It’s all been a bit quiet on the JDOCD front lately. If you are new here and you don’t have a clue what I am talking about then all is explained back in 2005.

It’s not like, she assures me, the disease is waning here at Swordfish Towers. Any suggestion I may make on that score meets with one of those stares reminiscent of Paddington Bear. It’s more like it has gone underground and I don’t get to hear so much of what is going on. But, of course the next big event in the life of any JDOCD sufferer is looming with the imminent release of Public Enemies which premieres in London Monday 29th June. (Here is a link to the official website and if you can sit through the time it takes to load up then you must surely be infected).

My wife – as my posts over the years on this subject have detailed – has been to every London Depp premiere since Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So now I am going to impart some shocking news. She is wavering. That’s right – she might give it a miss. And if that isn’t a clear sign of gradual recovery from this debilitating ailment then I don’t know what is.

I thought perhaps I had hit on it the other day when she came waltzing in from the shops with a copy of the Vanity Fair magazine pictured above. See – one of the claims made by women with this disorder – and probably some men too but let’s not go there – is that Depp still looks the same as he always did. He doesn’t age, they say, but retains those youthful looks. Ha, thought I, catching sight of the magazine and holding it up triumphantly declared “look… wrinkles”!

She looked at me with sad eyes, a sigh and a slow shake of the head and then looked back at the picture. “Yes…’ she agreed. “Aren’t they cute?”

The bastard.

Just a couple of days ago I was musing here at home that we were getting to that age and stage in life where we should start to expect to hear of our childhood heroes and idols falling by the wayside. Many, of course, died young – Jimi Hendrix for example, or John Belushi. For some, their time came prematurely like John Lennon. And the last couple of years have seen Pink Floyd founders Syd Barrett and Richard Wright fall – two people on my own teenage ‘hero’ list.

And now Patrick McGoohan – John Drake of ‘Danger Man‘ fame but, more importantly, Number 6 of ‘The Prisoner‘, the short-lived but much loved 1960’s TV series that we still sit down and watch every five years or so.

McGoohan may not have been a great actor and he most certainly was not a prolific one but in ‘The Prisoner‘ he gave the world a seminal work that is unforgettable. Maybe it is auspicious that he has died before we all get to see the remake – or ‘reimagining’ as the production team have called it – due to be screened later on this year.

My JDOCD suffering wife can not, of course, resist anything connected with Johnny Depp which includes the rather second-rate movie The Astronaut’s Wife and I stumbled upon the book (pictured) this morning, obviously picked up second hand when she was in town yesterday.

Leaving aside the story and the quality of the prose – which as I have no intention of ever reading it will always remain in doubt – the book really does have a somewhat miraculous genesis. On the front cover, which you may just be able to make out, it claims:

Based upon the motion picture…

On the back cover however, are the words:

Now a major motion picture…

A bit of a paradox then this book.

(If you have not seen the 2007 John Cusack movie ‘1408′ and still intend doing so then don’t read this. If nothing else i give away the ending. Well… sort of!)

I admit that I might be totally wrong and confused on this – after all, with the old grey cells increasingly turning beige and a lack of sleep over the past three weeks, my memory might well be shot to pieces. In fact – it would not surprise me in the least.

Last Autumn, while sitting on a plane heading for the USA, I watched the movie ‘1408′. For those that do not know of it, it is a film based on a Stephen King ‘horror’ story about a man locked in an evil and ghostly hotel room. The main reason I watched this – not being a fan or having any interest in this genre – was that Cusack, the man in 1408, had rave reviews for his performance and spends the majority of the film acting solo. And yes – as always with Cusack, his performance was noteworthy.

Before my wife contracted JDOCD, Cusack was her actor of choice and she still has a soft spot for him and watches his movies so, as she hadn’t seen ‘1408′ we sat down a couple of nights back to watch it on DVD. I thought I remembered the movie pretty well – after all it was only about seven months ago that I saw it. But it wasn’t the movie I remembered. Sure, lots of the scenes were the same – in fact most of the scenes were the same. But I had this eerie feeling that I was both watching the same move and a different movie at the same time.

Now I know that films are edited for planes – I understand that. Maybe some of the more violent scenes are toned down in some way – really frightening scenes may be cut. After all, Virgin Atlantic do not want to be sued by little Wayne’s Mom and Pop for being traumatised. I get that.

But here’s the thing. And the sort of spoiler. The DVD and, I assume, the theatrical release, ends with Cusack setting the room on fire and dying in the subsequent blaze. But as I remembered it, up there in the middle of crossing the Atlantic, he survived. Convinced of it I am. Which leaves me seriously wondering if my memory truly is starting to play tricks – which is more frightening than anything Stephen King can dish up.

Down on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles stands the famed Roosevelt Hotel. This is a hotel with history and was, in fact, the host of the very first Academy Award ceremony back in 1929. It has quite obviously seen a lot of Hollywood movie life since then and been changed, modified and butchered over the years in an attempt to retain the Hollywood mystique and to remain part of the centre of Hollywood life.

Take a tip from me – don’t ever stay there.

Perhaps I ought to own up to a few simple facts to qualify this tip. While I have always been a huge fan of movies and movie history I have never been a fan of Los Angeles. This was also my first foray into the Hollywood area and it will almost certainly be my last. It is plain old ugly just like any ageing actress who has had one too many facelifts. It is noisy, crowded and seems filled at all hours with hundreds of young people wearing too much makeup and too little clothing just ‘hanging out’ along with a constant crawl of cars filling the streets with engine noise and horns full of people desperate to get somewhere.

The Roosevelt which, I might add, does not give up it’s rooms cheaply, plays a central role in this and it’s lobby, bars, entrances and corridors seem to be teeming at all hours with the young and beautiful who seem to believe that the way to get noticed is to make a lot of noise. Strike one for getting a good nights sleep.

Two of the first things you notice when you get into the bowels of this hotel are the dark, foreboding brown that everything seems to be painted in along with the low light levels that make it look even worse – and the heat. The long winding corridors are not air conditioned and the rooms, when you finally find yours, just have one of those wall mounted gadgets that can’t cope on a hot day. But the real shock is the decor that they seem so proud of. Wedged somewhere between the 1950’s and the 1970’s and missing out the 1960’s altogether. Witness the basin in the bathroom which is about 10 inches square most of which is taken up by the tap.

If you are a young, hopeful Hollywood poseur who believes that the night time is just for ‘being there’ then the Roosevelt is for you. If you are an ordinary guy who wants a hotel to be a hotel, expects a certain level of service, tends to want to sleep at night and understands what the word ’sophistication’ means then stay clear of this hell hole.

One good thing though. Excellent WiFi internet access (see previous item). There again there was no desk to work at. Not that it mattered as there was no chair either. Obviously the trendy room designers steeped in their retro style and brown paint believe that people in the 1950’s just didn’t sit down. A bit like the hordes of people constantly roaming the corridors at night.