Agent Triple P is interested to read about the Hollywood Writers strike as almost exactly a month ago he was standing in a bar talking to a girl who was explaining the whole "gathering storm" as she put it, from an insider's perspective.
Agent Triple P had just finished a particularly successful visit to the Western United States and was spending the last night of his stay in the somewhat dreary Hyatt Century Plaza in West Hollywood. For reasons that are too complicated to explain Triple P ended up staying in this hotel twice in a week.
Century City is a development of offices, hotels and shopping malls built on the site of the old Twentieth Century Fox backlot. Fox lost so much money on Cleopatra in the sixties that they had to sell off the backlot to keep the studio afloat. The studio itself is just around the corner and the HQ of MGM overlooks the hotel grounds.
The Hyatt is a typical, dull convention hotel with very little to recommend it. The restaurant, Breeze, is one of those that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and is, as a result, rather canteen like.
The food was actually not bad but the lack of clientele in the evening showed that it was not exactly the place to be seen in. Agent Triple has rarely found a hotel restaurant that serves breakfast that is any good as an evening venue. Usually he prefers the sort of hotel dining room that is not open except in the evening. The size and ambience of a place that has to cater to several hundred people wanting breakfast is not the same as somehere that serves 40 or 50 for dinner.
The pool area too was rather disappointing. It was rather bleak, the pool itself was small and there was no real shade anywhere near it.
Our room was quite reasonable, that said, although perhaps a little dull. It was, however, spacious and well equipped with wireless internet, a rather good iPod speaker system and had a balcony. Although as the view consisted largely of office buildings it was not really a place to linger. Originally, we suspect, you could see the Hollywood Hills from the hotel but they managed to put a vast building in front of it fairly recently.
That said, looking through this rather odd hole in the building opposite, if you were on the ground floor, you could see the Hollywood sign in the distance.
The bathroom was good with a nicely finished vanity unit. Something Agent Triple P always needs!
Having rapidly demolished a Martini my colleague suggested we move to the bar to "try to pick up women". Now by this time we had had a very succesful week business-wise and were starting to believe in our undoubted brilliance. We had also discovered that American women seemed fascinated by English men in suits and we had both had our cufflinks twiddled, ties fondled and shirts stroked by literally dozens of women in hotels and airports across California, Nevada and Arizona.
The food was actually not bad but the lack of clientele in the evening showed that it was not exactly the place to be seen in. Agent Triple has rarely found a hotel restaurant that serves breakfast that is any good as an evening venue. Usually he prefers the sort of hotel dining room that is not open except in the evening. The size and ambience of a place that has to cater to several hundred people wanting breakfast is not the same as somehere that serves 40 or 50 for dinner.
The pool area too was rather disappointing. It was rather bleak, the pool itself was small and there was no real shade anywhere near it.
Our room was quite reasonable, that said, although perhaps a little dull. It was, however, spacious and well equipped with wireless internet, a rather good iPod speaker system and had a balcony. Although as the view consisted largely of office buildings it was not really a place to linger. Originally, we suspect, you could see the Hollywood Hills from the hotel but they managed to put a vast building in front of it fairly recently. 
That said, looking through this rather odd hole in the building opposite, if you were on the ground floor, you could see the Hollywood sign in the distance. 
The bathroom was good with a nicely finished vanity unit. Something Agent Triple P always needs!Anyway, back to the girl. I had been having a wash-up dinner with my colleague and we decided to pop into the bar afterwards. Now it was not particularly late, perhaps 9.00pm on a Friday night. There are two bars in the hotel: the rather sterile lobby bar, which, given the height of the ceiling and the width of the lobby, was not exactly cozy and a much better place called the X bar. This, it turned out was popular with the more technical Hollywood people from Fox and MGM. When we arrived the place was heaving and we had to sit in the less frantic area with sofas behind the eponymous "X".
Having rapidly demolished a Martini my colleague suggested we move to the bar to "try to pick up women". Now by this time we had had a very succesful week business-wise and were starting to believe in our undoubted brilliance. We had also discovered that American women seemed fascinated by English men in suits and we had both had our cufflinks twiddled, ties fondled and shirts stroked by literally dozens of women in hotels and airports across California, Nevada and Arizona.Agent Triple P, however, was not that confident. He had already met up with his American friend M, earlier in the week and unexpectedly hooked a lady cardiologist (more of which another day) in Beverly Hills. He was, in other words, quite happy to call it a night. My colleague was in a more predatory mood, however, and so we found two seats at the bar. No sooner had we placed our order than we were suddenly outflanked by two local girls. They were, of course, intrigued by our accents. My colleague's girl (the sorting procedure took seconds) was a photographer, towards the larger end of the spectrum with short platinum dyed spiky hair. Very arty. "My" young lady was a Chinese-American with dyed blonde hair (I always think it looks rather curious on a Chinese) who worked for one of the film technicians unions. Agent Triple P found it rather odd to be discussing union matters but then S was so vivaciously charming that we were quite happy to be convincingly liberal for a few hours. Agent Triple P bought the young lady several glasses of Champagne and she was getting engagingly tactile. However, even we were surprised when she hopped off her bar stool at midnight, grabbed Agent Triple P by the wrist and announced to my colleague and his friend "goodnight, we are going to bed!"
And go to bed we did where young (under thirty) S performed with enormous enthusaism and not a little enjoyable Asian kinkiness. We had breakfast together and we checked out together where I managed to grab this illicit photo. Unfortunately, she moved her head at the wrong time so looks blurred but perhaps that is just as well. Not blurred are her two best features. We think we can honestly say that S had the best bust we have ever encountered: perky, pert, pointy and many other words beginning with "p".
And go to bed we did where young (under thirty) S performed with enormous enthusaism and not a little enjoyable Asian kinkiness. We had breakfast together and we checked out together where I managed to grab this illicit photo. Unfortunately, she moved her head at the wrong time so looks blurred but perhaps that is just as well. Not blurred are her two best features. We think we can honestly say that S had the best bust we have ever encountered: perky, pert, pointy and many other words beginning with "p".
Altogether an unexpectedly enjoyable finale to a great week.
