How Are Things on The West Coast?

A year ago, my wife and I left the city we’d lived in for a decade and moved to Los Angeles.

Neither of us were really sure if it was a very good idea.

We both loved London, and apart from the continued efforts of Her Majesty’s Government to make my non-British wife feel as unwelcome as possible (another story), we had a lot to stay for.

But we decided that if LA was good enough for David Hockney, David Beckham, Anthony Hopkins, Geoff Dyer, The Arctic Monkeys and FUCKING MORRISSEY, then we’d give it a go.

A year on, the question I get asked most regularly is ‘what’s it like?’, and instead of grasping for time-worn clichés about yoga, kale and smoothies, this is going to be my answer (for those who still care).

As foreign adventures go, it’s not exactly Joseph Conrad in the Belgian Congo or Bruce Chatwin In Patagonia, but what I can offer instead is a “moanologue” on West Coast living — a sort of Match-of-The-Day running commentary on the daily strangeness that results when you move from the UK to a place where there are no pubs within walking distance of my house and no-one knows the meaning of the word negativity.

In true Californian style:

This blog contains absolutely no sunset photos*, zero organic food photography, and is free of #blesseds.

This blog may contain trace elements of needless English grumbling, large amounts of fish-out-of-water, and was prepared in an environment where it may have been exposed to high amounts of cliché.

*(There may be some photos of sunsets).