Cliff's second-hand bookshop on one of the main streets in Pasadena has been in business since 1977 and now houses over 250,000 books on virtually every subject under the sun on its heaving, old fashioned shelves. More remarkably it is open every day of the year from 10 a.m. to midnight (see pix). Originally, Cliff would trade books but now he just accepts them. Jean gave in three and bought one for tonight's flight. The operation is overseen by an old guy whi may or may not be the original Cliff and overall it is quite a treasure trove. Material of a sexual nature is shelved near the front counter with a strict time limit of five minutes for browsing. The old guy keeps an eye out for miscreants ! On the other hand if you want to view all 24 volumes of the writings of Lenin they are all at the back of the shop and you can take as long as you like.

This is probably our last posting for a couple of days as we head off shortly to Australia. We are writing at present at LA International Airport and are due out quite soon en route to Perth. Hoping the weather can be as kind to us over there as it has been in the U.S. with virtually two weeks of sunshine. dave

28th October (2)

What's more to the point, what happened today? We chilled in Pasadena, where three of the museums we didn't visit yesterday remained unvisited as they don't open on a Tuesday.

We took in a film - The Duchess - which was very good, although rather a sad comment on the male dominance of the time.

We followed this with our debut on the local Metro - the Gold Line, which (apart from the noise from the freeway while we waited on the platform) was a good experience.

Jean

Tuesday 28th October 2008

First of all, I must revert quickly to the happenings of yesterday and something neither of us mentioned.

There we were, minding our own business in Pasadena, when we were stopped by a policeman and asked not to proceed as filming was taking place further up the sidewalk.

When at last allowed on, we were stopped again by some of the director's mignons as "take 2" was about to be filmed. There were loads of staff, mostly hanging about and many vans with TV equipment both in the main street and a side one.

For all that happened in the ten to fifteen minutes we were there, it was much ado about nothing!

What surprised me most was the employment of so many policeman on the project - at least a dozen.

Jean