A fibreglass bandit

I flew into LA, and was driven along palm-lined boulevards to my hotel. Between the palm trees marched endless billboards which seemed to be part of some fierce ratings battle between rival TV medical dramas. Immaculate teams of white-coated hollywood personalities grinned from every poster. I wouldn't want any of them near me in an operating theatre. They looked like they would be too busy buffing their teeth in the mirror to notice that your liver had fallen out and was flopping about in a steel dish.

I met up with some friends who moved recently to LA, and we went to Sunset Boulevard to eat. After the restaurant we strolled along the boulevard looking for a bar. Most of the bars were themed, but whereas in other places the theming tends to be mainly internal, in LA they wear it on the outside. We sat outside a bar that was like a film set of a Waaald West Saloooon. Two fibreglass bar girls waved from a balcony in their flouncy dresses, and a fibreglass bandit burst out through the wall beside them on his fibreglass horse. The beer seemed real enough.

Back in my hotel room I could hear the rattle of helicopters outside the window. There were three of them holding a triangular formation above a tall building. Their noses were all facing into the centre and they looked far too close to each other for comfort. A fourth helicopter was flying in rapid circles around them, his own nose pointed towards the hovering group as he flew. This went on for some minutes, like a strange mating ritual. I suppose helicopters have to come from somewhere. Eventually the three female helicopters broke formation and flew off towards the hills, and the male helicopter headed in another direction to sulk.

There were three school visits the following day, where I faced the combined intelligence of hundreds of sharp-witted ten-year-olds with nothing for protection but a wireless microphone clipped to my ear. I found that turning my head at a certain angle produced feedback from the speakers. It occurred to me that if a rock-hard question came up I could just tilt my head and stun the questioner with a scream of feedback. By the time they recovered the question would be forgotten. It didn't come to that, which was probably a good thing.

Later I ate in a fancy creperie, attended by an extremely eager waitress. I've noticed with some American girls that the more polite and helpful they wish to appear, the higher their voices become, and this waitress swiftly reached a pitch where she could only have been heard by a dog. She must be saving for something important, I thought, so I tipped big.