Sunset Boulevard

When I first got to Los Angeles the first place I headed for was Sunset Boulevard; I had heard of it and I really needed to see it.

Many years ago we lived in Shropshire and we could receive TV from the Midlands, North West and very faintly Wales.

One night I was channel surfing and a movie came on the Welsh channel; it was very foggy as we were receiving from the back end of our ariel, and even though I had to watch as if I had double cataract eye sight, I was intrigued by the movie.

It was about an ex movie star and William Holden was in it and it was – of course you know – Sunset Boulevard. (above)

It has been one of my favourite films ever since.

In those days there were no VCRs, DVDs, TIVO or anything else – if you didn't catch the TV show there and then, you'd never get another chance till the movie came on again or was shown at some cinema doing a retrospective or something.

So that's why I headed there that day – I went up and down the strip and the first thing I noticed was the state of the road surface – what is called in Britain the Tarmac.

It was full of pot holes and cracks and that's something I got used to in Los Angeles. That and the fact they they called the road the pavement and the pavement the sidewalk!!

I can't remember exactly how long Sunset Blvd is but it must be about 25 miles.

It starts off in down town and is the continuation of Caesar Chavez Blvd. The full title is Sunset Blvd West and I bet Sunset Blvd East was before they named the eastern end after that great union leader.

When Sunset reaches Hollywood it forks off to the left and Hollywood Blvd goes straight ahead starting at about number 3,000 or so. Then when it reaches 7000 it is at La Brea Avenue – known as La Brea – and on Hollywood on the corner of La Brea it's also around number 7000. All the streets down La Brea – Hollywood, Fountain, Sunset, Santa Monica Blvd – have a number near number 7000 on each corner. So you can never get lost in the City of Angels and how could you not love a city with such a name; Los Angeles.

Between 7,000 and 8,000 Sunset is a bit busy with loads of restaurants, hotels who offer 4 hour renting periods (what for, I wonder), recording studios and – oh you name it and Ralphs (which I've mentioned before) is called Rock'n'Roll Ralphs because the supermarket is open 24 hours a day and artists from the studios would go into Ralphs in the middle of the night – I saw Christine Aguilara there once and she didn't tell me how to spell her name!!

From 8,000 it is a very different Sunset, just after The Directors' Guild, and that's where Sunset Strip starts.

There is The House of Blues (where I saw Percy Sledge, one day), The Comedy Store (which was a famous club in the fifties) and where James Dean is supposed to haunt – and not long after that, I'm afraid, it becomes uninteresting.

At around 9,000 is the famous Hamburger Hamlet which the exposé book 'You'll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again' was written from and about – but that is on the 'odd' side of the street.

At 9000 is a huge building full of the people who run Hollywood – the agents.

There are bigger agents in other parts of LA in Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, but that's the end of the corporate part of Sunset.

A little way further west you will pass the street where Frank Sinatra lived, a bit farther and you'll pass the street where Elvis lived when he was in Hollywood and then when you go even farther west you used to pass a big pink house that belonged to Englebert Humpadink; it was originally built and had a strange shaped swimming pool, by Jane Mansfield. It has now been demolish, by the way.

Then on to Brentwood, where OJ Simpson lived and killed, Pacific Palisades, where Speiberg lives and then on to the end which goes straight on to Pacific Coast Highway which you've all seen with the Pacific in the background and way out to the Neptune Fish'n'chips where the motor bikers hang out.

Not bad fish'n'chips but why would anyone from these islands ever eat fish'n'chips any where else?

As you turn right on to the PCH there is a great fish restaurant called Gladstones, if I'm not mistaken, which is fairly expensive; I was in there one day and asked for fish'n'chips and I asked the waitress what came with the fish'n'chips and she said French Fries!!!!
So there we are – hope all is still good there and there are the same crazy people knocking around – running backwards, dying their hair green, breast transplants bigger than France and glorious weather.

Why do I hanker after such a place?

They've just voted David Cameron back in here, that's why!

Pacific Coast Highway.