James McCarthy gets starry-eyed as he takes a trip to Tinsel Town.
>>> “Isn’t that Paris Hilton?” I ask my erstwhile travel partner, Abdulla Alnouri, as I nudge him with more enthusiasm than is probably cool, while pointing excitedly across the dancefloor. It turns out it is, but my attempt to get close enough to coax her into giving me an interview is met with a stoney resistance from her hefty minders, one of whom is holding what looks like, in the dim lighting, a disgruntled looking Chihuahua, though it could just be her handbag. I return to my table to find Abdulla in deep conversation with a man who he is convinced is Johnny Depp. While Paris was real, if somewhat unapproachable, it turns out that “Johnny” is actually “Hank” and no longer as interesting.
This is what (probably) passes for a normal evening in Los Angeles, especially if, like Abdulla and I, you are enjoying the hospitality of Playhouse, one of the city’s top nightspots and a notoriously difficult velvet rope to bypass - unless you are Sur la Terre, that is. I am in the City of Angels, courtesy of Turkish Airlines, which invited SLT to experience its inaugural flight linking Istanbul with the entertainment capital of the world. That, of course, is exactly what Los Angeles is: The epicentre of the pop culture universe. Los Angeles is unique insofar as it is a city where you can be completely lost, but know exactly where you are, simply because you will recognise nearly every street, landmark or building. The entire
• sur la terre • horizons •
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