Virgin Atlantic direct to Los Angeles

I loved that flight – it might have been over 10 hours long but it certainly didn’t seem like it. A direct flight to LA from Heathrow for less than 500 quid! Ok, I paid an extra 30 quid at check in for a seat with 3” extra leg room but that was well worth it – it was so comfortable and smooth and the flight crew were just EPIC, Virgin Atlantic are now at the top of my best airline list, dropping BA down to second place.

Now, pushing my luck – I chose to watch one very specific movie – ‘Final Destination 5’.  For those that are not in the know, the whole final destination series is about groups of people that escape from a fatal situation only to be picked off one at a time by other disastrous yet hilariously funny consequences – and of course there is the air liner crash too – I was fair shitting myself with that one – I did wonder how many other passengers might dare to watch it.

I saved a couple of movies for the return leg, Johnny English Pt. 2 , Cars 2 and also Tower Heist.

So lets talk about America – Fuck yeah! – or more specifically Los Angeles.  As we were flying in, it wasn’t possible to see the whole city as the smog was blocking the view. Then we cleared the airport, even had very pleasant border control staff that got the job done quickly – unlike Newark! A rental car – Chevy Malibu and the bird found 50 bucks on the toilet floor – Nice!  then we hit the motorway – or as they say here ‘Freeway’.  There was absolutely fuck all free about it I can assure you – 6 lanes – 6 in each direction, all going nowhere.  It took over 3 hours to do the 31 miles from the airport to the hotel.  They have a car pool lane, probably called a high occupancy lane in some places – 2 or more people in your veeee hickle and you have a lane all to yourself – best part of that is, that lane is slower than the others, kind of removes the incentive to share cars, reduce emissions, improve the air quality and save money but then what would I know – I’m just a dumb ass limey !

We trotted off to Huntingdon beach at the weekend – very west coast! It’s very calm and relaxed out here, so much so that it reminded me of that old Baz Luhrmann song – Everybody’s free to wear sunscreen, where he suggests ‘Live in Northern California once but leave before it makes you soft’ Pure genius, kind of summarises the place perfectly.

I also headed out to Hermosa Beach on tuesday and rented a bike, a cruiser to be more precise.  I rode along the beach front for 20 miles or there abouts, all the way up to Venice Beach and back.  I found myself strangely drawn to a factory with two big chimneys.  I got my camera out and started snapping when finally a police car passed me. On his door ‘El Segundo’ – I was only in Tyler territory.  Still none the wiser?  Then look up a film called ‘Singlefin: Yellow’ you will then know exactly where I was standing – better still, ask me nicely and I will lend you the DVD.

So – for the weekend – Vegas baby.  I have booked in at a local gun range there, 500 dollars gets me my own instructor and a wealth of firearms to experience – including two belt fed machine guns, 3 fully automatic machine guns, 2 semi automatic assault rifles and 3 hand guns of my choice.  I aim to see if I can understand Americas fatal attraction with firearms – and just for the record I hope to capture my experience with my Go Pro HD camera so be sure to stop by here in a weeks time to see what is up there to view