FIVE THINGS I ONLY KNOW BECAUSE MY HUSBAND FORCES ME TO LIVE HALF MY LIFE IN LOS ANGELES.

1) Someone needs to publish a euphemism dictionary, to help English people when they move here. Words that don’t exist in LA include right (appropriate); wrong (inappropriate); death (passing); tell (share) and fucking (intimacy).

A phrasebook would also be handy. I had to explain to my eight year old son when he started school here that “Do you want to think about your choices, honey?” actually means “Stop doing that right now you little shit.” You can imagine his relief.

2) Sunshine isn’t everything. They have lots of it in Iraq. I don’t see a lot of people moving there. On a slightly related topic, have you ever noticed how palm trees look a bit like heads on spikes? Maybe the heads of all the writers whose screenplays didn’t make it…

3) Jewish humour and British humour are the same. If it weren’t for my Jewish friends here, I would shoot myself. Also, if you ask a Jewish person how their book is going, they will never smile and say “awesome!” Never. God bless them and all who sail in them.

4) There are no republicans in LA. Except Schwarzenegger. And even he had to marry a democrat. This seems to be one of the few cities in America where people don’t view being given basic healthcare as some kind of personal affront to their intelligence. Weird.

5) Hollywood is one of the least glamorous places on earth. And I say that as someone who spends every other Christmas in a suburb of Pittsburgh. Its full of litter, Japanese tourists and homeless schizophrenics rambling about gun control and ‘Big Government’. On the plus side, it is extremely sunny.

Tilly Bagshawe

Tilly Bagshawe is the international bestselling author of nine previous novels. A single mother at seventeen, Tilly won a place at Cambridge University and took her baby daughter with her.

She went on to enjoy a successful career in the City before becoming a writer. As a journalist, Tilly contributed regularly to the Sunday Times, Daily Mail and Evening Standard before following in the footsteps of her sister Louise and turning her hand to novels.

Tilly’s first book, Adored, was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic and she hasn’t looked back since, publishing 17 novels, including sic for the Estate of Sidney Sheldon. Sidney Sheldon’s RECKLESS, the most recent, was published yesterday.  Tilly and her family divide their time between their homes in Kensington and Los Angeles and their beach house on Nantucket Island. You can learn more about at her website and on Facebook.