The manager at Jim's Place told us that they had another hostel in Venice, so he booked ahead for us. It would be infinitely better than that German hippy commune. Despite booking ahead, the hostel itself was still full, but they would let us stay in a camper van that was parked out back. It was great and we had it all to ourselves.

Greg went off to the gym and I went along with him. I was basically the smallest person there, including the women, and the looks of total disgust when I walked in were a bit disheartening. We were there for about an hour, taking it in turns to do the various exercises, with me using a pathetic excuse for weights. Every so often Greg would point-out some world champion.

I couldn't bend my arms for about three days afterwards.

Apparently, when you see a Los Angeles beach on the tele back home, it is usually Venice or nearby Santa Monica. Indeed, we saw several of the Babe-Watch lifeguard lookout towers. Venice Beach was a hive of activity, even considering that it was January and was a bit on the chilly side.

Whenever we went down to the beach we were continuously being asked whether we wanted to buy a magic number. We had assumed that this was some round-about way of selling drugs, but we eventually got curious and asked what the hell they were talking about. Apparently, you can key a magic number into a phone and then make loads of free phone calls. Back at the hostel there was an Australian girl who was on the phone to everyone one back home when we went to bed one evening and she was still on the phone when we got up the following morning. I just hope that some poor sucker didn’t get lumbered with her bill!

Whist walking around Venice we discovered several remains of some old railway lines. Apparently, the motor and petrol companies had bought up the whole LA rail network with the specific objective of closing it all down. Consequently the people of LA are forced to sit in six-lane traffic jams choking to death in the smog. I guess that is capitalism gone too far!

We were starting to feel a bit more confident about LA, so we went out for some beers. There was a bar that had been hyped as an authentic English pub. When we got in it was the usual tacky affair with the fluorescent Budweiser sign flashing in the window, but with a single picture of the queen hanging on the wall. You could almost hear the sound of leather against willow and you half expected the midsummer hunt to come rushing past, blowing their bugles. Not!

Whilst in LA, I made an important discovery: Star Trek the New Generation, which apparently wasn’t yet being shown outside of the States. I was a bit dubious at first, mainly as you could never replace Captain Kirk and the simply awful concept of a ship’s counsellor, but it did slowly start to grow on me.