Flip-flops. Extras. Exploding luggage

I flew into Los Angeles and was taken to the Mondrian hotel on Sunset Boulevard. The lobby was undergoing refurbishment, so I was ushered through an underground entrance by a brick-shithouse security guard with a curly cable plugged into his ear. It was a Bobby Kennedy moment, and at first I was too busy looking out for armed and disaffected kitchen workers to notice what a strange planet I had arrived on.

This was the second of only two visits I've made to LA, and brief ones at that, but I get an overwhelming feeling that the entire city and its population are the creation of the cartoonist Daniel Clowes. There's a bizarre plastic energy in the place that's every bit as strong as the crackle of Manhattan, but entirely different in character. When in New York I still get a huge kick out of standing in the middle of Times Square (along with all the other gawpers) and just drinking in that buzz that comes from eight million lives lived at full tilt. In LA it's like the switch has been thrown the other way. Everyone you see is on the verge of their big break, perched on the edge of hotel sofas with bush-baby stares, trying to suck fame towards them and fearful of missing that blink-of-an-eye moment when their One Chance might slouch by in designer flip-flops and disappear into the glare.

I had a meeting with two people from the Gotham group, a talent agency that has brokered some high-profile movie deals for Harper Collins. I was half expecting Batman and Robin, and I wasn't sure what the appropriate dress might be for such an encounter. In any case my flight had touched down late, which barely left me time to apply a clean shirt and a squirt of mouthwash before I received a call from the front desk to say that my guests had arrived. Was I coming down, the receptionist asked, or should she send them up to my room?

Her question took me by surprise. Clearly there's a different way of doing business in LA, and I wondered if this meant my guests would be expecting a couple of lines of hospitality powder rather than a demonstration of my Fabulous Exploding Luggage trick, which was all they would get. I decided to play it safe and come down to the lobby instead.

Instead of Batman and Robin I met Julie and Tim, who were reassuringly down to earth and did not wear capes. They had a plumbless enthusiam for the entertainment business and some fascinating insights into the workings of Hollywood, not to mention the goings on in the hotel itself, which it turns out is one of the premier night spots for the glitterati. The after-hours parties around the pool deck, they assured me, would make a tabloid journalist choke on his daquiri. As it happens I had a dinner date with some friends who live in LA, which saved me from the temptation to have myself turned away from the night's shenanigans by mister brick shithouse, or worse still, let in as a hotel guest to wander around like Ricky Gervais on Extras. Somebody up there likes me.