Husband had to check over an electric dust buster from dad as it wasn’t really working and it had been over heating, when husband opened it up, there had been some guerrilla soldering going on inside it!

My dad has on occasion soldered stuff around his home, like light fittings, ornaments and small bits of jewellery. It’s a throw back to his old days when he was a fixer of all electrical things. My dad also glues, tapes and has string tied to things all over his wee house, it makes me giggle. Yet the dust buster wouldn’t work and he handed it to my husband.

So, husband got his big tool box out and the fucking noise he made clattering through it was akin to the sound of a fork lift truck crashing into a steel tanker. Men cant simply pick out tools and nimbly choose one, the way a woman would quietly go through a handbag looking for lipstick…NO…they drag hundreds of big clanky metal objects about, like some robot hand crushing cars in a junk yard.

Then he slams them down on the table and starts banging hammers, screw drivers and boxes of nails around, as if he is in the noise Olympics and is defending his record for big disturbing sounds.

I know it’s a cliché but by fuck men love their tool box, it must take them back to the old days when a bulky tool box in one hand and a roll of gaffer tape in the other made them THE KING OF STUFF! Women stand back, I have a soldering iron and some star screwdrivers, your world will be a safer place when I am done here!

One day I had a look in that tool box and discovered an array of strange men objects. Why are there so many screw drivers? How many sizes of screws are there in the world? And what the fucking hell is an ALAN KEY? And who is Alan and why do we have his L-Shaped keys in our home?

There are also small boxes full of tiny nails, I have never seen anything so dainty, and who needs tiny nails? Do we know a doll house dweller that needs petite nails put up their tiny curtains?

I won’t ever know the answer to these questions but am sure many women will write in to tell me that they too have a tool box and are capable of doing the odd jobs by themselves. I don’t and I never want to, but soldering looks fun!

What do you do when the said child has a squad of boys claiming to have bedded her under your roof? Do you launch an investigation into your daughter’s obvious low self esteem issues, reconsider your parenting skills or do you speak exclusively to your agent and organise a very public DNA test?

Why isn’t anyone absolutely horrified by the press for paying these families for their sad pathetic story?

Baby faced Alfie Patten (who is about 12 years old but looks like is seven years old at a push) and Chantelle Steadman are gaining column inches a plenty when in fact they should have a team of social workers and child protection people on the case instead of glorifying this disturbing under age sex case and leaving it open for more kids to copycat it. Having a baby underage should not catapult you into a national celebrity.

In this world of wannabe- famous-now climate, it won’t be long before another wee girl gets herself knocked up with high hopes of a newspaper/magazine exclusive pay out.

Shell-suited parents are basically dragging their pregnant kids and selling them to London hacks, very Dickensian! Bare footed babes hawking their stories for Nintendo DS games and some shiny shoes.

There will be chavvy, spam sucking social housing scum everywhere encouraging their baby kids to procreate for a full page spread in Heat magazine. Oh! Maybe Posh Spice will design skinny jeans for them when their flabby twelve year old tummies lose the stretch marks?

Maybe she too will get big photo’s of her plastered over the front pages with her under age boyfriend, they might even get invited to the Jeremy Kyle show, get an overnight stay in a Travelodge and maybe be given loads of free stuff?

They will be terribly bewildered when they soon realise they can’t raise the cash to pay for a bib as the Nation will be bored with that story and life has moved on. One underage baby story a year is plenty for people to gawp at.

You only have to look at Karen Matthews and her scam to kidnap her own kid for donated cash to realise that there are dim witted fame seeking folk who go to extreme lengths to gain notoriety and big bucks. Matthews was an adult, so imagine all the teenagers watching the TV and reading the papers who could easily believe they too can jump on the teen baby bandwagon.

There should be a press black out to protect these innocent misguided kids and their stupid parents need nailed to the sofa and asked if they can understand the words ‘supervision and due care’ Where are these people when two kids are banging each other at teatime in the single rooms of these council homes?

Having sex too young can increase your chances of cervical cancer, there are many health issues surrounding childbirth too young, yet none of that is mentioned any where in the news bites.

The other point that disturbs me is that the public acceptance of very young girls having sex and publicly declaring it – it is one step away from confirming the paedophiles excuse that ‘under age girls need screwed and love it’.

Girls under sixteen years of age shouldn’t be having sex, its illegal, wrong and damaging.

Let’s educate our vulnerable kids and stop wiping their wee faces and shoving them in front of a camera to talk about their sex lives.

So I need to get my finger out of my ear and clean my flat, and get organised all round.

By the way I have been getting fashion and beauty tips from some bloggers and I just want to say that the photo of me with the green shirt on and long dark hair is two years old. My hair is shorter, lighter and my dad says I am just beautiful, but then he is quite old and his eyes are wonky. So quit telling me how to look, I have perfected my grubby image over the years and I am happy with my slightly dishevelled façade. Put it this way…I still get laid. Ok, it’s from my husband and he too has dodgy eyesight, but that’s a mere technicality. I am surrounded by blind folk who think I am gorgeous.

Life is getting back to some form of normality after my step mum’s funeral.

Last night as I sat writing I heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen at 2am. “Ashley are you sanding the kitchen units for no good reason or scraping toast?” then I smelled the burnt toast and realised that my silly child had fucked the toaster again. Like me she has a tendency to break anything electrical. Soon she will just break men.

Life has been rather dull since I haven’t been on public transport or anything that makes me collide with the public. But next week its all systems go as I get back on to my gig list and start climbing onto trains, planes and cars.

I don’t know what to say about how I feel. She was my step mum for 25 years and was my daughters beloved Nana and grand and great grandmother to many of her own and the extended family’s kids. I have had to cancel my trip to Bristol Jongleurs at the weekend as her funeral is on Saturday. I don’t mind that as I would be distraught without my family at this time and sitting in a cold hotel and doing comedy isn’t the best way to deal with pain.

Though I am happy Mamie had a good long fulfilled life and that’s what we all need to celebrate.

As soon as I got into the rather cold room, I sat down and husband called me. It seems my beloved step mum has taken a turn for the worse and there is imminent worry for her making it through the weekend. I felt bereft and stupid for leaving home and not being there for my dad. At that moment the hotel door got banged.

“There has been a fire alarm and we are not sure if the hotel is on fire” a young woman explained quickly. My husband was still on the mobile and waiting to explain about mum.

“I never heard a fire alarm” I said with tears threatening to explode as I was worried about mum.

“No, it is an internal alarm” the woman said.

“A fucking silent fire alarm?” my husband shouted through the mobile phone as he was listening in.

“You have to leave the room” the woman insisted.

I hung up on husband and walked into Narnia; Pitlochry is steeped in deep snow and resembles the movie scene of the Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe. I cried into my snotty sleeve and worried about ditching the show and going back to Glasgow.

Husband called me back to check I wasn’t burnt to death, I explained that it was a mistake and I am back in the room and he then convinced me to stay and do the show. Which I did and it was awesome. People had travelled miles to come to Pitlochry and deserved fun and it was my job to provide it. They were a lovely bunch of people and I was glad to be there by the time the show was over.

This morning I got up and asked about the trains, I was told there was a train to Inverness as I had a show there to do tonight (Saturday). The problem was the train would have to stop at Aviemore and then get on a bus, but that’s ok, I will go for it.

So after much to-ing and fro-ing the train station decided to let me know that the train to Inverness is totally fucked and wont be going anywhere near Aviemore or Inverness, in fact it wont leave at all and a bus will take me instead.

I gasped in frustration, but agreed that the bus will be fine. Then the woman in the train station says to me “There is only one problem, the bus is full to Inverness and we don’t know when another one can be here tonight, the snow is heavy, the road has problems and we don’t have enough buses”

I stood in the station and just felt like battering my head off the ticket office window. I asked about trains home to Glasgow from Inverness on the Sunday. She stared at me blankly.

“Look there is a train coming just now going back to Glasgow, if I was you I would take it and get the hell out of here, there is no guarantee we will get you back to Glasgow from Inverness tomorrow if we ever get you up there”

She was right, so I called the promoter and explained I would need to pull the show. He agreed readily, he assured me all is well and told me to get the hell out of Narnia whilst I had the chance. So I got on the train and that when it all went horribly wrong.

Just as we were five minutes out of Pitlochry, I was sitting chatting at the very end carriage to some Rail staff members who were delayed in getting trains and had all jumped on the Pitlochry escape train as I now called it. One was called Tam; he was a train trolley bloke finally getting home after being stuck in Pitlochry. He was telling me that the station person should have got me a taxi to Inverness if they couldn’t provide a bus. “A bit late telling me that now Tam” I snapped.

The train came to a sudden halt. “Fuck what now” Tam hissed.

Then I spotted a staff member running alongside the outside of the train, he climbed into the end carriage and slammed the door behind him. He then opened the door into the aisle I was sitting at and screamed “Kate! Kate! Kate!” it was slightly disconcerting to see a middle aged train driver look so frightened and screaming down the train aisle. Kate was the catering girl; she was slightly out of his ear shot.

Tam stared at him, then at me.

“Mate, is everything ok? You screaming is worrying me” I said to the man.

I didn’t expect him to answer me so candidly “No, everything is not alright, I just hit a person at the crossing back there” The poor man was deathly white.

I just put my head down on the table and shut my big stupid mouth.

Kate turned and headed back to him. “I have hit someone” he shouted again. Kate ran to him and I could hear them in the back staff carriage making calls to the police and rail networks.

The young train worker Tam looked at me and immediately got up and hugged me. I didn’t need hugged, I wasn’t dead and I wasn’t in shock and I didn’t know him well enough for spontaneous hugs of sympathy. “Are you ok?” he poked his big face near me.

“Yes, I am fine mate, I am worried about the driver and the person on the line, I am absolutely fine” I pushed him gently off.

The train was sat on that line for over an hour as police and transport people were called to the scene. Apparently it was an elderly man who got knocked down by the train, but I am not sure of exact details.

Tam then sat opposite me and told me at least six stories of people who got smashed by trains, he was the death train expert and I just wanted him to shut up, but NO…he had more stories about people who threw themselves or fell onto train lines. He was the goriest wee bloke and it now made sense why he wanted a hug. He was mental.

The train finally set off and of course it couldn’t go straight to Glasgow now, for reasons I am not sure of, it was now stopped at Perth and I had to grab my suitcase and run up and over a metal bridge to catch a train to Glasgow.

So I am home, the gig got cancelled; the man died on the level crossing and my mum is still in hospital.

“Fuck off, where will I get two quid from?” Ma shouted back over the noise of the loo flushing.

Major lifted a black claw and scratched my leg, his brown eyes pleading with me.

“I am taking the dog out” I whined back and grabbed the thick metal dog leash off the door handle in the lobby and clipped Major’s collar, only to be dragged off at speed down all the stairs outside. I needed to think of a plan to get two pounds to buy a tartan Bay City Roller’s jumper; everyone at school had one except me.

Major stood out the back yard and peed for about ten minutes, whilst scanning the back court for pigeons or cats to attack the minute he was done pissing. He was always on the look out for a victim was Major. He was an angry dog.

“Hurry up Major, I need to figure out how to get two quid” I hissed at him.

Even my dog looked at me pitifully; he knew there was no chance of me getting that Bay City Roller jumper before the shops shut at 5pm. He finished his pee, scratched the ground with his back legs, flicking up pee soaked soil over my jeans and tried to pull off the leash to chase imaginary cats. I couldn’t let him free, he would bite the first living thing he spotted and I couldn’t bear to get into a dog dispute today.

Our back yards were a square set of twenty blocks of flats with open closes which led through to the front streets, all the individual closes had penned off back yards which were segregated by green painted railings. Major loved getting into other people’s yards.

I ran around the back letting him sniff bins, scratch at the ground and snuffle through the long grass near the railings. He looked up at me pleading to be let free, he wanted to run about but every time I let him go, he slipped his bony body through the metal railings and shot off on a bite fest and although I was wiry and fast, I couldn’t climb over those spiky fences and catch up with him, he was an expert escapist. Before I knew it he would be on the main road attacking pensioners and babies. He was mental and very scary looking.

“No, Major, you will run off and bite people” I answered as he stared at me.

He sat on the cold ground and lifted a paw at me and gave me his best cute look. So I let the leash snap off his neck. He started walking slowly around our confined fenced yard, and then he suddenly shot off and leaped over the first fence in a flash. “Oh Fuck” I shouted and started after him. I climbed over three sets of metal railings as he slipped through or jumped over them and made off through the opened close of flats across the backyard. I saw his tail disappear through the close into the front street.

I panicked and kept climbing over the four foot high railings till I reached the close he had run through. I could hear screams from the front street, my heart was pounding. I was exhausted and sweating, why did I let him go?

On entering Vesalius Street, I saw one old woman pinned up against a front garden fence with Major barking at her feet. The dog spotted me and ran off in the direction of the big main road that ran through our wee scheme.

He slid past big Lorries that trundled down the busy road; he sped through the traffic and made it to the opposite side of the road. It took me ages to let the traffic past before I could run across and chase after him. He barked and snarled at passers by. “Get that dog on a leash” a man shouted. The leash was wrapped around my hand as I panted and gasped my way up the road. His pointy tail was visible and the barking kept me on his track.

Finally he came to a stop. He watched me over his shoulder; he sat on the pavement quietly as I approached him stealthily. I fully expected him to bolt off again as I got closer, but he didn’t move. “Major, you bad dog” I shouted as I clipped the leash on him. He just stared at me and padded off quietly.

My clothes were sticking to me with the sweat of running and jumping so fast. He merely hung his tongue out and happily jaunted off as if he was the happiest dog in Shettleston. We got stuck at the main road, the traffic was heavy, buses were speeding past and I was nervous crossing that road, as I had been knocked down by a car two years previously near the spot where we stood. It had taken me almost a year to walk again, and at twelve, I still had a slight limp.

I heard a familiar voice shout “Janey” from one of the buses as it drove past. The bus stopped near me and loads of people spilled out of the back opening. There was my old favourite uncle John. “What are you doing out with that fucking mad dog on the main road?” he asked.

“He ran away from me” I explained. Uncle John was my pal, he was a lot older than most of my uncles and had neither kids, nor a wife and was often ‘away’ though we were never told where. He never had a home of his own and usually stayed with family members, and I loved him. He was quirky and had funny ways of explaining stuff. I once asked him why he never fought in the Second World War and he told me “Well, you see with all the men away, the women of Shettleston needed someone to replace their light bulbs in their lobby’s and I didn’t have a fight with the Germans, they never personally upset me, so I don’t see why I should be a paid killer of someone else’s son”

Turns out my old Uncle John was a bit of a ‘Lad’ and traded guns with crooks and never fought with anyone unless he had a personal gripe with them.

He was occasionally in prison and never really settled with anyone anywhere.

“Look, here’s some money for you, now don’t tell your Ma that I have cash, say you found it” He said and pulled a TEN POUND note from his pocket. Ten pounds was a fortune to me at twelve. I stared at the note; I don’t think I had seen a ten pound note close up in my own hand. Major sat quietly and wagged his tail at Uncle John; he was about the only visitor to our house that Major didn’t bite.

“That’s a lot of money, thanks Uncle John but I can’t say I found it, are you sure you can give me this? I will need to say something” I stuttered at Uncle John.

“Well, learn to lie and hide it Janey” he laughed and walked off.

I stared at the money in my hand, it felt so…wonderful and rich, the texture of the paper had me stroking it constantly, the swirly writing and just the overwhelming fact that I had ten pounds to myself, made me feel giddy.

I immediately set off to the Co-op and dragged Major with me; I now had the dilemma of how to get into the shop with my dog. Major could not be tied up outside, he would bite folk.

The big glass door to the Co-op jangled as I entered. Major growled low in his throat, he hated new places. My dog was rather autistic and anal for a domesticated animal. Things set him off, like a door bell, a floor brush and he despised goldfish and fish tanks, he attacked them viciously, he tried to bite the glass fish bowl in my bedroom. He was mad.

“That dog can’t come in here” a woman with the pinched face behind the counter shouted.

“I have ten pounds” I shouted back and showed her my cash “I just want a white Bay City Roller tartan jumper for my size” I added and stood at the door.

She relented and I tied Major to the big pillar at the side of the counter, I begged him not to bite anyone or bark. The woman held out the acrylic top for me to see, I nodded and guessed it would fit me. She wrapped it up in brown paper; sello-taped the edges and held it to me. I tucked it under my arm, and carefully wrapped the change into a small bundle and bent down to tuck it into my sock. Major licked my face as I bent down. “Stop that Major, your breath stinks” I giggled.

I ran for home with my parcel, Major trotting beside me and all the while thinking up a good lie to tell my Ma about the jumper. She could smell a lie and money in seconds and possessed the ability to get the truth out of anyone; I was surprised that she wasn’t an interrogator for the government.

I spotted the butchers shop on the way and decided to treat Major to some scraps, as he really did get me the jumper I reckoned. Major was barred from the local butchers as he would run in and try to drag a side of beef off the butcher’s hooks and was known for his daring raids, so I tied him to the lamppost outside, he wouldn’t bite anyone as he could smell the meat and that occupied him.

“Can I have a soup bone and a wee bit of liver please?” I asked. The butcher checked the door for Major. “He is tied up Mr Cross” I explained “He is sorry about the dead cow he pulled down”

The Butcher smiled and wrapped up some liver and a big bloodied bone in greaseproof paper. “It’s ok, Janey, no charge for the scraps and keep that crazy dog back from my shop”

Major wolfed down the wee bits of liver and chomped down on the bone and we both marched home, happily. I realised that if Major had a bone in his mouth he would never bite anyone, so maybe we have to keep him supplied with bones forever?

Ma was never told about the jumper or the cash, she never saw what I wore to school and it eventually turned up in the washing bag. I had duped her!

The change from the ten pounds was stuffed up the disused chimney shaft in my bedroom and I managed to eke it out for months, buying myself sweets and a chicken supper at the local chippy, all of course eaten outside in the back court with Major at my side.

To make matters worse, I just read an article on that talentless self-starver Victoria Beckham and her latest clothes line, (did you know she has just invented clothes, dresses and has put style on the world map…no? Well then you are stupid!)

She harps on about the perfect silhouette, that’s ok for her with her body of a nine year old boy that has had two small plastic cereal bowls implanted on the chest wall…my silhouette is reminiscent of Hitchcock’s.

Well at least my hair doesn’t look like it’s just been cut by a special person with safety scissors. Who allowed that to happen? Victoria, get real and grow your hair for fucksake, you are never going to be Audrey Hepburn, no matter how much you refuse to eat or wear giant sunglasses, and gamine isn’t even a real word as far as I am concerned.

So back to my REAL giant breasts and the problems they give me.

In the summer heat they weigh me down and almost kill me and you try sleeping comfortably with two giant airbags that seemed to be filled with cold lumpy porridge strapped to your chest. Yes, not funny or sexy eh?

So I have been staring at myself in bright mirrors and imagining how I would look with smaller perkier boobs and to be honest, it would be great.

So I looked up the web for ‘before and after’ photo’s of women who got a breast reduction and screamed in horror.

Fuck that! They look like some Frankenstein/ Tim Burton-esque-sewed up monster titty experiment.

I don’t want big red welted scars running from my nipple to under my boob. Apparently you lose nipple sensation as well? Who would want to never feel their nipples? Not me…that’s well fucked.

Then I made the huge mistake of watching a breast reduction operation on line…oh MY GOD! They basically slice an anchor style cut from your nipple down to under you boob, whip out the tissue, relocate the nipple and sew it all back up. The breast is left looking like a side of pork sewed up and not for suckling either…all grotesque and scary looking.

So I have decided that big fat boobs are fine, nothing a good bra cant sort or losing some weight and exercise. Husband would faint if I had small breasts as well, why do you think this marriage has lasted nearly 30 years? It isn’t because of my sunny disposition or reasonable nature…no, it’s my big tits!

There is a sub-culture in Venice Beach. It’s a bit like a layer cake, the top is all decorative, expensively hand finished, funky and eye catching and at the very bottom of that sweet alcohol soaked sponge, are the homeless, the mentally affected and the Californian beach burn outs.

There are ‘grab’ tables which are usually full of hand made trinkets and various knick-knacks for sale. After a while the tables all kind of blend into one, but the sellers are full of character and worth having a natter with. Surrounding the grab tables you will see various local ‘dudes’ some famous, some trying to get famous and some plain crazy. There is a lovely black bloke on roller blades with a big white scarf around his head, there is the oily muscle guy who wears the teeniest stars and stripes g-string and entertains by rolling a metal ball all over his tanned muscles and there is the Chief who looks like an Indian chief and has the brownest, crinkliest skin texture that advertises why sunscreen is absolutely imperative. On spotting him I sprayed factor 50 on my face again. He is amazingly lovely though and can dance like the wind.

The Chief is usually in the middle of the big drum circle and their beating serves as a constant thudding backdrop to the ocean vista. People come from miles carrying drums, trash cans, plastic bins and anything that can be banged to make a noise and they play for hours. Apparently the police tried to disperse the drum circle but the Chief won that fight and the locals were split in their opinion about it. I stood at the circle as the sun was slowly dipping, the noise is amazing and you cannot help but dance, it really does entrance you. There are hordes of people playing, all classes, all colours, all ages, just beating and banging away, it is worth seeing if you ever go there.

The Police and local homeowners are desperate to dispose of the pill popping, hashish smoking, beer drinking bongo dancers, but it is those very people who make Venice so bohemian and hedonistic. Without them, it’s just a bunch of rich queens, spoiled dogs and a few long haired rich folk who recalled The Eagles before they were famous. Venice thrives on it’s patchwork of cultures.

I made friends with Talon and Puck, two homeless beach dudes. Puck honed wooden varnished walking sticks from driftwood and Talon made toy cars and the sold them on the concrete beach front.

Talon is the typical tanned long haired, broad smiling beach boy; he had been in Venice for 15 years now. He is so congenial, chatty and very welcoming, but around 6pm as the sun sets and the beer and dope kick in, he gets rather agitated, screaming and basically abusive to the polystyrene head that displays hair wraps at the next table to his. That white blank face gets some verbal shit, but it sits stoically on a spike with coloured plaits streaming over its eye-less face as Talon points and screams about its lack of understanding of his issues. Apparently that body-less head just won’t let Talon drink more Joose.

Puck was 42 years old, sober and had been homeless since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, so he made his way to Venice. He smokes some grass but avoids booze. As we chatted on the grass a big topless bloated man in his early 30s, with blood splattered trousers and bare feet came towards us. He was glazed looking and had a haunted face that slightly scared me. He asked for a ciggie then ran off.

“He is Vinny, he picks his hands till they bleed, and he wanders around begging in his bare feet, he will get bullied by the other guys because he has too many mental problems and can’t negotiate or make friends. He is one of the invisible people Janey, if that bloodied half naked man was in Downtown LA, an ambulance would be called, people would scream at the sight of him, but down here he is just psychiatric wallpaper, it’s horrifying and I worry that I might end up like him. The Christians will get him later, they will wash him up, give him shoes, try to force God on him and then kick him back out onto the beach and that will happen till he dies here”  Puck explained.

There was a whole parade of drugged, drunk and deranged came past me that day.

Two lessons were quickly learned by this naïve Glasgow lass.

One- You can buy any drug from a man dressed as the Matrix on a bike but don’t ever smoke a cigarette on the grass at the boardwalk, as that can get you a $170 fine from a cop.

Two- Learn quickly that when someone shouts the words FIVE-O, you can guess that’s the police coming.

FIVE-O was shouted about three times and all the sunburnt guys sidled onto the pavement giving me sympathetic looks as an LA cop caught me and screamed at me for smoking on the grass.

“Look mate, people are smoking crack over there, men are buying dope, two people are practically having full on sex, a transvestite is hustling a woman in a wheelchair, but if I smoke a ciggie on the grass suddenly I am offensive?”  He let me off after I apologised.

The amazing thing about the homeless people is their dedication to keeping their environment clean. They throw every single piece of litter into the bins, they recycle cans and plastic and left over unwanted food doesn’t reach the litter bins, if the homeless spot you throwing food away they ask for it immediately. They scour the grass picking up things aimlessly and constantly chuck stuff in the trash cans. They shout at tourists who drop stuff, it amazed me, but then again, if the open ground is your home, then you treat it well.

The local shopkeepers sell a beer called Joose, which is neatly disguised in a big colourful can and looks like a fizzy drink, but it contains 10% alcohol and is only $3 a can, which keeps the boozers well oiled. The sun beat down on Venice but as it set a cloak of menace descended on the place and it did get rather seedy. Puck made me leave at 6pm making me promise never to return when it was dark. “It can get dangerous Janey, I am being serious, go now” he insisted.

Venice beach was a real eye opener to me, the guys were so welcoming and I will truly miss Talon and Puck, my tour guides for the weekend.

The buses are awesome but regular Americans don’t ride the buses, apparently only ‘Mexicans and mental folks’ use the service according to one rather obnoxious person who advised me to avoid them. Strangely that comment made me want to go the buses even more, so I did.

The first step is finding the buses in your area; they are very well hidden so the Metro website is a must. BUT…the problem is…the website is very complicated to work out. Finally I located a bus stop near the house where I was living. There is no real info on the bus shelter, so you do have to stop every bus and ask the driver for help with your trip, which annoys people and I did get in the way of the Mexicans and mental folk who pushed me about a bit. But, I was determined so I finally boarded a bus with the intention of going to Santa Monica beach. It would take about 2 hours, as there are no dedicated bus lanes in Down Town La, so you get stuck in the traffic all the time.

The next obstacle is that most of the bus info is written in Spanish on the buses, how racist is that? Even the TV that plays on the bus is mostly in Spanish and it made me realise there is a real class divide to contend with. You see in London LOADS of people of ALL classes ride the public transport, in LA that really doesn’t happen.

Then there were the poor mentally affected who seem to LIVE on the buses full time and the sheer numbers of them startled me, it was atrocious that these poor folk just wander the streets with gigantic balls of rags, bags of cans wrapped about their bodies, usually accompanied with voices and various facial ticks. I have never seen so many of these damaged people in my entire life. EVERY single bus had at least five shouters, screamers or body pickers.

The scary thing is, you can’t help but watch them. One wee Oriental woman dressed in three sweaters and no shoes had a particularly awful affliction she seemed compelled to bend down and touch a spot on the bus floor in a certain pattern. The bus kept shunting her about and she had to start all over again, people were getting pissed off at her as she pushed them out of the way till she reached her ‘special touching spot’ beneath their feet.

On that same bus one big black man who smelled like a bad kebab screamed and pulled the wire to stop the bus every five seconds, this in turn drove ‘touch the floor woman’ to distraction and they had a wee scream at each other.

Just when they got off a young blonde female in her early 20s with a scruffy young guy climbed on board. She was wearing a cropped top and kept pulling it up and sticking her tongue out and dancing provocatively.

The girl was so beautiful but looked damaged and was overtly outgoing to people. We all ignored her, but she got more outrageous and started to talk to strangers, the young guy with her giggled but looked embarrassed.

A big homeless grizzly bearded bloke climbed on board and the girl made a beeline for him. She wiggled her bare tummy at him, he in turn screamed at her.

“That’s one Pandora’s box she shouldn’t even begin to open” I whispered to a Mexican woman beside me. The woman nodded at me and we both looked at the girl with concern.

Just then the blonde girl made eye contact with me, sniggered and said “Do you know any titty bars in Santa Monica?” She looked at me challenging an answer.

“Do I look like the kind of woman who frequents titty bars, or runs titty bars or knows anything about them?” I laughed.

She didn’t expect me to take up the challenge, but smiled back at me. She was staring at me cautiously and I could see she was trying to work out the accent and the vibe.

She then explained to me that she was 19 years old and she was living on the beaches on LA and was homeless but did ‘anything’ to make cash for her and Todd her boyfriend. He smiled and nodded as he stroked her back. I told her I was Scottish and visiting LA.

“Are you married?” she shouted over the bus engine noise.

“Yes” I replied, rather perplexed at the change in conversation and the level of intimacy she was aiming for in this short exchange.

“Are you happy?” she asked.

“Yes I am, why?” I asked.

“Well, I was going to say you could give up Scotland and come live with us on the beach, we can steal you a bicycle and we could live in LA till the winter came along and then we could move South, what do you say?” she shouted. Todd thought this was a great idea and nodded furiously as he picked scabs on his hand.

I obviously took too long to answer this as they both leapt up excitedly and hugged me. “Come with us” she screeched.

“It sounds fabulous but I would miss my daughter and husband” I smiled.

“Do you love your daughter?” she asked me.

“Yes, very much and I would be devastated if I didn’t see her again” I answered.

“She is lucky, my mother hated me” she said.

She then lapsed into silence and stared out of the bus window, she didn’t speak again for ages. When the bus reached Santa Monica harbour we all got off. They got their bikes off the front of the bus, hugged me, laughed loudly and pedalled off into the sunshine. I felt so sad for them and couldn’t quite shake off the depressing feeling it left me with all day.

The beach was awesome; I got some food and a cold drink and sat by the ocean deep in my own head, just listening to the wave’s crash on the sand. The heat was stunning, I had to completely lather myself in sunscreen as I burn in a minute.

The day past quickly, I loved the place and wandered about aimlessly watching the families, the homeless and the well heeled all enjoy the sunshine.

My beach day didn’t end there; I have heaps to tell you all about Venice Beach and will do so in my next blog.

Well anyway on Sunday after staggering about in the 86 degree heat on roads where the only other people I met were wandering homeless poor Mexican drunk men, I got a call from Andrea Abbate, and she is a fabulously funny comic from LA.

Andrea told me what road to get to and she came to pick me up. She had with her a lovely wee son called Andrew who was obsessed with Spiderman and he was cool.

Andrea took me back to her house and I can’t tell you how fabulous it was, though she did have two big dogs who likes to practise fucking each other in the back yard!

Andrea is a cracking hoot, and we had a great natter, she let me wash my hair and feet (yes, I was that manky, I had Amy Winehouse feet to be precise-I needed cleaned up after my marathon walk) and we chatted on her patio.

That was after we played 500 games of “pretend you never knew Spiderman was real, then I come in dressed as Spiderman” from 5 year old Andrew…he is adorable and loves that repetitive game. He was so cute I played along, even though Andrea and I were exhausted with the game, I LOVE kids and Andrew exploited me no end.

Then Andrea told me she and her husband were Scientologists. At this I was intrigued…I have never MET one and had 6 million questions and became as repetitive as Andrew with my “Pretend Scientology didn’t exist and then you come in as a Scientologist” game….God knows she played along (but then God doesn’t exist in her equation). I fully expected to leave that house with two tin cans strapped to my wrists and half my income gone…but NO….it was as easy as meeting a Catholic but not as easy as meeting a Jewish person who wanted to convince me they owned Israel.

So there you go…I am not converted nor freaked out…they were lovely people and I fully intend to cultivate my new friendship with the Scientologists and see how that works out for me.

Last night I ended up in bed at 8am with a horrible migraine that made me disabled.

Today I am going downtown for a meeting with a casting agent and I may even stay out late…who knows?