How I miss The Farmers' Market.

The Clock Tower at The Farmers' Market, Los Angeles.

I didn't think I would settle down over here so easily; I thought I would miss the good life of Los Angeles and the weather but since I've been back it has been quite an adventure. I have been bogged down with work and getting things organised, admittedly, but nonetheless I am satisfied here.

I have totally forgotten about Charlie Sheen, Paris Hilton and all the other publicity seeking personalities of Los Angeles who seem to have some kind of importance over there.

I have had my moans about the coffee over here but apart from some friends, whom I try to keep in touch with as much as I can, the thing I miss about Los Angeles is The Farmer's Market.

I have dedicated posts in the past to The Farmer's Market as we went there nearly every day for the best coffee in the world from Bob's Doughnuts; I was always looked after at Bob's and the girls there would make sure my coffee was fresh – fresco, I used to say as they were all Latino, many of them from Guatemala, and others were Chicano – which means they were born in the USA from Latino parents.

I'm not sure if Chicano is specific to the Mexicans or to all Latinos.

There is a whole Chicano movement: Chicano Art, Chicano Cinema, Chicano Music and so on; a famous Chicano musician was Ritchie Valens.

The reason I asked for fresco was because the girls at Bob's would try to teach me Spanish and I picked up quite a bit of it through the experience over the years.

I always figured that because I drank decaffeinated coffee – descaffinado although I can't spell it – it would not be as popular as regular coffee so would not always be fresh so they would usually make sure it was for me.

I would chat to the girls whilst they did my coffee, find out about their studies and their babies and their lives and when I left them in June that information ceased; I saw a little glint of a tear in one of the girl's eyes when I said goodbye but I never mean goodbye. I have worked with hundreds of actors and when the job ends we say goodbye not knowing if we will ever meet again and lots of times we meet on another job soon after or even twenty years later. So goodbye has never seemed so drastic.

There were other people at the Farmer's Market; I would buy pizza from Patsy's Pizza a couple of times a week and one or two of the girls would sing 'Happy CHRIStmas' to me; putting a strong accent onto the Chris in the word so I miss those girls too; and sitting around other regular users of the market would recognise us – but never speak.

On Tuesday afternoons there would be a group of people who would come from the Bing Theatre at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) where they screen old movies on Tuesday afternoons; we would sit with them sometimes and chat and they would tell us which movies they had seen and I would say that I would go with them one of the weeks but I never did.

Patsy's Pizza was the last place James Dean ate before he set off in his Porsche on the journeythat killed him; it was about this time of the year maybe September 30^th and if you go to Patsy'stoday – Patsy D'Amore's Pizza to give it the full name – there is a picture of Patsy with Frank Sinatra,

The Frank Sinatra picture at Patsy's Pizza.

one with Bobby Darin, another with Jackie Gloeason but nothing about James Dean although it's about the only place in Hollywood where there is no picture of James Dean; his picture and image is everywhere.

And here he is:

James Dean In Giant.

We would go to the Farmer's Market in the weekdays at about 5:30 pm to wind down and over the weekend at about 2:00 pm. It was the ideal place to sit and chat at the end of the work day and various things happened at different times for instance in the weekdays people would come for breakfast in the morning.

A famous film director from the seventies would take coffee outside Bob's at around 8:30 and he would be surrounded by his assorted hangers on and acolytes; what they talked about is anybody's business but they were always there whenever I went at that time.

It was a place for actors; I saw Nicolas Cage having breakfast once with his Elvis trousers and white Elvis shoes. I had a cup of coffee for one of the guys from Entourage and plenty of others.

Walking around The Farmers' Market in the early evening you would pass hundreds of tables with people sitting there eating and you could feel the atmosphere as you passed. We were particularly fond of the Gumbo Pot where they served Louisiana food. It was a great place to eat and on Mardi Gras there would be a Gumbo type band.

One band we saw a few times was Cowboy Soul; they were a black band and played country rock music. They dressed in black with cowboy hats and their wives, children and girl friends would dance just in front of the stage to add to the entertainment.

Every now and then The Farmer's Market would hold a car show which had the classic American cars; Thunderbirds, Cadillacs, Mustangs – people crowded around one of the Mustangs at the last show I went to: it was the one used by Steve McQueen in Bullitt!!! They called it the Steve McQueen Mustang.

So I do miss The Farmers' Market in Los Angeles – there is nowhere like it here!!

People dining and chatting at the Farmers' Market.

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.