I’ve been to Venice Beach a couple of times before, many years ago I stayed with a fellow illustrator/ cartoonist and our agent ( yes , I had a spell being represented by an agent ) when we all went on a business trip to L.A. He hired an apartment for us all on Venice Beach. He was that type of guy who felt the need to be cool. He rented a Ford Thunderbird convertible for himself and Phil and I made do with a small Toyota Claris which was the sort of car that one’s Aunty Clarice might have driven. I’m not sure that the car was called a Claris, but it might have been.

The apartment was huge and overlooked Venice Beach.

I also visited Venice last time we came out here a couple of years ago. Loved the vibe of the place, a bit like Blackpool on speed. It never occurred to me that the place has canals, until my visit today.

There was a clue in the name.

So out we go on a flat grey day ( for California ) or what would be called “not bad for the time of year” day back home. My son in law drove me there and my intention was to take photos of interest, and suggested that we walk down the canals, where small for US standard houses overlook the canals. These places go for around £3.4 million at the very cheap end, and up from there. They have a fine outlook over the waterways but stand cheek by jowl with homeless people’s tents here and there on bridges. The homeless problem is even more marked in this area than anywhere else I’ve seen on this trip. Probably because it is a relatively compact area.

On the main streets are numerous coffee shops and then on the beach side the more Blackpool styled eateries with every conceivable thing stuffed into a bread type product. Coffee and almond croissant was enough to fill my ribs for much of the rest of the day.

This is almost the end of our trip here. It’s been uniformly excellent. As the governor from around here used to say: “I’ll be back”but in this case “We’ll be back”