2002-04-10 - 11:36 a.m.

I usually don�t mind 10am but I�ve already been up five hours thanks to my increasingly tenuous grip on British Summer Time and, ergo, being wide awake at anything approaching a sensible hour. Still, there�s plenty on TV at 5.30am, like extended highlights of the Queen Mum�s funeral, which I felt slightly obliged to watch since I missed that whole anationinmourning thing. Apparently people waited up to 12 hours to walk past a closed coffin (and do WHAT when they got there?) which commentators are seeing as continued respect for the monarchy but which I�m seeing as the general populace having not very much to do with their time these days.

LA moments: short haired men, topless, being pulled along the road on rollerblades by dogs on long leashes; sitting poolside at dusk on sunloungers drinking cocktails surrounded by movers and shakers, or at least reasonable facsimiles thereof; the glass cage in The Standard housing a bikini-clad waif who just lies there and reads a book all night, and it�s for real because you can see her lips moving. The guide on the �Hollywood Homes of the Stars� tour loses it because no-one�s ever heard of the actor Dick Van Patten and he can�t understand why and he�s almost in tears at our indifference to seeing where he used to live. He keeps calling leading film executives �movie mongols�. In the lift at the Ritz Carlton (yeah, I know) and a blond girl, model, has obviously just done a huge line of coke and she can�t stop talking about my luggage and how she knew I was English because she has English friends and they have exactly the same bag and she really loves England and she�s so late for dinner and there�s no opportunity, or any real need, to make any kind of response. More cocktails in the dead-Belushi-tastic Chateau Marmont and Armani-clad players, soulless, self-hating, lounge in dark corners with helium-voiced models-turned-actresses. Casablanca-themed Mexican restaurants. Hipsters at The Dresden. Trendies queuing for Sky Bar. Post-Californian cuisine. A man walks on broken glass for money at Venice Beach. Kelly Osborne poses for a magazine shoot outside her dad�s mansion. We spot what may or may not have been the back of the head of Benicio del Toro, but it�s good enough. Sidecars and Wasabi peas.

And I didn�t see Morrissey.