It's not uncommon for cable networks, in particular, to play can-you-top-this when entertaining TV critics.

Oh, we keep trying to tell them that the best parties are the ones where we can get some work done: where the music's not too loud, the "talent" isn't surrounded by a posse of personal publicists and hangers-on and -- as they do at CBS -- even the famous people are wearing name tags, just in case.

But they persist in booking us into hot clubs that turn cold the moment several dozen middle-aged critics wander in, clutching tape recorders, and in trying to wow us in ways that generally don't mean much.

Still, I had to feel a bit sorry for whichever BBC America publicist decided, no doubt several months ago, that what would make the network's party really special was if reporters were transported from the Beverly Hilton to the nearby Museum of Television & Radio on London double-decker buses.

Talk about an idea that seemed great at the time.

But even if the iconic double-deckers have taken a bit of a public-relations hit in the wake of the recent terrorist bombing, they're still a lot of fun (and it's much warmer to ride on top in Los Angeles than I've ever found it in London). When a palm tree brushed the side of the upper deck, well, that made it perfectly surreal.

But if we weren't too worried about our bus blowing up, drivers on Santa Monica Boulevard were even less concerned about the huge red vehicle as it attempted to turn into rush-hour traffic, and there was a moment or two, I'll admit, when I thought there might be more than one way to lose one's life on a double-decker.