Who needs scriptwriters?

Las Vegas, it will not surprise you to learn, absolutely excels in kitch. O, the money I could have spent on trash! The one I really wanted was a little reproduction of the famous 'Welcome to Las Vegas' sign that stood about eight inches high and had its own tiny little battery operated flashing lights. Gold, pure gold.

Not surprisingly, the Vegas souvenier shops are also absolutely chokkas with CSI t-shirts. (Here in the UK is there are a few episodes of CSI nearly every night, as long as you are not too fussy about what series, what order, and whether or not you have seen it three times before.)

CSI Las Vegas is the first, and many would argue the best. (Mystifyingly, the unrelentingly crap CSI Miami is apparently the most popular. I think this is probably because old Carrot-Top whips off his shades and looks into the middle distance so often that its perfect for drinking games.)Anyway,you can't help thinking about it when you are there, because the casinos look just like sets. Which is what they are, really: big real live sets for the punters to pretend in. The Mall in which where you can experience a fake Venice dusk, complete with gondola and opera singing, is a particularly fine example. Many cities build up around natural resources: mines,rivers, arable land. This one seems to spring straight out of the more prurient depths of the human imagination.

On occasions you couldn't help wondering whether everyone was following a script written a few hundred kilometers to the west in LA. So, when you are walking down an anonymous hotel corridor in the biggest hotel in the world,and you overhear a snippet of dialogue drifting though an open door like "No, man! We can't give it to the police. You know they jus' keep it for themselves," you can't help wondering whether or not you've seen this episode before.

Or, and this is the real beauty of the place, whether you should just sit down and write it.

Morning television, L.A. style

There is a bunch of women on a beige/cream couch, framed by the T.V. screen in the LA airport business lounge. They all have sun dresses, teeth so bright they hurt your eyes, and hair with the same shiny lustre as a mid-seventies Barbie. They have been discussing products you can buy: dresses that will make you look a million. It makes them laugh - a lot - though there are no jokes. It includes assertions such as "I think nothing is as chic as all white!": A statement that as a Melbournite I must regard as questionable, at best.

Then they move on to What Lies Beneath:

Presenter 1: You know what's great? We love the control top underwear.
Presenter 2: Don't we?
Presenter 3: Oh, its fabulous! GOD, I love capitalism!

And, no, she wasn't being ironic.

A funny thing happened in Prague

It started at a little gallery in the Old Town, not far from the street full of puppets, not far from the doorway where the stone blokes were wearing stone lion skins. I don't know whether the woman in the gallery was desperate for a sale, or just desperate for someone to talk to, but she was desperate for something. Expressing interest in a rather cute painting called 'Marauders' (or something) in which two dogs played tug-of-war with a typewriter had led to a lengthy but completely uneccessary discussion of how postage costs to the UK were undeniably great value.

I ended up with a handful of brochures that I really didn't want, and finally stumbled out into the cold street. I gazed at the top corner of the opposite building for a while. That is the appropriate thing to do in Prague, as every top corner is flouting some kind of groovy accoutrement that begs for your attention.

I turned around and saw a largish bloke kind of loping towards us down the cobbled street, and immediately got that little tweak of vertigo you get when your contexts unexpectedly go awry. I had the peculiar sensation that my TV screen had just taken on a very impressive big-screen, 3-D kinda quality. Suddenly Law and Order had gone medieval. The lighting was even right.

I swear it was him. Jesse L. Martin. I looked at him. He looked right back. He was looking kinda friendly (I was wearing the green coat: it has that effect), and if I could have only remembered his name at the time, I could have quite happily said hello. I didn't think 'Hi, love your work. Can't remember who you are, but love your work' would quite do the business, though. He looked like he was having a nice day, so gratuitous ego-deflation seemed inappropriate. The Green Coat Magic also completely prevented me from engaging in the sleeve tug and the accompanying 'Look, its the guy from Law and Order' stage-whisper without both spoiling the moment and shamelessly exposing my tragic un-hippness.

As a result, J. kept gazing at rooftops, oblivious. We passed like the proverbial ships, Jesse L's personal space intact, and any chance for independent verification of the sighting lost forever.

I was left assuring J.that yes, I was really, really sure, and wondering whether, if I was just a bit more opportunistic, that little encounter could have been the start of...of ...um...something. The lucrative sale of that unfinished undergraduate (and let's face it shithouse) film script? A sudden, unsought invitation to a glamorous cocktail party teeming with commissioning producers from HBO? One of those out-of-focus'look who I met on my holiday' snaps? Ah, the golden opportunities that slip through your fingers for the want of some good old-fashioned chutzpah!

For the record, its not all a trick of the light. He really is quite handsome.