A star at Christmas
A star at Christmas
Joan Collins's Festive Notebook
In Los Angeles last month we were wined and dined and mulligan-souped up to our eyeballs. Los Angelenos love entertaining their visitors and even though I’ve lived on and off in the hills of Beverly since I was 21, I’m still welcomed happily by the natives. I started Christmas shopping early in LA and New York, but it doesn’t seem that early as the decorations go up immediately after Hallowe’en. I’ve never quite understood why our American cousins like Hallowe’en so much. Certainly it is an exciting event for children, but why several of my acquaintances (who should know better) delight in attending parties dressed up as hookers beats me. When my children were young we always did the full witch, Batman, space cadet bit, knocking on doors with impunity, secure in the knowledge that no proffered sweets would contain poison, broken glass or other horrors, as too often happens today. In Manhattan, my daughter-in-law will only take three-year-old Ava Grace on Hallowe’en to apartments in their building where she knows the occupants. What a sad indictment of our society today, but better safe than sorry.
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Duncan
December 14th, 2007 11:29amWhich ‘other week’ were these incidents in New York? I have not been able to track down the details and would like to. When was this incident in Kensington High Street? Recently or in some urban myth time zone? Did the ‘friend’ report it to the police? Is there an incident number? A broken leg is surely quite serious. It is actually rare to see cyclists on the pavement. When you do there are normally extenuating circumstances such as road works that have created additional dangerous choke points. Sometimes beginner cyclists take to the pavement in particularly dangerous areas. Apart from that, cyclists have no interest in being on the pavement. Meanwhile pedestrians are all too often found wandering in the road oblivious to the cyclists around them. Thankfully pedestrians and cyclists rarely harm each other. The real danger comes from drivers. Stand at any major junction and whenever the lights turn red you can see cars, coaches, buses and taxis speeding through. Cycle lanes are ignored and offer little protection. Forward boxes are never enforced. Taxis and buses regard bus lanes as theirs alone and squeeze and cut across cyclists. Van and lorry drivers, often reading a map or using a mobile, seem incapable of using their left mirrors. It is a sad fact that most of the cycling accidents in London are caused by lorries, vans and coaches speeding away from traffic lights and turning left without looking - deaths being regarded by the courts as unfortunate accidents. Instead of whinging at cyclists, we should be striving to create a safe cycling environment in London. Above all, drivers must be taught that a green light is not a license to kill. The roads are there for us all to share: cars do not have priority.