America - first impressions.

Here's a little tale for you, I hope, which suddenly came to me today. I was thinking I've been through a few scrapes in my life - I think I told you I dived in to the back of a taxi close to the Sahara Desert; yes they have taxis there.

When I think back on that, I have no idea what I'd have done if the car had gone without me – I might have ended up as a shriveled raisin in the sun as I would have fallen asleep eventually.

But I remember when I first went to live in Los Angeles and my first impressions; I had been to a few hot countries such as India, Israel, Tunisia etc and they seemed to be what they were – a third world country. Hot weather, big advertising signs, beggars, hot weather, driving on the wrong side of the road, hot weather – things like that. So when I got to Los Angeles I saw that lawyers, attorneys and the like had big advertising boards.

In Britain the biggest thing a lawyer could use for publicity was a name plate on the door. It just 'wasn't done' to advertise – bit like the Queen doing a commercial.

In fact comparing the Queen to the Head of State in America – the one thing you know about the Queen is that she would never drink coca cola; and there was Clinton, who was the President when I arrived there, drinking from a paper cup.

Just 'not done' in Britain.

Yes some of the population drink sodas here but you know something – at the moment I don't know anybody who does; either diet or regular.

So arriving in Los Angeles was a bit like going to a third world country.

I hear someone at the back asking what a third world country is?

Well the world as we know it or knew it as it was, was Europe. That was about as far as it got. Then America was discovered and that was the 'new' world – likewise Australia.

And the developing countries – what are they? Well we had two types so the next one would be the third one – the third world. (But you know this).

The third world seems to be hot, with no laws about advertising and stopping at zebra crossings, so that is why I had that impression when I stepped off the plane.

It also had funny electricity plugs and sockets and, as I later got to know, they were better than the ones in Britain as you could put your fork into the electric toasters in America because they had a lower voltage system – safer and more efficient.

I remember some months later meeting an Englishman who said he'd been 'back' (to the UK) and it was like a third world country!!

Now this third world that I arrived in was very cheap – I could get a good breakfast at Denny's for 99 cents and that's not to be sniffed at – 2 eggs, 2 slices of bacon, 2 sausages, and 2 pancakes; of course you had to buy coffee on top of that.

I was also offered a nose full of cocaine on the first night and that wasn't to be sniffed at either – which I refused of course.

Oh I would have been in the soft and smelly, wouldn't I, if I'd taken that sniff and gone on to a career of taking Charlie then on to some harder stuff and eventually being a raisin on the Santa Monica beach – thousands of miles from Sahara but the same sandy raisin feeling.

So I told that postman what to do with his stuff and earned $10 that first week – how? I got a job at The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra's telemarketing office and that was all the cheque (or check as we're in USA) came to. I was booked in to an hotel for a week and I had paid for my rental car for a few weeks.

So it was Denny's every day for my main meal @ 99 cents plus tax and coffee and when the next pay day came I celebrated and went to Maccy D's for a Big Mac.

A few years later a friend of mine was doing market research for a company and one of the research campaigns was at . . . you guessed it Denny's!!

Apparently Denny's had a reputation in the Southern States for racism; I don't know the details but what we had to do was to go to various Denny's restaurants in Los Angeles and test them out. We did this by going into each establishment with a black couple plus one – me and my wife and my market researcher pal and the black couple plus one older male.

The plan was they went in first, we would follow after five minutes and we had to see who would get served first and things like that, but the problem was my pal wanted to do about three restaurants a night.

I tried the grand slam (2 eggs, 2 bacon – you know), then the southern chicken with white sauce and going into the third restaurant each night I swore I would never go into a Denny's again. My pal would say ask for a box but . . ..

By the way they ask at restaurants every time – they never call it a doggy bag as they do in Britain; they're more honest.

They hardly use cheques here at all now but the last time I went to LA they were still using them in the supermarkets.

I came back to the UK most years for Christmas and various family happenings – births and my daughter's wedding – but one time I didn't come back for two or three years, maybe more. During that time there had been a campaign in Los Angeles to ban smoking in restaurants.

This progressed to bars and eventually public places and when I went back to London that time the first thing I noticed was that everybody smoked; the place stank of stale tobacco – it was just like a third world country.

So there we are!

Next week – July 10^th – I am having a public screening of my short movie in London.

So I will take advantage of this (kind of) bully pulpit and put all the details on here. I hope my mailing list – which goes in to the hundreds – won't mind, unless, of course you'll be in London on the 10^th.

If so I'll see you there.

The Ying Tong Song.

There's a song that I recall my mother sang to me.
She sang it as she tucked me in when I was ninety-three.

 
Fans of The Goons, or The Goon Show, should recognise those inimitable lyrics from 
The Ying Tong Song. 
They are sung, on the recording of the hit record, by a tenor and the rest of the recording 
is chaos and very funny.
The Goons influenced all rebellious, alternative, dangerous and silly comedy that came 
after them. From Monty Python to The Young Ones. It's hard to think of anything that 
came before them with the possible exception of Spike Jones – not the film director 
who, I believe, spells his name with a Z. 
It is a silly kind of dangerous clever of comedy. 
And what is that? It's when all the clever bastards start laughing and the thicks remain 
looking bewildered - then the thicks suddenly see the funny side just as the clever 
bastards have moved on.
Someone once told me, when I was at drama school, that I didn't understand 
Monty Python – well I did and you know why? It made me laugh and wasn't that the idea?
My parents hated The Goons and The Strange World of Gurney Slade which was a 
good enough reason for me to love them; so I was bad as the clever bastards, wasn't I? 
I have to admit, though, they loved Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore and never 
missed their TV Series Not Only But Also and I loved that show too.
There have been many funny men and some of them are geniuses - or even genii  - 
but the two most mentioned pioneers are Peter Cook and Spike Milligan – 
Spike from The Goons, which is where we started.
Hey! What's Prince Charles doing at the top of the page?
Strange that Peter Cook's partner, Dudley Moore and Spike Milligan's partner 
(or one of them), Peter Sellars, both became Hollywood movie stars.
So back to The Goons:
One day in the 1950s – shall we say 1955 or 1956; it would be about then. 
A tenor singer from St Paul's Cathedral Choir, who also freelanced as a session 
singer, was told to report to a recording studio for a job. 
I have every reason to think that this was the famous Abbey Road Studios in 
St John's Wood, London as that's where George Martin worked and he was 
famous for recording comedy records before being The Beatles producer.
When he arrived (the singer not George Martin; he was already there) 
he was given the above lyrics which he sang in his beautiful tenor voice.
The other people in the studio were The Goons: Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, 
Spike Milligan and others. 
The singer sang the four lines and here we are 58 or so years later and that 
tenor singer is still alive and recently celebrated his 93rd birthday.
His daughter wrote to The Goons number one fan – Prince Charles – 
and told him who her father was and that he was still alive and, more to the point, 
was coming up to his 93rd birthday; the age he had sung about all those years ago.
Apparently the Prince sent a bouquet of flowers and a letter – now isn't that nice!!

Here is a link to the Ying Tong Songs for you to click on.

This will test you sense of humour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nebe1zuEtbc 

Come on Scotland – be Scottish!

Here we are in June and in three months time Scotland goes to the polls; and what are they voting for? For Independence, that's what. 

Not to split the United Kingdom but to go it alone and I wish them well.

But I have to ask a few questions: if Scotland succeeds in gaining Independence – and I mean the word gaining – it will mean that a group of Scottish Labour MPs will no longer be MPs in Westminster.

I know that won't happen straight away, of course, as I think there will be some kind of transitional period, but when it does it will mean that the Conservatives will not need the Liberals to give them a parliamentary majority in the next General Election.

So why are they against Independence for Scotland? Maybe there's something in Scotland, something in its future that Britain want: fracking? An influx of immigrants? A completely independent government who can look towards Norway and learn how to build an economy with their oil wealth?

All of the above are pluses – yes immigration is a plus and many immigrants will arrive and Scots from all over the world will return to pay taxes and pay them to their own government for a change.

There are some stupid figures being banded about; the 'yes' people are saying that Independence will make everybody in Scotland £1,000 a year richer; the 'no' people came back and said that a 'no' vote will make them richer by £1,400.

That's something to think about isn't it? Yeh!

In less than seven weeks there is a little matter of the Commonwealth Games – for people who don't know what the Commonwealth is it is The British Commonwealth – all the countries that used to belong to the British Empire but retained Commonwealth status.

When Pakistan were suspended from the Commonwealth a few years ago (because of some skulduggery there) – unbelievable, Pakistan aye? - the ABC Newsreader in Los Angeles said 'Pakistan have been suspended from 'something' called the Commonwealth.' Something called the Commonwealth.

Anyway – my point is they are being held in Glasgow – Scotland's biggest city – and you know what the Olympics did for Britain?

Put your money on a YES vote and all you disseminated Scots!! Pack your bags!

 But don't expect to see Sean Connery when you get there; he's probably in Spain practising his golf swing, but there again he is coming up to 84; he has campaigned for Scottish Independence for most if not all of his life. 

I have spent, I suppose, 3 months in Edinburgh and I remember a lot of places, shops, coffee shops and the like, with photographs of him on the wall. Not signed autographed head shots like in Los Angeles but beautifully framed portraits with information. 

The Scots know he doesn't live there any more but they're not like some of the English who fall out with some stars because they have emigrated to sunnier climes.

By the way – 5 years or so ago, someone came up to me and said they saw my photograph on the wall of a dry-cleaners on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

It had been there since 1995; I know that because I used to live close by then and they asked me for the photo but . . . I wonder if it's still there?

Go take a look – on the south side of the street just east of Maltman in the mini mall – lemme know!!

The Scottish flag.