JJ Abrams' Star Trek trailer

Yummy.

11-11-11: Winson Green

"The road you can talk about is not the road you can walk on."

Lao-Tse - Tao Te Ching

At about 2.10pm the bus is driving through Winson Green.

For the uninitiated, Clare and I are indulging in a spot of guerrilla ethnomethodology aboard Birmingham's legendary number 11 bus. Some youths board the bus and sit behind us. This doesn't concern us, however, as everyone else on the top deck is sitting behind us, too. That's what happens when you sit on the front seat.

Before long, we notice a suspicious, burning odour coming from behind. This isn't the typical, pungent, herb-based burning odour that's commonly associated with philosophy students, jazz aficionados and the top deck of a double decker bus, though. This doesn't smell like anything exotic, illegal or monged. No, it smells like someone is baking a jacket potato.

"Kids nowadays," says Clare.

We're driving through Winson Green, and Winson Green - of course - is best known for its prison. In fact, to most Brummies, 'Winson Green' means prison. In this respect it joins a long list of locations that seem forever lumbered with deep-seated incarceration associations. Notorious places like Strangeways in Manchester, Alcatraz in San Francisco and Portmeirion in Wales.

Which is a bit of shame, really. If you manage to separate the word from its links with the local lock-up, then Winson Green itself is quite a pretty name for a place. It wouldn't seem out of place in Trumptonshire, alongside Camberwick Green and Chigley.

Of course, things like that are always easier said than done. This place and its prison seem to be neuro-linguistically fused in the popular imagination. It'll take more than Zen detachment and baked potatoes to sever those tethers.

The fact the 11 bus drives straight past the prison probably doesn't help.

11-11-11: From Bearwood to Edgbaston

By 2pm we've left Harborne. It happens to us all eventually.

After crossing Hagley Road (home to my old sixth form, St Philip's College), the number 11 saunters wistfully along the Bearwood High Street as another song comes to mind. This time, it's the sublime This is What She's Like from Dexys Midnight Runners' wilfully uncommercial and criminally underrated 1985 album, Don't Stand Me Down:



On the album version of the song, The Little Nibble café on the Bearwood Road gets name checked during some pre-song banter (legend has it that Kevin Rowland and his bandmates used to meet there for tea-dinking sessions). Sadly, The Little Nibble ceased trading in January, Dexys haven't recorded a studio album since Don't Stand Me Down and I've been sitting on the top deck of the number 11 for long enough now to start making connections.

We take a right onto Sandon Road and into Edgbaston, passing the former home of my good friend, the macaroon-chomping friend of Garfield Jez Higgins. I remember going to a barbeque there years' ago. Jez and his goodwyf Nat are vegetarians, so this - understandably enough - was a vegetarian barbecue. Our mutual friend - the talented comic artist and occasional thug, Tony McGee - arrived at this vegetarian event clutching a greasy megaburger in his mitts. I vividly remember him wantonly flaunting his tasty bovine-based snack with scant regard for the feelings of others. At least, I'm pretty certain it was Tony.

I hope it wasn't me.

11-11-11: Lost Souls and Plimsoles

Well we know where we're goin'
But we dont know where we've been
And we know what were knowin'
But we can't say what weve seen

Talking Heads - Road to Nowhere

It's about 1.50pm, Clare and I are still in Harborne and we're still sitting on the front seat of the top deck of Birmingham's legendary number 11 bus. We're sitting to the right of the bus, and - on Lordswood Road - a girl sitting to our left gets up and click-clacks her way down the steps in a pair of presumably-fashionable high heel plimsoles. This may seem fairly inconsequential to you, but for me it was the catalyst for a minor revalation: sitting on the front seat of the top deck might give you a great view of the road ahead, but when it comes to interbus people-watching it's far from ideal. Visibility is seriously impaired due to the fact that almost everybody else is sitting behind you.

It was, of course, Clare who noticed her shoes: footwear observations aren't exactly my forte. I wouldn't have clocked what was on her feet if she staggered past me in a pair of of Elton John's 4 foot tall Doc Martens.

I assume she's a regular passenger, not some eejit with a blog and a day off work whose partial to a bit of public transport-based sociological high jinks. This is someone with a destination in mind, who knows exactly where she's going. She's the kind of person who uses the bus to get from A to B, not someone who misuses the bus to get from A to A.

It's probably best if I don't dwell on the metaphorical implications of any of this.

New Watchmen trailer

Alright, I've been a bit sniffy about Zack Snyder's movie adaptation of my favourite goddamn superhero comic ever in at least one previous post, but - I must admit - the new trailer does look rather tasty:

11-11-11: From Selly Oak to Harborne

At 1.43pm we cross the Bristol Road and head down Harborne Lane. From the front seat on the top deck of the number 11 bus you get a great view of the still-under-construction new Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The futuristic, super sleek tri tower structure already looks so impressive you could be forgiven for thinking that the builders cut corners and used CGI.

Light dazzles my eyes, and I automatically reach up to pull down my sun visor. I remember that I'm in a bus and not a car, and realise that I now look like an idiot or, more worryingly, a Nazi sympathiser. Not that there's any difference, of course. I wonder if the new hospital will find a cure for stupidity?

By 1.50pm we're in Harborne. I look out for my brother whose doing some carpentry wrork in the area. I scan the suburban streets for him and his big-ass silver van, but to no avail. If you want quality carpentry work done at a competitive price, you can find his website here.

Tell him the idiot on the number 11 sent you.

11-11-11: From Cotteridge to Bournville

Two days later and so far I've only covered the first two miles. Typical.

We pass a fancy dress store in Cotteridge, where a plastic mannequin catches Clare's eye. A potential Christmas present? 'No,' says Clare, emphatically.

We hook a right onto Watford Road and pass a shop called Vis a Vis. "So that's what David Brent did next," muses Clare. I respond with a good natured 'Heh.' In truth, I only actually get the comment once we reach Bearwood. Boost bars really slow down the speed of my basic cognitive functions.

We're heading down Linden Road, now, and passing leafy Bournville. A line from an old Elvis Costello song springs to mind:

In Chocolate Town all the trains are painted brown
On the silver paper of the wrapper

At least it wasn't Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight.