Rodeo Drive Baby

---

LA. The City of Angels. A comically large white sign, the club that killed River Phoenix, the B'ball courts on the beach from White Men Can't Jump and those huts from Baywatch, Beverley Hills, South Central gangland and, of course, Rodeo Drive, Baby. How can you see all this in just one day. The city is almost as big as London - and you don't do all that in a day, do you? Well, We had a good tip for a tour guided by a bloke called Benny D, or Kenny G, oh yeah, Micky Z, that's it. The tour covered the lot and good amount of stars' houses around the place, e.g Madonna, Christopher Walken, Mel Gibson and Britney Spears to name but a few. The driver, Mr Z, had an interesting take on everything in LA. Claiming to be an ex actor/producer/stuntman/roady on every show and movie ever made he was quickly spotted as whet he really was. A twat. And a twat with a high opinion of himself. I could not decide wether to to fear for my safety of cringe in painful embarasement as he pulled up to some random black dude in a tourist no-go area and affect a pour homey accent. Was he trying to impress his punters of get us all smoked by a heat-packing 'G'? What ever, my choice was to turn to Lara and piss myself laughing. We both thoroughly enjoyed the day which took in absolutly everything there is to see before photo oportunities next to the Hollywood sign. It was unboubtedly an exellent value tour for just 40 bucks each but what a twat! If I hear one more fabricated anecdote about a compliment won from Paul McCartney I'll push the fucker off that bloody sign!

In the evening Lara and I grabbed an awsome burger at Mel's Diner, an old fashioned place like the one in Happy Days, then took a walk along Hollywood Boulivard, 'The walk of Fame', where all those stars are set in the pavement. I kept thinking "I know I'm in LA because it says so in my passport but it don't half feel like Liecester Square." The freaks outside the Chinese Theatre are slightly more freaky than those in London and the blingin' alloys are on much bigger motors but it's fundamentally the same. If we compare LA to some of the places we've been this year it really is a step home.

Next day we hit a little breakfast place on Sunset Strip that is suposedly frequented by the big names. All I saw was big piles of pancakes. With just a few hours before our flight home we had to have a little look at the shops. Abercrombe and Fitch. Don't got that back home. Woah, Lara! we've got to get all that shopping home! And we got charged for th first time in god knows how many flights for exess baggage. Our last flight and those jobs-worths at LAX actually threatened to not let us home unless we paid for the surfboards. Had to happen eventually didn't it?

---