I have been to Rydell High!

Started the day out on a quiet windswept Venice Beach. The bums were starting to come to life, packing up their ragged sleeping bags before drawing heavily on a discarded cigarette butt. Early morning rollerbladers and joggers pounded the coast paths as baywatch lifeguards marked out their patches. The first steroid driven body builders flexed at muscle beach. Slowly the garish novelty stores opened their shutters. Before the weekend crush arrived we were off again.





Highlight of the day, a trip to Venice High where 'Grease' was shot. The 'T-birds' out front of the school, Danny jogging round the sports track, Sandy with the 'Pink Ladies' at the lunch tables, Danny punching his fist into the air on the sports stands, lockers down the halls, its all there!










Frank Gehry and modern architecture abounds down in Venice and Santa Monica. Visited the Guggenheim in Bilbao a number of years ago and was monumentally introduced to his work. Since then we have become fascinated by his form. The Hospital had a Q&A with Frank Gehry and Sydney Pollack following on from a screening of 'Sketches of Frank Gehry' - so on arrival went in search of his earlier works. Many were underwhelming considering the striking impact of his latter works, I guess as a creative develops so does his talent. I found this when I went to the Sir Anthony Caro retrospective at the Tate. Much of his earlier works I didn't enjoy but they all led him to his latter day architectural work which I found enthralling.

Oh and some of the houses - fantastic, full of light and breathtaking views of the sea. The penultimate photo above - the binoculars were created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.







Long Beach - the aquarium of the pacific. Disappointing, guess the London Aquarium has set a pretty high standard. Long beach also smells - it is essentially Los Angeles port, and container yards stretch as far as the eye can see. In the middle is a tourist enclave with the aquarium, the Queen Mary and a host of other sites, but there is no getting away from the smell of the cntainer port. Confess we had lunch at 'Buba Gumps' - spin off from the film - shrimps deep fried in corn oil and coated in cajun spices - tasty but a residual of grease left on the palate for the rest of the day.



A few hours on Manhattan Beach, before heading to Dick and Junes for supper.