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.

Life Changing Event.

Sir Winston Churchill.

Is there any one thing that has changed your life; if you think back and enjoy thinking back you may find it.

In script writing there is always a life changing event at the end of the first act and at the beginning of the second; without that life changing event the story would just drone on and on and in fact all stories are like that.

They have the set up, where everybody is introduced, the obstacle or the life changing event then the resolution. There are a lots of other things that happen in most screenplays like Rocky all at sea, with just a few minutes to go, then his trainer cuts his eyelids and he fights to a draw.

The screenplay is nothing new in fact that's the way stories are written since way before Shakespeare (look at Romeo and Juliet) right back to Sophocles.

In a movie it's usually on page 20 – about 20 minutes into the film.

There are things that change your life and sometimes those things that change an individual's life change history.

There was a man called Brendan Bracken; he was an Irishman who went to live in Australia, where his father was a builder, and he migrated to England to be Churchill's confidant during the inter-war wilderness years.

The greatest thing he did for Churchill was to make it possible for him to take over from Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister when all looked lost.

Nobody of any import wanted Churchill as Prime Minister; Chamberlain, The King, The House of Lords and The Labour Party wanted Lord Halifax.

When the time came for Chamberlain to step down he set up a meeting of the contenders in Downing Street to discuss the crisis. Lord Beaverbrook and Bracken found Churchill brooding alone in one of his clubs and warned him of the upcoming meeting.

Bracken, like Churchill, was an enemy of appeasement, and he deduced that the best thing Churchill could do in the meeting was to keep quiet.

I don't know whether Bracken was a poker player or not but his ploy worked. Chamberlain was trying to decide who was going to work with whom and probably wondered if Churchill would be able to work with Lord Halifax etc but Churchill just sat in silence.

After a long pause with Churchill keeping his silence Lord Halifax said that his position in The House of Lords would make it difficult for him to be Prime Minister. The next morning news came that Hitler had invaded Belgium and Holland and Churchill went to the palace to tell the king he was forming a government.

So not only was that a life changing event for Churchill, and Bracken, it was a history changing moment.

Now I can point to a few things in my life that changed things; this is apart from the personal things such as marriage and having children

I remember when I finished riding the motor bikes for the post office; I was nearly 19 and it was time. At 18 the usual thing was to be transferred to train to be a postman. It was something I really didn't want to be and when I was delivering mail one day, one of the companies I delivered to offered me a job.

It was a terrible job in a wallpaper and paint warehouse but it allowed me to be able to stay in bed till 7:30 and I didn't have to wear the heavy postman's uniform.

As soon as I started they sacked somebody else – someone who looked like me, as a matter of interest, and then after a month or so they asked me to leave. They didn't like my sense of humour: one of the supervisors said to me one day “Hurry up.” and I answered “Hurry up broke his neck.”

Only a joke but when I had the meeting when they told me I had to go it was brought up and I said it was only a joke - “well we don't like those kind of jokes!”

In those days you would just call the Personnel Department wherever you wanted to work and if they had any vacancies in their organisation they would invite you in – the forerunner of the HR department (Human Resources).

So I ended up working in the British Car Industry as a Material Controller; if they were manufacturing 400 Morris Minors that week, for example, I had to make sure that 2000 wheels, tyres, the nuts and bolts etc were there ready for the workers on the assembly line.

I was useless at the job and in the first week they had to send a whole assembly line of men home because I didn't order whatever requirements the vehicles needed. There were complaints from the cleaners too about my desk as it as always full of papers.

I met a young lad there who said he wanted to be an actor and my ears pricked up; he had all the answers and I was all ears and I made enquiries.

When the inevitable happened, and they called me in for a meeting to tell me I had to go, I told them I was going to The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and they said “...the Royal Acad . . . Royal Academy of What????”

Actually I went to Birmingham – London was a bit far for me in those days!!

I was always kind of show business inclined – I wanted to be a rock singer – but that was the event for me. I went ahead and I never gave up; the young lad with all the answers never did.

My parents always suspected I'd be an actor, my nick name was John Barrymore as a child, so I might have drifted into it in any case; who knows?

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.

Oye! Leave my Guinness alone!!

Guinness Poster 1973.

There I am up there many years ago on a Guinness poster; it's been up there before but as this post is primarily about the black stuff I thought it fitting to use it today; that poster was in all the cities and towns of Great Britain and stood about twenty feet high. No matter where I went I couldn't miss it but I was hardly recognised from it. I remember one day standing at a bus stop in front of the poster and nobody blinked a eye lid.

I would hazard a guess and say it was around 1973; I did a Guinness commercial in 1972 – in fact it's on YouTube if you want to search for it – which was set in an antique shop. The idea was that I went into an antique shop with my pal mistaking it for a pub. I suppose it was quite funny, really, and the director asked me if I had any funny business to do whilst leaving the antique shop on the way to the pub next door; I said, “I can bang my head on the bird cage, if you like” and he said “show me” so I did.

Little did I realise that they would be shooting it from all angles and doing multiple takes so I think I must have banged my head on that bird cage about fifty or sixty times. I kind of 'headed it' like heading a football meeting it on the bit where my forehead met my hair line; so it didn't really hurt that much and in any case it was soft metal!!****!!!!

Before I get to my point here is a little excerpt from my last novel:

Dubliners have travelled to other countries and seen how they treat Guinness and sometimes have drunk something else rather than see their beloved black stuff being treated like any other beer. An Irishman walked into a pub in Birmingham, England, and asked for a pint of Guinness, one day, only to see the excuse for a barman put a pint glass under the Guinness tap and press a button; this opened the pipe that dropped a pint of Guinness into a glass; dropped being the operative word as this had as much to do with pouring and caring for a pint of Guinness as throwing a pint of paint at a canvas and calling it art; people have called this art, of course, just as the people from Birmingham used to call that drink a pint of Guinness; they were both wrong.

And here is a lovely looking pint of Guinness:

Guinness: the perfect pint.

I was in Herefordshire over the weekend and when I went to the bar I was delighted to see that they had a Guinness pump so I asked for a pint of Guinness; the barmaid reached into the cupboard behind her and brought out a can of Guinness. It was a strange looking can and seemed to have a silver bottom unlike the regular Guinness can – the one with the widget – which is black at the bottom and signed Arthur Guinness.

She opened the can and started to pour the Guinness in to a pint glass and it looked flat and rather like black treacle. I was stumped for words as I watched this demonstration. I eventually said “What are you doing?”

The barmade just smiled and said “Now I have to put it on here” and she took that flat pint of Guinness and placed it on a small metal plate, under the Guinness tap, and pressed a button.

“This is the surge” she said.

Something was happening to the pint; it was being 'surged' from underneath, somehow, and gas was being put into it and eventually the head formed and a lot of the Guinness went over the side of the glass and all over the floor.

“This is the way we do the Guinness here” she said.

I eventually gave her £3 for the Guinness and took it to my seat; it looked like a Guinness, it felt like and Guinness and you know what? When I took a swig of it it nearly tasted like one – nearly!!

It was explained to me that they didn't sell much Guinness and I told them I wasn't surprised if it was only nearly a pint of Guinness.

I have to say one thing for Los Angeles, if it didn't have a Guinness tap to sell proper draught Guinness pubs and bars would sell the can with the widget. In case you don't know Guinness, in 1991, invented the widget and I believe they won the Queen's Award to Industry because of it. The 'widget' is actually a plastic moulded device that sits at the bottom of a can until it's opened and then releases a little beer and nitrogen, forcing a surge of bubbles that settle to form the tight white head - in short, the perfect pint at home. (source TheDrinkShop.com).

So I wondered why they just didn't have the draught Guinness at the pub and it was explained to me that unless they could sell a barrel of Guinness every 48 hours it wasn't feasible to sell it at all as it goes off.

But as to the surger here is what I found on the Internet:

Always complaining that your pint of the black stuff is never as good as that black nectar you supped in Ireland? Well, celebrate this St. Patrick's Day in true Irish tradition with the Guinness Surger Starterkit.
The Surger Kit is a revolutionary system that uses ultrasonic waves to stimulate the molecules in your pint of stout so your sad can of Guinness is transformed into a cream-brimmed glass of velvet. So, how does it work? Well, refrigerate a can of Guinness for at least three hours. Pour a little water onto the tray at the top of the Surger unit. Next, pour your can of Guinness into a glass at a 45 degree angle. Now, place you glass of freshly-poured Guinness onto the tray of water on the Surger unit. All that’s left is to hit the button on Surger unit. Sit back and witness the miracle of ultrasonic waves. In a matter of minutes, you can enjoy a Guinness just as good as the fresh draught served at The Storehouse in James's Gate.

First my coffee now my Guinness – this is going to get serious!!

Guinness - the pathetic surged pint.

Wake up and smell the coffee!

The dreadful M25.

It's an old expression wake up and smell the coffee but it's a truism; it means take notice of what is going on around you. I like to wake up and smell the coffee even though I usually drink Earl Grey tea, in the morning and don't touch coffee till the afternoon. Why the Italians are so proud of not drinking coffee after ten in the morning is beyond me so I can't see Starbucks doing any good business there.

However, I must say, I only drink decaffeinated (tea and coffee); I know people will think that's not the real stuff, that's not coffee you can't drink coffee unless it makes your heart beat fast.

Well there are other ways of making my heart beat fast!

My brother, replied to my post on Americano coffee saying 'going into Starbucks is like going into prison for sex; you know you're going to get some but you know it's going to be rough.'

But when I say wake up and smell the coffee I am talking about taking your time through life. I have done a lot of driving since being here and most of the time has been on motorways.

I started in Southampton, went up to London and I've been to Suffolk, Edinburgh, York, Birmingham and more than once to some of those places.

When I went to Edinburgh I could see the wonderful city almost immediately and when I went to York I saw it straight away.

In Birmingham last weekend I didn't see it at all; I got out of the car in Tamworth, which was about half an hour's drive from Birmingham, a few minutes from a motorway – a freeway in America – and in Birmingham the motorway seems to go right into the city centre. So when I got out of the car there it was as if I was in outer space and landing on a satellite.

At one time, when I worked for the post office on the motorbikes, I got to know all the routes for the whole south part of the city – that is stretching from the east side right over to the south west – postal districts 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and a lot of the outer places and last weekend I didn't know any of it. I will presume that the suburbs are still the same but what saved me on Saturday was the old district numbers still on the street signs.

And what are the district numbers? They are what preceded the postal code (UK), zip code (USA) and the PIN code (India).

But you know – it got me to where I wanted to go faster than any other way and to get to the place in the centre of Birmingham from London I used the magical Spaghetti Junction.

Here is a map of it:

that is the original Spaghetti Junction.

Now it seems to me that we are using these motorways and missing where we are and what we can see, what we can hear and what we can smell. In other words we don't smell the flowers in those places we don't smell the coffee.

In Los Angeles I used to love to drive up Vine Street and come to Hollywood and Vine – even the name gives me a tingle; I would see a great building there called the Taft Building and I used to love to drive down Fairfax on my way to the farmer's market. I loved the architecture.

I mean look at The Capital Building – a stack of records piled on top of one another; the same architect designed the big restaurant at LAX airport; look at it:

The Capital Building, Hollywood; home of Capital Records.

There is an awful notorious motorway which circles London called the M25 – all motorways are prefixed with an M by the way - it is an awful motorway. It has a clockwise direction and an anti clockwise direction and in theory you can take any direction to reach your destination.

Now you will know what I think of the private motor car (whose days are numbered I have to say as it just can't go on) and motorways have been built to service the private motor car for the past 60 years in the UK.

Motorways are not meant to be pretty but on some of them you can see trees, some countryside and maybe some buildings - but not on the M25.

A few months after it was built they discovered it wasn't wide enough so they had to widen it in some places, then general maintenance meant more road works and repairs and it also attracted big trucks and when you use it you don't smell the coffee or see the trees you are up the arse of lorries and vans and you smell their exhaust fumes as you weave your way through the multitudinous traffic cones that spring up every ten miles or so.

If you look at the M25 at the top of the page you will see that there is another 'ring road' closer to London called the North Circular Road and South Circular Road and this does the same job but is not a motorway. That is a smaller circle to go around but people have actually been sent to the outer circle to go all the way around London to go the other way. For example the people in west London who want to travel east travel all the way out west to the M25 and then go all the way around to where they want to get off. Most of the time, even when they've travelled 100 miles they are still only 15 – 20 miles from the city.

Sometimes it is faster to go all the way round on the hellish motorway and you can save time but . ..

and this is the big question:

What is time?

Time is the one thing the lag is thinking about; the poor prisoner in his cell. Nothing is more important to him than time whereas to us the free people – free from that kind of prison perhaps – should never have to think of time and if we do? What are we but prisoners to the old enemy time.

So you save an hour by travelling around that monstrosity which will eventually spread exponentially as more cars are sold and more of us want to buy them and what do you do with that hour?

Nothing.

You may think you are doing something as you look at the garbage on TV, dangle little Johnny on your lap but why didn't you go the other way?

Last night instead of going around the M25 I travelled through London; I passed the British Library which half the people on the M25 probably don't even know exists; I passed Saint Pancras Railway Station which truly is one of the most wonderful buildings in London; I drove to the north of Bloomsbury where the likes of Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes and EM Forster were part of The Bloomsbury Set – oh how a little drive through London gives you food for thought.

Hope all is well on the M25!!

Americano - the scourge of coffee drinkers.

Robert Mitchum (top) and Robert Ryan.

There are lots of strange things about being back here; lots of things I am trying to get used to; just like when I first moved to Los Angeles.

For example when I moved there I couldn't find any Battenberg cakes; no cherry Bakewells; no Eccles cakes, fresh cream doughnuts – in fact no fresh cream at all. The fresh cream they give you is in an aerosol-can and you spray it; takes a lot of getting used to but you do.

If you buy fresh dairy cream in a carton there it seems to be made from homogenised milk – in fact you don't get fresh milk as you do in Britain and the cheese you will know about and that's a whole other story in itself; in fact one of the pleasures of being back here is the quality of the cheese.

One of the great things about living in Los Angeles was my favourite coffee hole The Farmers' Market (see previous posts) and the wonderful coffee they served and one of the worse things about being back here is the standard of the coffee; everywhere you go they serve the dreaded and tasteless Americano coffee.

Now who's idea was The Americano? It is tasteless mud! It is the equivalent of keeping a pot of tea simmering for hours and then when you want a cup put a spot of tea into the bottom of a cup then fill it up with boiling water.

When you make a pot of tea you put the tea leaves into the pot, then pour almost boiling water on top of them then leave the tea to brew or mash, for about 5 minutes.

Coffee is made the same way – you make it in a pot and it brews.

Americano is made by adding boiling water to espresso coffee – it's not brewed. And this is not an age thing; we have known espresso coffee all our lives. It was used in the coffee bars in the 50s and 60s in fact I remember the lyrics of the Lionel Bart song Fings Aint What They Used To Be:

'Once our beer was frothy but now it frothy coffee....

well fings aint what they used to be.'

I can just about stand coffee from a cafetiere – apart from all the mud at the bottom of the cup – but what happened to the good old cup of Joe? Coffee from a percolator, a coffee machine or just a plain old filter where you drip the coffee through to the cup.

There was a place I used to use here which gave you an individual filter and you waited whilst it dripped through before drinking it.

In a survey, a few years ago, it was found that coffee is carcinogenic; it went on to say that if it is filtered through paper it has the opposite affect.

Since I've been away all the horrible coffee shops have emerged in the UK; Cafe Nero, Costa, Starbucks and all the other equally guilty places.

There was a Campaign for Real Ale in the early 70s in Britain – remember the phrase Watneys' the Scourge of the Drinking Classes? Watneys introduced keg beer to Britain with Watneys Red Barrel, which was a keg bitter.

Keg bitter is pasteurised to stop fermentation and carbon dioxide is added for sparkle and keg beer didn't need the traditional long pump we see at the bar; but customers suspected that their beer was getting weaker and they were right – so CAMRA came along (The Campaign for Real Ale) and now you can get a decent pint in most places. In the 70s, sales of cask beers began to rise as there was a growing appreciation for the traditional methods of brewing. It is a testament to the success of CAMRA that the "classic" keg bitters of the sixties are now extinct. (source: http://retrowrow.co.uk).

But it's happening with the coffee in the shape of the Americano – be warned my friends. And it's happening with Earl Grey Tea; Twinings have changed their recipe – why????

The photos on here? These are great actors and all enjoyed their cup of Joe!

Lee Marvin: did a naughty thing with coffee.