In Los Angeles last month we were wined and dined and mulligan-souped up to our eyeballs. Los Angelenos love entertaining their visitors and even though I’ve lived on and off in the hills of Beverly since I was 21, I’m still welcomed happily by the natives. I started Christmas shopping early in LA and New York, but it doesn’t seem that early as the decorations go up immediately after Hallowe’en. I’ve never quite understood why our American cousins like Hallowe’en so much. Certainly it is an exciting event for children, but why several of my acquaintances (who should know better) delight in attending parties dressed up as hookers beats me. When my children were young we always did the full witch, Batman, space cadet bit, knocking on doors with impunity, secure in the knowledge that no proffered sweets would contain poison, broken glass or other horrors, as too often happens today. In Manhattan, my daughter-in-law will only take three-year-old Ava Grace on Hallowe’en to apartments in their building where she knows the occupants. What a sad indictment of our society today, but better safe than sorry.
I’m a huge fan of Christmas festivities so I had great fun ‘lighting the lights’ in Burlington Arcade, which looks wonderfully festive now. We started planning our own Christmas card in July and as for decorating and adorning the tree, I can say with all due modesty — I am a total expert. I began making my own decorations when my kids were tiny. We made them by hand — each one a minor work of art — painstakingly covered in sequins, velvet and ribbon. Each Christmas we created a few more and by the time they were teenagers the attic overflowed with seasonal cheer. The delightful memories evoked by each gaudy styrofoam bauble inaugurated the Christmas spirit and shortly after the tree was bought: real fir, at least eight feet tall, full, luxuriant and strong enough to handle lots of balls.
In Las Vegas we were dazzled by Cirque de Soleil’s Love, an extravaganza of acrobatics and fantasia, movement and dancing, held together by the music and film clips of the Beatles from their earliest days. Mind-bogglingly entertaining, it reminded us how brilliant the Fab Four’s music and lyrics were. But even more mind-boggling was being stuck in a traffic jam on the strip, watching, in horrified amazement, as the morbidly obese jostled for space on the sidewalk. Massive swaths of fat battled each other like Jello warriors on the straining sidewalk. None of the men appeared to weigh less than 300 pounds and most of the women were verging on 250. Since Las Vegas represents a true cross-section of the US population, then the nation on average must presumably consume at least three to four thousand calories a day. The portions in most restaurants now, not just in McDonald’s and their ilk, are so gargantuan that the LA ladies who lunch (and me too) almost always split portions between each other and still leave more on their plate. My edict has always been: ‘The best exercise for losing weight is pushing yourself away from the table.’ Hey, Michael Winner! I’ve been using your Fat Pig Diet for years.
As everyone knows, prices in America for so many things are now unbelievably low compared with England. Ninety-six pence is the lowest fare on the New York subway as compared to £4 on the London Tube. Americans who haven’t been here simply can’t believe that it costs the equivalent of nearly $20 for the privilege of travelling into London. They gasp to hear that meters charge £1 for 15 minutes’ parking as compared to 25 cents (12p) for 20 minutes in Los Angeles, and that the minimum fare in a London taxi is £2.20 compared to £1.10 in New York. If the US charged their people such inflated prices, they would probably have another civil war on their hands.
BAA has become even more strict and intransigent towards its Heathrow travellers. On an overnight trip to Germany Percy and I recently took, we carried the single allotted cabin bag each. With their ludicrous rule that one can’t even carry a handbag (the only airport in the entire world which insists on this inconvenience), I had to stuff mine into Percy’s standard size ‘wheelie’. However, the official-looking somebody mustn’t have liked the cut of our jib and insisted that Percy’s bag was too big, even though it easily went through the X-ray belt. Despite our pleading, Percy was sent back to check his bag while I observed one man go through with a suitcase-size carry-on plus briefcase, another with a surfboard and one woman with a handbag, briefcase, duffel bag and a dog. My protestations of our comparative compliance fell on stony ground. What a difference the following morning in Cologne, when two efficient porters and an airport employee escorted us effortlessly through security without a fuss. We might have won the war, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a lesson from the Krauts.
George Bush is still the favourite target of late-night comics like Jay Leno and David Letterman, but unlike on our prime-time television you seldom hear the ‘F’ word or the ‘S’ or ‘C’ word.
On many Manhattan street corners New York’s finest, flinty-eyed and (regrettably) slightly corpulent cops keep a stern eye on the madding crowd, which is why New York is now one of the safest cities in which to walk in the world, as opposed to London, which is apparently one of the most dangerous. However, some of the most dangerous and careless individuals in both cities are cyclists. Many of them think nothing of racing along the pavement or sidewalks or roads with little consideration for pedestrians. There were two instances the other week in New York of a cyclist smashing into an innocent walker and inflicting serious injury. A friend of mine was walking to pick up her grandson when a punk on a bike smashed her to the ground on Kensington High Street. He didn’t even stop. Her leg was broken, but Audrey is one brave and fit lady and luckily was in good enough shape to recover after two weeks in hospital, even though she still uses crutches. Why can’t the CCTV cameras that take hundreds of images of each of us every day catch these monstrous morons instead of only recording parking violations? If cyclists had to follow some of the same rules as motorists, Audrey’s assailant would have been caught and I hope jailed for this dastardly hit and run. All bike riders should be made to follow the rules of the road and have licence plates — that way they could be booked for crimes and misdemeanours far more serious than parking offences. Are you listening, Ken Livingstone?