Junket to Britain Was Enough to Send One Round the Bend

Of course they had to come. Of course they had to spend pots of money while they were here.

If they hadn’t, would there have been one single soul in all of London who would ever have heard of a place called Los Angeles?

The Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau, whose expense accounts were cracked open to the public gaze recently, sent an entourage here one fine week in June a couple of years ago, and it was nothing but work, work, work.

They had to spend one entire afternoon consorting with two dozen travel agents at Wimbledon, walking the hallowed grass to center court, then gulping down hot tea in July as if they enjoyed it.

They dragged themselves to dine on the nouvelle carnivore cuisine at the Criterion, one of London’s literally gilded restaurants, its coved ceilings rich with gold and turquoise mosaic, its plates rich with $25 a la carte beef, delivered with service one London restaurant guide calls “arrogant” and at prices another considers “ridiculous.”

And then the very next night, they suffered through a gorgeously mounted reception and another artery-insulting $11,600 dinner, this one with the aristocrats of Britain’s airlines in one of the royal chambers at Kensington Palace that is available for rentals (“follow in the footsteps of royalty” is the come-on).

The things our leaders must endure for the good of Los Angeles.

Kensington Palace is the place where, early one morning 165 years ago this month, an 18-year-old girl still in her jammies was told she had just become queen--Queen Victoria.

“I will be good,” was Victoria’s first famous quote. Her second one was, “We are not amused.”

Angelenos can fairly apply Victoria’s standards to this six-figure sojourn: Was it good? And did it leave us amused?

To the second, obviously, “no.” After the expense records became public, albeit looking as heavily edited as FBI files, there was a hurricane’s worth of huffing and puffing from taxpayer groups and elected officials: five nights in an $854 hotel suite! An $84,000 afternoon at Wimbledon courtside! And yet in three years, more than 40 major conventions lined up for L.A. bail out, and staff people still get paid bonuses for landing canceled events?

As to the first point, were they good? Did this semi-royal tour of gilt and sweat accomplish anything?

The standard line is yes, that spending money makes money. The city’s name in a new travel brochure lures the leisurely and their lucre to L.A.’s ZIP Codes.

It’s the usual mantra for federal missions and local ones.

Mayor Sam Yorty got himself the nickname “Travelin’ Sam” for expensively roaming and grazing the world, and then Tom Bradley, who had nailed Yorty for his to-and-fro-ing, did the same thing on trade missions.

It’s much the same argument put forward by the British monarchy and its adherents: Yes, it’s expensive, but look at the value for dollar. For the price of that bag of oats for a horse pulling the royal carriage down the Mall, enough tourists show up to foot the bill for every horse race at Ascot.

That’s one reason L.A. already has a convention office in London. It’s on the third floor in a building just up the road from St. James’s Palace, where Prince Charles keeps an office; call the number, and a pleasant young woman answers, “Los Angeles!” which is very homey.

Anyway, the bureau spent thousands to sell L.A. in a place that is pretty well sold on it already.

The price of a ride on the London subway--about $2.40 in the currency market of the moment--sends you past posters for Hollywood’s latest releases, counting the time lag for Britain, which evidently quarantines them like dogs before they’re allowed into the country. There’s a new ad for “Monster’s Ball.” The star is Halle Berry. Halle Berry won an Oscar.

Where is the Oscar ceremony held? Los Angeles.

Then you leave the tube and step out into California-style sunlight, as rare in London as a taxicab in L.A. That lady walking in Kensington Gardens--you, madame. Your name? Nan Blythe of Glasgow. Well, Mrs. Blythe, ever been to Los Angeles? “We went to Hawaii on holiday and spent a few hours in the airport. It was quite nice, as airports go.” What do you think of when someone says “L.A.”? “Where the movies are. Earthquakes.”

Hmm, well, not much we can do about the seismics. But the airport bit was encouraging.

And you, young lady, in a shop in Kensington High Street. Kates Laforet, all of 20. What do you think of Los Angeles? “I was there two years ago, two weeks in California, a week of it in L.A.” The Laforets loved Santa Monica and Venice Beach and even Orange County, and once you got the scale of it, it was quite glamorous. Her friends were jealous. And L.A.--”I preferred it to San Francisco. San Francisco, it’s very normal. L.A.’s got a lot more character.”

There, you see?

L.A.’s competition is logistics. Not everyone who wants to come to L.A. can manage it. London is equidistant from Los Angeles and Vladivostok, and the new Euro-coziness means that alongside those movie posters in the tube are enticements to a $75 round-trip fare for a weekend getaway to Paris.

But the logic of this L.A. junket remains elusive. Nine people fly to Britain to feed a lot of British travel agents and airline execs in places that are right around the corner from them--all to persuade them how wonderful Los Angeles is?

They hold court for travel and business writers in that $854 suite at the Four Seasons--it was probably the cheapest suite, not even named anything posh like the Wellington or the Mayfair suites, and due to be redecorated--and try to cast the siren spell of Southern California with black London taxis out there gliding down Park Lane? One of these sessions was a 15-minute phone interview with a travel magazine reporter that could have been done from a soundproof office at LAX at a saving of, oh, $830 and change.

(For three in the nine-member delegation--the city’s legislative analyst, Ron, duke of Deaton; His Lordship John Agoglia, marquess of the Airports; and his squire, Phil Depoian of the Runways--the air fares were $7,400 each. With the kind of insider schmoozing they did with airline executives here, you’d think someone would have clued them in about advance-purchase fares.)

It would just be simpler to lure a few royals to L.A. and get their fellow Brits to follow. The Getty House is empty, what with the mayor commuting from San Pedro and all.

And with the rumblings and grumblings about the monarchy even in this jubilee week, there may be some royal folk looking for a new place to lay their tiara-ed heads.

And they’re welcome to call collect.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Wednesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison @latimes.com