In this district of Studio City, so called by the fact that film studios liked to locate here, there are streets of houses away from the main roads that are quiet and peaceful. The area has a number of quite old houses for LA, old being the 20s and 30s . It’s a desirable place to live especially for families but the housing is not cheap. I’m told it’s not cheap almost anywhere in LA. The demographic in this area is fairly young professionals. Most houses have a two car garage attached or to the side of the house. Generally … Continue reading House rules…

Another great sign just a short walk away from where daughter and Co live in LA. Always helped by bright blue skies of course. Many of these might not look quite so good on a wet day in Wolverhampton. I could almost be tempted to try ten pin bowling, almost. Continue reading Bowling

This wonderful entrance and pay booth is now the Barnes and Noble bookshop on Ventura Boulevard. Continue reading Bookshop that used to be a cinema

A return trip to LACMA, one of the art galleries in LA. Closed on Wednesdays, so caught it this time. Loads to see in spacious airy galleries. I’ve often wondered what it must be like to be employed to watch the people looking at the pictures. If you’re a natural people watcher then to be surrounded by them and fine art must be good, but I suspect, by the miserable people on watch on this day, that this is not a job full of joy. Could be worse, they could be working for inland immigration whose natural demeanour is enough … Continue reading Art revisited…

On our recent stay on a ranch near, well sort of near, Ojai , North of LA we met Albert. He’s from Texas. The owner of the ranch: Richard, made our stay interesting and our grandsons loved all the animals and Albert in particular. You could say that Albert was rescued, but normally a rescued animal is free, they paid to rescue Albert. He lives on the ranch amongst dozens of goats and in perfect harmony. He doesn’t bite you, having only one decent set of teeth, but probably wouldn’t if he had them all. He really was quite lovely. … Continue reading Albert from Texas

Thanksgiving. An event here that’s bigger than Christmas. Getting into the swing of it, son in law and I went off with a shopping list. No thousand yard stare at a grubby handwritten note for us, we had the digital version on the phone, so problems with shorthand like wu liquid and stuff instead of stuffing did not arise, but still ‘men shopping’ with inherent danger of off piste decisions. We very proudly returned with all the right things in the right order. I know, not much of a story, but we were proud of ourselves. And a comparison to … Continue reading Bigger than Christmas…

Just a seed head. Location: 30 minutes out of Ojai which is a 2 hours drive north of LA. More about this trip within a trip later, but for the moment please let me know if you know what this might be. Seen on a long walk in the hills. Continue reading A gem in the hills

We are now in an area North of LA which could best be described as cowboy country. Staying on a ranch which a has loads of goats, sheep, ducks, birds, horses and a camel called Albert. So we’ve got away from it all when we’d already got away from it all in LA. ‘It all’ is perhaps everyday life, or a change is scene, so we are changing scene and scenery yet again. This area is dry and stunning, a victim of fires but where we are was not itself affected, just surrounded by them. It’s a flat area of … Continue reading Getting away from getting away…

A good friend of my daughter out here in the promised land of California, is on mission to eat better .To this end she’s been shopping at a supermarket that is what we might call ‘Waitrose on speed’. Very high quality and with a worthy mission statement writ large on the ecologically sound brown paper bag that advertises to the world, that you are indeed a worthy person. As you walk out of the store. Her other half is somewhat underwhelmed by the direction this is all going in. An admittedly large cup of soup was revealed to have cost … Continue reading $22 for a cup of soup?

People here don’t really talk much about the weather, probably because it’s mostly the same everyday, so the remark ‘ What a lovely day today’ seems oddly out of place as it’s just not that unusual. The second time I visited LA I came with a fellow illustrator, and he was definitely an illustrator whereas I’ve always been conflicted over my art gender, and have only really come to terms with being called and calling myself a cartoonist in the last10 years or so ( when for most of that time I was actually a print salesman ) I digress. … Continue reading More of the same?

You need to have insurance out here. Medical is a must as health treatments are so expensive. The guys selling this stuff must be making a bean or two too. The Accident Guys for instance, they must be making enough to have a big sign like this. Interestingly no contact info on their poster, sold entirely on the name so no doubt easy to find on Google. Signs are just everywhere and fight for attention, they must work or people would simply not buy them but in parts they seem to overwhelm the street. As for Shakey’s, they’ve been there … Continue reading On the street, again.

Aborted trip to LACMA, the art museum here in LA because of Wednesday closing resulted in an extra few minutes walk to the Movie Museum nearby. There’s enough going on in here to keep you interested for days, so like a good movie, we had to edit it all a little and then we’ll take a look at what’s left for another trip. First of all a typographical gripe, why the hell does someone think that setting white text on black is a good idea? It’s not. Then further along setting white on pale green for crying out loud. Fire … Continue reading Movie musings in a museum…