This week I’m in LA working on a new film project which we’re hoping to launch in late Summer. Burbank is very fond of telling you that it’s the real home of the tv and movie industry which we all associate with the more iconic-sounding Hollywood next door.

This is where they film The Tonight Show and the outside shots for Desperate Housewives. Mary Poppins and Pirates of the Carribean were also done here at the Disney studios.  This Happy Days publicity stares back at me when I open my hotel door.

We took a break from working this afternoon and went for a walk through the downtown area which they playfully describe as Burbank Village. It’s a ‘village’ in the way Milton Keynes is a city, ie in no shape or form. And like MK, it has an IKEA sitting all big and blue in the middle.

I spotted a second hand bookshop full of old film posters, magazines and film industry books. I think this is the only time I have ever seen Focal Press books from the late eighties on display anywhere.

Imagine my surprise when I spotted a dog-eared copy of Focal’s Video Camera Techniques on the shelf only to find handwritten in the front matter in swirly blue writing the words:

This book belongs to Q. Tarantino. You take it, you die.

Ah these crazy Hollywood types.

Look out the left the captain said. The lights down there, thats where we’ll land. I saw a falling star burn up. Above the Las Vegas sands.

Rob and I have been having a difficult time at the moment. I’m not quite sure why but I think we’re both suddenly feeling quite unsettled and I’m a little homesick. I don’t think the weather has helped. It’s been schizophrenic by all accounts. Friday was baking hot then it started raining heavily. Rob is off to see David Sedaris at the Boston opera house. I was supposed to go as well but a business trip has taken me to Vegas which is where I’m headed now.

The plane is packed with people going to the same conference as me.  When you’re missing England Vegas is probably the last place you should end up. And I will be staying in the Paris hotel. No doubt a vile simulacrum of old Europe. Oops. Must leave my prejudices behind when I disembark.

We went to the MIT museum this afternoon and then sat outside a bar on Kendall Square. It was lovely and sunny. But I had that feeling of rootlessness that’s hard to shake.

I’m also learning songs for the new Chorus show. Bloody hell the repertoire is enormous. I’m looking forward to the show though.

We’re also planning to do a charity cycle ride called Harbor to the Bay. It’s in September and from Boston 125 miles to Provincetown. We keep planning to go out another ride but the weather or just general knackeredness gets in the way.

 So I’m back to Boston on Wednesday.  Since getting here I’ve been to New York, Philly and now Nevada. I like New England best  Dammit – I like old England.

The drone of flying engines is a song so wild and blue.

It scrambles time and seasons if it gets through to you.

Oh. We’re coming into land.