Angelina Cabo

Shane (GBFF and Hollywood publicist to a bunch of people you’ve never heard of) says that the most important thing when talking about yourself is never to be boring. He suggested that I tell you that I was inspired to write Purely Decorative in order to relieve the unrelenting tedium of nomadic desert life after I was kidnapped by Toureg tribesman during a hen party weekend in Marrakech. I snapped back that I wasn’t about to let someone else’s vacation fantasies pervert my relationship with my readers.

I was also tempted to say that he might be better at his job if he told the truth more often - but in the first place, that’s nonsense, nobody wants to hear the truth about anything here. And in the second place, he has a pool.

Call me shallow (my last boyfriend said if he paddled in me he doubted he’d get his feet wet, but, like, whatever) - but poolside with a cocktail in one hand and a Macbook Air in the other is my favourite way to work. If I could eat chips and type with my nose, life would be perfect.

But my seedy studio in Venice doesn’t have pool. Unless you count the canal out front, which I did once (only once) after my neighbour’s Mojito Mojo party last year. The water’s only a foot deep, who knew? I went headfirst into the mud at the bottom and came up looking like… actually, looking like I’d just spent five hundred dollars on a mud wrap at Bliss Spa (I wish). My skin glowed for days after, but that could have been the embarrassment.

Shane, on the other hand, lives in a mansion in Beverley Hills and hardly ever uses his pool because his psychic has convinced him that swimming is bad for fire signs. I’m Sagittarius, which is fine, apparently, as long as I don’t get my bow string wet. And that, right there, is why I love LA.

This was supposed to be all about me, but it seems to be more about Shane. Still, we’re known by the company we keep. Don’t judge either of us too harshly.

All you really need to know about me is that my teeth are whiter and my smile is happier since I moved from London to Los Angeles three years ago.