Having a good time actually. Finally got my act together and arranged a trip to see chunky in L.A. he’s been there a year and a half and it seems would give a gonad to get back to the U.K. Apparently he misses rain. I can see his point, but don’t share his feelings just yet. It was good to be around an English accent for a couple of days. After a few hours Americans started sounding funny again, which was reassuring.

We went to see the “tar pits” which I became aware of thru the simpsons as folklorically being responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. In fact the tar pits at la brea are the richest source of pleistocene (~30k years ago) creatures… so animals like saber-toothed tigers, ground sloths, mastodons etc, which were around at the same time as cavemen. The tar pits are formed by crude oil and asphalt oozing to the surface. Once in a while, some creature would get stuck in the tar. Then its body would attract carnivores and scavangers, who would also become trapped. The scientists reckon about 30,000 fossilized skellingtons are in there. Pretty cool in a geeky science-project sort of way.

Then we went down hollywood boulevard. As we approached, I said, where did the oscars take place? Must’ve been somewhere around here… Chunky said “Dunno” so we parked up in the basement of the Kodak Theater and wandered about a bit. I took a perverse pleasure in spotting stars in the pavement naming people I had never heard of among clusters of very famous people. We looked in the trashy gift shops but they were no less trashy than those in Scarborough or Skegness, so no purchases were made. We also found a magic shop and got a slice of hollywood in the guise of a middle-aged woman who’d gone in there to get as much magic stuff as she could for $15 and chat up the guy behind the counter and anyone else who’s looking receptive.

A stop in a sports bar (the first bar I’ve been to in the US and with a distinctly batchelor feel to it) trying to put my eyes anywhere other than straight into those of the barmaid, and on to see the rocky horror picture show (accompanied by live action verbatim miming and orchestrated heckling) in the Nuart theater on Santa Monica boulevard which was interesting. I was a virgin but managed to avoid getting lipstick all over my face… one girl had bright red lipstick on, so they wrote a C on her right cheek and a CK on her left. At 3:30 we went for food and my body clock went “oo, I recongnize this!” so as a result last night I was knackered at 8pm and woke at 2 am.

Sunday morning we tried to make venice beach but there was no parking (they only park on the streets - no multistoreys) so we just stopped at a diner and I had Salmon Benedict and Root Beer (which I think is dandelion and burdock by another name), then I headed back up the ventura freeway to Santa Barbara in time for Viswanadh’s cousin Kumar to take us for a hike up to Inspiration Point. It certainly was inspiring but I forgot my camera so you guys don’t get to share, sorry! I’ll probably go back as there were a couple of sights I’d like to keep.