Mind you, the business I am alluding to probably deserves to be closed down but even so it is one that generates around 10,000 jobs and some people estimate that it enjoys a turnover between $1 to 11 billion! However, in California the state and local governments only have one skill and that is using all and every means to close businesses down usually by spending zillions more than they collect in taxes and, when that realisation hits them, raising taxes even higher. The exodus, especially into low-tax Texas, is enormous and behind the fleeing enterprises city after city is going broke.
The business I am speaking of makes so much money (and probably diverts huge amounts of it off-shore, so to speak) that taxation levels are not the reason for its threatened departure, no, no, it's all to do with condoms! You see, over the last few decades the porn industry, to which I am referring, has grown and grown in Los Angeles County, particularly the San Fernando Valley, but now 'elf 'n' safety' spoil-sports have stuck their oar in and passed a local law mandating that the, er, gentlemen performers wear condoms in order to mitigate the risk of AIDS infections. Well, as we all know, gentlemen, do we not?, sex with a condom is like eating chocolate with the wrapper still on and I guess watching a porn film where the gentleman pauses in order to comply with 'elf 'n' safety' would be much the same.
Anyway, the porn film bosses reckon it's a turn off and they are looking for new locations. I wonder if they have considered South Somerset? Of course, the weather isn't quite the same as the San Fernando Valley, varying as it does from sub-arctic to arctic with non-stop rain but even so there are some advantages. Modesty forbids and all that but as an experienced thespian I am prepared to make myself available and I can offer them inside locations for the filming. I even have the title for my first film: The Man Who Put The 'Long' in Long Johns!
I am obliged to Ms. Susan Abram of the Los Angeles Daily News for the original report
