U nlike Randy Newman, I’ve always loved LA in a completely
unironic way. I love the climate, the light, the vegetation, the fake breasts, the lot. And the celebrity culture is impossible to get used to: I still get a childish thrill when I pull up to the lights and find myself next to Tom Cruise or Samuel L. Jackson. It’s fun. Puts a spring in your step (if you can have one in a rented Range Rover). We had an Aren’t We Clever To Be Here celebration there a few weeks ago, a party in the penthouse at the infamous Chateau Marmont, and most of the guests (gilt-edged parentheses for Elton John, Daniel Craig, David Furnish, Sam TaylorWood, Bret Easton Ellis and the cast of Desperate Housewives) had some sort of irreducible essence. As Bernie Taupin gazed out over sunset-bathed Hollywood, he said, ‘There’s a lot of famous people out there, a lot of dangerous people too — who knows what trouble they’re going to get into tonight?’ Trouble seems serendipitous in this town, and whenever I’ve gone looking for it I have always returned home early, disappointed and sober. This time, on the one night we all decided to take it easy, we ended up in the small hours in a lap-dancing club on the fringes of Compton with several men who spent most of last summer trying to get John Kerry elected. Any way you look at it, LA is a fantasy that never really changes.
London has changed irrevocably in the last 21 days, and since last week, with the second tranche of bombs and the shooting in Stockwell, stoicism has been replaced by frustration, fear and (it has to be said) a little loathing. Imaginary nefarious excitement has been replaced by abject terror. Very quickly we have got used to siren-blaring police cars swarming past our house, the ones with the yellow circles stuck on the side to denote ‘armed response’; very quickly we have got used to looking twice when we see shiftylooking men with smart-looking backpacks. Our family lives just off the Edgware Road, two squares north of where the Blairs have made a rather extravagant house purchase (supposedly as somewhere from which to orchestrate their lucrative post-office lecture tours, but currently as a low-yield rental opportunity), and smack bang in the middle of the largest Arab community in London. Here Lebanese, Iraqis and businessmen from the Gulf states sit in brightly lit cafés smoking hookahs and gossiping about life back home. At times like this your emotions get pulled in many directions; at least mine do. At times I come over all Daily Mail, and I begin agreeing with Richard Littlejohn (no bad thing sometimes), while other times I’m simply scared and, rather like the feeling I get after spending two hours reading John Irving or John Updike, begin reflecting on the fragility of life. Principally because the bomb that exploded at 9.17 a.m. on 7 July exploded 200 yards from our daughters’ school.
Although I have been ‘leaning starboard’ for some time, this year was the first time I voted Tory. Not because I thought they would get in, not because I’m especially fond of Michael Howard, but because, presumably like a lot of other people in the country, I began totting up all the things the Labour party had done that I profoundly disagreed with: introducing top-up fees, banning fox-hunting, slashing the armed forces and introducing the most convoluted forms of accountability into the NHS, the police force and the schools system. Not forgetting the war, of course, and the looming pensions crisis. The friends of mine who decided to protest against the government did so by voting for Charles Kennedy, but when I told them I had no intention of being penalised by a 10 per cent tax hike and had decided to vote for the Conservatives, I was treated like a man who had just admitted he not only enjoyed the music of Phil Collins, but also perhaps kept bound volumes of illegal pornography in his attic. Thankfully in the last few weeks my champagne socialist friends have gone a bit quiet, no doubt because of the amount of time they’ve spent lobbying to have asylum detention centres built next to their homes.
Lunchtime conversation at the moment is usually kick-started by ten minutes discussing which poor soul is about to lead the Tories into their next election defeat. Even though I haven’t met him, I’ve become quite intrigued by David Cameron, the shadow education secretary from the ’hood, although by common consensus he will undoubtedly be undone because he is ‘too young and too posh’. So it’s David Davis all the way, Mr boot-strap council-estate knee-jerk, and the man with the best soundbite I’ve heard all year: ‘I’m a control freak for the individual.’ He also has something else going for him: nearly every woman I’ve lunched with this month says she fancies him.
As for lunch, for years I’ve had an irrational dislike of new restaurants, one I’m rather proud of. Aren’t there enough of the damn places already? Do we really need another PoMo neo-Baroque gin palace in the back end of nowhere serving cavalcades of corn-fed quail and skate liver fritters on a bed of black cherry ravioli? Last year I went twice to the incredibly annoying Cipriani, which for at least a month seemed to be the only restaurant anyone in the media could talk about. I hated the place instantly (‘We’re new, we’re trendy, and because of that we’re going to treat you as though you’re unbelievably lucky to eat here’ appeared to be their manifesto), and on the occasion I paid, I didn’t leave a tip (something I nearly always do). Last week, having never been there, I finally went to Gordon Ramsay’s eponymous eatery in Chelsea, a place trusted friends had said really was the best restaurant in London. And you know what? They could be right. Gordon is such a f—ing celebrity now that it’s easy to forget that he’s still a f—ing world-class chef. His Chelsea restaurant is proof positive: sumptuous, inventive food; delightful, old-fashioned (i.e., quiet) atmosphere; and, most importantly, impeccable service. Trust me: the next time you have something to celebrate — which, in this climate, might be a while away — do it there.
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