10 miles away; it's the same as that in Edinburgh but not London.

Which brings me to the biggest rip off I can see.

In Los Angeles, in fact the whole USA, you cannot tell by the number that you are dialling a cell phone/mobile phone. So it costs just as much to call that number as it does to any other number in the area code.

There is a myth that you have to pay for incoming phone calls to mobiles in America – you don't; the minutes come off your free minutes which most people have.

So a cell phone is just the same as a land line price wise. In the USA you can dial an 800 number free of charge from your mobile – in Britain that free 800 number becomes a prime number. Why? Because the equivalent to AT & T, British Telecom, won't do deals with the mobile companies.

The other big big rip off is that when you call a mobile number in Britain from abroad that becomes an expensive call too because you have to pay a tariff to the mobile phone companies.

So if you are in America don't call any number in Britain that starts with 78 – really 078 but you don't have to dial the '0' in International calling; if you do it will cost you a fortune. The phone companies here a ripping off the world.

That's it – no more complaining! Very humid here, I must say.

Hottest Day ever in October.

Brighton Beach, Sussex. Standing room only!

Okay here we are back in London and the temperature is 82 degrees; that's 29 in Celsius which is Double Dutch to me.

You would think I'd be used to it having lived in Los Angeles for 16 years but in LA there is hardly any humidity; you hardly sweat - here it's a nightmare.

I have never liked laying in the sun in any case or sitting on the beach and since I've been back I've grown used to the English weather; no one will ever get used to the Scottish weather as that's another story.

So there have been plenty of barbeques and unsightly bare bodies bobbing about and I didn't go to the beach.

Now don't ask me why the weather is so hot on the first day of October in London – the hottest day ever in October by the way.

The brisk weather of Britain usually adds a sense of urgency to the business day whereas in Los Angeles we would wonder who we were going to meet for breakfast, which coffee shop at the beach should we meet in and things like that.

The worst thing about being an actor in Los Angeles would be wearing a heavy suit to an audition – especially if your car has no AC.

This would happen if you had to go for an audition and had to wear a suit. If you go for a commercial and the role is required to wear a suit you have to wear one; they won't let you audition if you don't and there's no such prima Donna behaviour allowed you would simply be sent home.

I was out one day in my shorts and trainers – did I tell this story here before?? Not to worry if I did – I was out on a nice day and my commercial agent called me and said could I get over to West Los Angeles right away and wear a smart suit and tie.

West Los Angeles was always a pain in the arse to get to as it was about 40 minutes drive from Hollywood, where we lived, and you always encountered traffic.

I was out having lunch at the Farmer's Market with my wife so I had to dash home, pick up my suit and things, and get out to West LA.

I didn't have a great deal of time so ran into the bedroom, took my suit out of the wardrobe with shoes, dark socks, shirt and tie and put them into the car.

We made good time and I arrived 10 minutes or so before my appointment; in the car I had an envelope with my head shots in and my resumé stapled to the back and started to get changed in the car park.

I wasn't shy, I've been getting changed in public since I started as an actor so everything went on quite quickly till I came to the shoes – I had brought 2 right shoes and one of them was a tap shoe!!!!

So I had to wear my trainers and they were very comfortable and for the record no I didn't get the commercial.

Bradgate Park, Leicestershire.