How to

How not to

I am in Palm Springs for work this week. I’ve always loved this tumbleweed town with its low slung modernist houses and desert rat concrete bunker architecture. It is an odd mix of beautiful and bonkers. Tomorrow I’m visiting Bob Hope’s estate (on the market for $25 million). The house looks like a cross between a space station and a volcano. And yesterday, I fell in love with the adobe La Quinta Inn, where in the 30s Frank Capra wrote It’s a Wonderful Life and It Happened One Night, and Garbo ‘vonted to be alone’ and got her wish.

Everyone here is mad about tennis because of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. Yesterday I watched Roger Federer leap about like a gazelle in his Liberace-esque beige shorts with their glittery orange stripes. High on seeing the pros, I accepted a free coaching session. I haven’t played since I was 15, so imagine my horror when I discovered I would be training with Tom Gorman, the most successful US Davis cup coach ever (the man who trained McEnroe, Agassi and Sampras). In our one hour game, I scored two points. I’ve been celebrating ever since.