I know it’s iconic and this was well worth a visit, there’s a pleasant short walk around a park and pathway near enough this sign. I’ve always thought they should perhaps do something about the kerning on this piece, typographers will know what I’m on about. I’ve had a lot of fun wandering around the bits of LA near to where we are staying but , like most things here, this required a car journey.

I’ve taken lots of sign pics and will be featuring them on them next few posts. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed finding them. It helps of course, that we’ve had almost unbroken sunshine, a lot of the pictures were taken on Christmas Day when it was unusually quiet, but it’s back to its bustling self again.

This sign of the Beatles, or perhaps better described as a mural, shows how best to deal with a face that you can’t draw too well. Everyone knows what the Beatles look like so it’s tough when you can’t get a likeness, but here where the artist can’t seem to fix it, it’s been fixed by hiding him! George is not rendered too well here either but Ringo and John are doing ok. Paul’s in hiding , perhaps just as well.

I feel for the person who did this piece, I find it tough to draw any sort of likeness. I might manage Ringo and John at a push, but the other two would defeat me too.

I think so, this one certainly did it for me and this viewer was equally transfixed. She blends well too!

A time for snow deep on the ground and the crisp crunch of ice and snow underfoot, wrapped up warm against the chill and the easterly gales. Looking forward to hot drinks and a drop of brandy to ward off the chill in front of a blazing log fire.

Well there are logs, but the rest is Hollywood fiction. This was taken this morning in Griffith Park, Los Angeles.

Wishing all those who bother to pop in here a very Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New Year.

So here we are and as per l’ve packed wooly socks and jummies for the Christmas festivities. It’s in the low seventies and the only thing being tested is the deoderant. The plan for me this time is to take loads of pictures of what I think are a great feature of LA life and that is the billboards or signs.

They will take just about any available space to put up a massive sign, for almost anything, thinking nothing of erecting a load of scaffolding atop an apartment block to add to the advertising free for all. In addition to the signs I’ll be writing here and there with obsevations about how they deal with Christmas here. Mince pies are thin on the ground for a start. The concept is foreign to them, whereas in the UK its gone bananas with mince pieces available from early September and by Christmas stacked to the ceilings in supermarkets.

As well as Christmas I’ll  pop in some stuff about various art galleries and what we see. having been to two already I can tell you its a visual treat.

With this is a photo of a US telegraph pole, well why not?

The Getty is on a hill overlooking LA. It’s worth a visit just for that but add in some stunning architecture and some equally stunning art and you have the makings of a great day out.

It’s free to go in, you just pay for the parking. There are loads of amenities as well as loads of sculpture and art to suit all tastes. I have a liking for the impressionists and works from the 1800s.

I was never a big fan of David’s work but this simple portrait is a stunner and comes with the added bonus of being of the daughter of one of the French revolutionaries, so has a bit of a story. David’s usual work is somewhat monumental, but this simple personal piece has a unique power for me.

I hope you like it as much as I do. I’ll post some more on the next blog.

Incidentally they also have the enlightened view that it is ok to take photos of the paintings as long as you don’t use flash. So no smuggling occurred here.

So here we are own a plan on our way to la la land and the delights of airline food beckon.

There’s a choice between sausage and mash, chicken curry and a pasta.In the event there’s no chicken curry left, but the helpful flight attendant suggests that we she might have a premium dish ( exclusive to those who sit in rows of two not three as we are in economy ) might be available.

The online ordering system seems to have broken so what we ordered was not.

Giddy with excitement I plumped for the tortellini premium. I was offered a sausage and mash in addition, but declined out of a desire not to look like I inhabited pig class as a matter of course.

Giddiness soon wore off as the tort was not what it ought. Edible, but not premium. There lived a very small slab of green stuff underneath the alleged tort. It tasted of green stuff.

En route to LA this is a trip when last time I managed to cook up a headache of monster proportions. We are travelling virgin again, not a phrase that I like to use really, making it sound like we’ve never done this before.

I’m better prepared this time with an iPad so I can vent like this right now. I am armed with a stock of worthy podcasts to while away the hours, plus a book I’ve not read before: The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell . Recommended holiday reading for the Christmas season.I was brought up around the Wigan area, so thought it would bring back those happy memories of mines and desperate poverty, not my own, but as told and recorded by George. I have memories myself as a small boy hearing the clogs of the miners on their way to work in the very early morning outside the house where we lived. Now there are no mines at all. That might not be a bad thing, but what replaced it is not that edifying, large fulfilment warehouses. At least they are clean.

I’m a quarter way through the small book and it brings to mind the subject of class. We are in economy, others are in premium where they get premium tortellini and more legroom, a privileged few are in first class, which may well be called “ultra high class gold star premium with early boarding”.They pay thousands to be a short walk away from us back here who know our place. Yes, that’s thousands! I had the opportunity to ‘upgrade’ just last night when I checked us in and the upgrade was £3600.00 each!,

Each!

If you spent 50 quid a week on food you’d have change at the end of the year.

That’s just the upgrade too.

I hope they get real coffee up there as the stuff we get in economy is grim indeed.

Perhaps they get better film choices and better sound systems, the one in economy is barely audible and the choice of films hardly seems to matter if you can’t hear it.

It might seem from this that I’m not enjoying myself. I’ll get back to you on that.

So back to class, and Orwell.

I wonder what he’d have made of the present. He describes slums and poverty and the smell of poverty. In Heathrow one is obliged to walk the tunnel of perfume after entering the terminal. I suppose it’s a good idea for them to try and sell this stuff when you are to be sitting for 10 plus hours and looking like a badly wrapped Christmas parcel when you arrive, you will at least smell good, or the perfume will disguise that odour of airline food and the clothes you’ve just slept in. A habit that the poor of Orwell’s day had no choice in.

I thought that when I went to school that by this time some 50 plus years later we would have a much more equal society. Poverty these days is seen as a household without flat screen tv. Orwell’s subjects were almost starving, yet today we have food banks to help our poor and celebrity chefs telling schools how to feed the children properly. We have obesity, eating disorders and fast food as well as high end food at a price that makes the mouth dry and the eyes water.

So, here we are in La La Land this time for Christmas , looking forward to spending time with family there and looking at how the Americans do this sort of thing.

We land in a few hours so it’s downhill all the way from here.

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I wrote the above on the plane a few days ago, since then I came across this in a shop in LA and thought about Orwell’s subjects. A bottle of vinegar that would keep them in fish and chips for a couple of years.

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Contrary to popular belief the Mug of the Year is not Teresa or Donald, it’s the Stroud Wassail Mug which has just been delivered to the fine Subcription Rooms in Stroud. Beautifully illustrated by Alison Merry and designed by my good self, they are there to celebrate the Stroud Wassail which is a medieval celebration taking place in January in Stroud.

Find out more about the goings on that will occur right here:http://stroudwassail.com

Unlike Teresa, Donald, and all that shower this lot will raise your spirits and we are likely to need that in January!

So here we are with not long to go before another year is on us. A big thank you for all those people who took the trouble to follow and like what I do here.

I decided to do some “proper drawings” as my dear Aunty Anne told me one time. Cartoons are proper drawings I muttered at the time and they gave me a living for many years. I’ve always been interested in more than cartoons. I’m keen on photography and other people’s work. Which is why I chose to start a small website a year ago http://www.looksgoodonthewall.com

It’s intended to give more visibility to a number of artist friends whose work I like very much. Take a look sometime, there’s some rare talent there.

The drawing below is a close relative of the one above.

I wish everyone in the Blogosphere a very Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.