Foggy thinking:We’re surprised that the state Senate...

Foggy thinking:

We’re surprised that the state Senate rejected Gov. Wilson’s appointment of Cody Cluff to the South Coast Air Quality Management District board. Opponents claimed Cluff was unqualified for the smog panel. But he is, after all, president of an industry-government group that promotes L.A. as the nation’s film capital. Anyone involved in the movies obviously is familiar with pollution.

TOASTING THE PRISONERS: We don’t want to say that L.A. jail inmates live like royalty. But the other day Newsweek carried an article about luxury appliances in the Williams-Sonoma catalogs, including “the preferred toaster at Buckingham Palace”--price $359.

Big deal.

A Times series on the budget of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department last year found that it was shelling out $466 per toaster for the prisoners in its jails. “In the bigger scheme of things,” the department’s budget chief told The Times, “a $400 toaster is nothing.”

Buckingham Palace must feel ashamed.

DOUGHNUT SHOP WITH BLACK AND WHITE FILLING: Joyce Thompson came upon a parking space reserved for police in front of a Marina del Rey doughnut shop (see photo). Reminded us of a lyric in the song “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the L.A. rock group, the Bangles: “If you want to find all the cops, they’re hanging out in the doughnut shops / They sing and dance . . . they spin the cup.”

These days, law enforcement types make jokes about their fondness for doughnuts. Chris Welton swears he recently saw a CHP pickup truck in Long Beach with the bumper sticker, “Bad Cop, No Donut.”

JUST SOUTH OF ELSA GUNDO: Readers are still entertaining us with reports of bungled place names. You may recall the story of the Antelope Valley College instructor who was given the name tag “Cantaloupe Valley College” at a seminar. And the Olive View Medical Center nurse who was handed this name tag at another seminar: “All of You Medical Center.” Adding to our collection is Chuck Russi, who says that when he lived in Palos Verdes, he once received a letter “from somewhere in New York addressed to ‘Palace Birdies.’ ”

IS THERE A 7UP TANK NEARBY? Dave Lindell of Hacienda Heights spotted a tank in Carson that caused him to wonder whether its purpose was for firefighting or partying (see photo).

POWER PARKING: Mystery novelist John M. Wilson (“Simple Justice”) was intrigued by the spaces boldly marked MUSCLE PARKING behind Dana Tana’s star-haunt restaurant in West Hollywood. Were they for the bodyguards? For studio moguls? Actually, they were reserved for patrons of a nearby bodybuilding gym.

NAME GAME: A member of a walking group at an Arcadia senior citizens center tells us she and another woman were leading the pack during a recent trek. “I asked her what her name was,” our informant tells us, “and found out it was Judy Walker.”

Our informant’s name? Well, how could she not be in the lead with a moniker like Jan Gallup?

miscelLAny

Adrienne Omansky’s commercial-acting class for seniors in L.A. recently sent tapes of their work to the Heinz Co., hoping to pick up a gig. We’re not sure yet whether any of the students, ages 55 to 93, will get work. But they did receive two crates of pickles from the company. Omansky said the pickles “will go great” with the year’s supply of ice cream the thespians received after an audition for Dreyer’s. “Especially,” she added, “if one of our members gets pregnant.”