I had a couple of hours free in LA…

So I rang my dad up (he lives there) and asked him to ferry me around some production companies, giving me the opportunity to leave my novel with some people who might like to adapt it into a ma-hoo-sive blockbuster.

I know this technique is rarely employed by Stephen King, but this allowed me to see some bits of LA that I wanted to see and have a couple of hours in the company of my dad (who usually lives 6000 miles away from me).

The reason why this technique is rarely employed became abundantly clear in Production Company Number One: they can’t take unsolicited stuff in case they accidentally make a film exactly like your story and you sue them, even though they just chucked your book in a corner and occasionally used its page edges to pick their teeth.

But we carried on driving around because it was kind of fun seeing where the ‘magic’ happens.

The interesting ones were Jerry Bruckheimer’s JB productions and Michael Bay’s Bay Films (you do know what kind of book I wrote, don’t you? It wasn’t Ali: Fear Eats The Soul. Having said that, I hadn’t intended to visit Bay films; I just bumped into it on the way to James Cameron’s place).

JB films is at the end of a dull-looking cul-de-sac off on 10th Street. It’s all a bit disappointing, but then you go inside and your eyes are treated to the temple of wealth that National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets provided. It’s all incredibly tasteful with plenty of wood and plenty of space. I asked the English guy on reception if he liked working there. ‘It’s amazing,’ he replied as if he were talking about his first kiss that just happened to be with Grace Kelly in her prime.

Then on the way to 3rd Street I came upon the office of Bay Films. It’s surprisingly understated and tasteful with signage that’s been deliberately distressed just so.

So I went inside, and do you know what I found?

Hookers, robots and pounds of cocaine artfully placed on the naked body of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to spell ‘I am Michael fucking Bay and I fucking rule!’…

Or was it a man gently preparing a wheelchair-bound person with cerebral palsy for a trip outside?

Dear reader, it was the more shocking of the two.