Kiss Kiss, Blah Blah

So there we were, Clare and I, watching - nay, re-watching - a DVD of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Shane Black's tremendously fun directorial debut starring Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer.

Midway through the second act I turned to my significant other and said tenderly, yet emphatically: "I think Harry Connick Jr is a great actor."

Clare let several moments of blissful ignorance pass before she turned to me and said: "That's really nice, Tom... but what do you think of Robert Downey Jr?"

Needless to say, this has now become something of a running joke at my expense.

The Dork Knight Returns

So here I am again.

March was my month off from here. I say that as though it was planned or premeditated, but I should come clean and admit that - like most things in my life - there was precious little planned or premeditated about it. Nothing new there, then. I moved house (I think I mentioned that before) and, as a result, didn't have a domestic Internet connection for the best part of last month. To put it another way, I was broken down on the hard shoulder of the information superhighway. As metaphorical dilemmas go, I suppose it's better than being online roadkill.

(Just been interrupted by Lily, Clare's 4 year-old daughter who really should be fast asleep by now. She wants me to help her find her toy unicorn, and who am I to refuse? This is a new thing for me, but I suspect that random toy unicorn searches will become a regular part of my life. So it goes.)

Anyway, I'll keep this brief as (a) I'm tired and my head is fuzzy, and, (b) I haven't quite mastered the knack of picking up from where I left off after a random toy unicorn hunt.

But I'm working on it.

Pete does a Jarvis

My pal Pete Ashton at the MediaGuardian Awards last week.

Priceless.

The sound of a pin dropping...

Okay, for the last couple of weeks I've been as quiet as Marcel Marceau and prolific as Peter Gabriel. I have reasons for this. I always have reasons.

The main one is that Clare, her wonderful 4 year-old daughter Lily, Kiki the family Kat and your's truly are moving to a stylish newbuild apartment this weekend. Or maybe it's a flat. I'm not affiliated with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors so can't tell the difference between the two. I've got a hunch that 'flat' and 'apartment' are pretty much interchangeable. The latter is probably a rebranding of the former designed to appease those aspirational types we all know and love. In any case, it certainly sounds a lot more wanky.

This move is a Big Deal for me. It's also a Big Deal for Clare, Lily and quite possibly Kiki too, of course, but this is a blog and - by definition - I'm permitted to exercise a certain level of self-absorption. I'm not normally like this, you understand.

The apartment (or flat) is in Kings Norton. Or Kings Heath. I'm not quite sure about that, either. The postcode is B30 - which reliable sources inform me is a Kings Norton postcode - but it's only a five minute walk away from my one-time, Kings Heath-based bachelor-pad flateau. If I'm moving into a new, unchartered part of Brum it certainly doesn't feel that way, but that may have something to do with the fact I'll be using the same fish and chip shop.

Part of me rather likes the idea of living in Kings Norton, but it's not due to any postcode snobbery or aspirational bullshit. For one thing, living in an area I technically haven't lived in before adds another notch to my Birmingham postal-district bedpost (I've been 'round the block a few times - just check the voter's register...). More importantly, though, the word itself - 'Kings Norton' - resonates with me because it reminds me of Norton I, the first and only Emperor of the United States of America.

Joshua Norton, in case you don't know, was a failed English businessman who ended up homeless and destitute in mid-19th Century San Francisco. In 1859 he proclaimed himself 'Emperor of the United States' (later adding 'Protector of Mexico' to his illustrious title), and for the rest of his life the people of San Francisco treated him as such. He issued proclamations, arbitrated disputes and even issued his own currency. When he died in 1880 as many as 30,000 people lined San Francisco's streets to pay tribute. Needless to say, he's one of my favourite historical figures.

By contrast, the word 'Kings Heath' now makes me think of dead movie stars.

I made a whistle-stop visit to the Creative Republic/Created in Birmingham party in Hockley last night. I was there to catch up with and congratulate my pal Pete on CiB's MediaGuardian Awards triumph. I didn't stay for long, partly because I'd misread the start time on the invite and partly because my day job isn't in a creative industry. In fact, I felt like an imposter. It's a bit like arriving at a WI meeting in drag: if you stay for too long there's always the danger that someone might expect you to have an interesting opinion about something you don't understand.


That didn't stop me, of course.

444 Club on Friday

For the benefit of all those Birmingham-based, gig-going, uplifting gormandizers out there (Heyyy now, Daddy-O...), The Courtesy Group - Al Hutchins' awesome band of Scrotnig noizemeisters who've been mentioned here on many an occasion - are supporting London-based up-and-comers XX Teens at The Rainbow in Digbeth tomorrow evening. XX Teens sound like a lot of fun - plus I'd like to see the mighty CG playing a non-Curate's Egg event - so I'll endeavour to get my pert wee Irish arse there. I think you should, too.

It's one of Kamikaze Events' 444 Club nights, in which new acts share the spotlight with local bands. Alongside The Courtesy Group, there'll be sets from Magnificatz and Betty & The ID.
Plastic Noise DJs will be, um, DJ-ing. They look as though they'll be fun, too. I purloined this wonderful image from their Myspace page:


That looks disturbingly like a mindmap of what I listen to while I'm driving.

Anyhow, here's the flyer:

Be Seeing You

I almost forgot to mention... after leaving Hafod Elwy Hall in Denbighshire last Sunday, Clare and I embarked on a Keruoac-lite drive around North Wales. We headed west along the A5 and through Betws-y-Coed (or, as my brother prefers to call it, "Betsy Cohen") before veering off in a random direction to see where the Road would take us.

Well, it took us past Moel Siabod and Snowdon and through some of the most rugged and gorgeous landscapes I've seen in quite some time. We stopped at a few places, took quite a few photos and ended up in Portmeirion. As you do.

In the popular imagination - well, in mine, at least - Portmeirion is the place where Patrick McGoohan's famously numerophobic, former-government agent was sent to prison for a resignation he didn't explain. As a huge fan of the cult 60s show The Prisoner, it was weird walking past all those odd buildings, so many of which have been hard-wired into my imagination since Channel 4 repeated the series in 1985. I was pleasantly surprised at how little The Village had changed in the 40-plus years since the show was originally made: Portmeirion's Pantheon, for instance, was still recognisable as the green domed home to Number 2, while the stone boat on the shore still looked as mad and as incongruous as it did back then. Then again, it's a boat. It's made out of stone. How could it not look mad and incongruous?

Anyhow, here's Portmeirion:




And there's me, up there, by Number 2's ornate lair:

And there I am again, outside Number 6's home, cheerily refusing to be "pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered.":


I guess it pays to put your trust in the Road: sometimes it can take you to where you've always wanted to go.