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LA madness

6th March 2007 by Helena 9 Comments  

Welcome to LaLaLand...I think if I lived in LA I would never need to go to the movies (as we like to call them in downtown LA); I would just amuse myself watching people in the street. I only arrived four hours ago but I have seen more to make me laugh than you do in downtown Pezenas (where I live) in a year.

The first thing was at the hotel where two coloured men were admiring the fish tank by the lifts. It is full of fish (funny that) and brightly-coloured coral. What was so amusing was that one of the men had dyed his hair half orange and half yellow. In fact it bore an uncanny resemblance to the coral in the fish tank. I bet the fish were as amazed by him as he was by them.

On Rodeo Drive I saw a classis Los Angeles Lollipop Lady (so-called due to their pencil-thin shape with head stuck on top). She was wearing shoes so high they could almost be defined as stilts, a rather loose-fitting summer dress which revealed two perfectly surgically enhanced breasts and of course large shades. She was standing around trying not to topple over when her designer pet, a boxer puppy, spotted another dog and went for it like a boy-racer in a Porsche. Said Lollipop lady had no option but to trot along on her stilts trying to retain her composure and not knock herself out with her enhanced breasts.

Then of course there was the obligatory lunatic. This one looked like Pamela Anderson in twenty years’ time (how scary a thought it that?) and was wearing fluorescent green velvet tracksuit trousers with a matching (does anything match fluorescent green velvet?) vest. Her hair (correction, someone else’s hair) went all the way down to her bottom in blonde waves. I don’t even need to tell you the state of her lips (again, the fish would have recognised one of their own), the body shape (tits on a stick) or the general air of madness.

I have also seen some very attractive people. One coming down the pavement towards me at about fifty miles an hour on a skateboard wearing an open shirt and jeans. At least I think he was attractive, he went by too fast to really be sure.

I am here until Saturday, partly to investigate the benefits of something called Laughter Yoga on ageing. Who needs the yoga?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Life, Style, blog --> Tagged With: madness

9 thoughts on LA madness

  • Rupert says:
    7th March 2007 at 12:36 pm

    That’s a nice picture of you, although you could have made the breasts a little larger!

  • mad muthas says:
    7th March 2007 at 12:55 pm

    but surely laughing involves smiling and, as we all know, smiling leads to wrinkles. or have they invented a way of laughing without smiling? oh yes, of course … botox

  • purple says:
    9th March 2007 at 2:49 am

    “coloured men” ???

    Do you not know that the expression is an offensive one?

  • helena says:
    9th March 2007 at 7:05 am

    Hello????!!!! What on earth would you prefer I said? What I find truly offensive is all this PC nonsense which has just got totally ridiculous. You’re banned from reading my blog.

  • purple says:
    13th March 2007 at 1:50 am

    Well, you would say that as you aren’t the one being insulted…

  • helena says:
    13th March 2007 at 9:17 am

    At no point at all was I trying to offend anyone. In fact I found it difficult to know what word to use, black seems so hard. Maybe you can suggest an alternative and then I won’t upset anyone in the future…

  • purple says:
    15th March 2007 at 5:06 pm

    When in Rome….

    which means, in the States, use either black or African American.

  • Suze says:
    14th August 2007 at 9:07 pm

    Gotta side with Purple on that one. You are not from these parts, but that was not non-PC, that was outright offensive. That term is used by bigots in the Southern states. You probably didn’t know, but again, really big slip up. It’s just a step up from the infamous “N” word.

  • Suze says:
    14th August 2007 at 9:12 pm

    Oh, and you weren’t downtown, that’s where the REAL crazies are, count yourself lucky. You were on the Westside of LA. There is a big homeless population in Bev Hills shopping district due to all the tourists. Next time you are in LA try Montana in Santa Monica or Abbot Kinny over in Venice for a more realistic (although still pricey, but the exchange rate is in your favor) view of LA.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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