Today I actually had time for lunch - and all the better for the fact it was with fellow Yorkshireman Mark Ryan. The last time we sat down to eat we were joined by Kerry, Messers Ray Winstone and Jason Connery in sunny California, but this time it was just the two of us in damp Doncaster, his hometown. We set the world to rights, discussed the changing moods in both countries, the state of the industry and tucked into to steak and ale pies with a nice glass or two of white wine. All very civilised. It certainly beats the usually rushed Subway 6" Meatball Marinara on the move.

It's been a busy but productive week with getting major articles and photos for Impact sorted, resetting my parentals computer (and getting their laptop to display on the big HD television which took a while, but which now works really well), doing interviews (including Max Payne director John Moore) and getting flights aligned for the US trip in April/May. I've just managed to get the basic transatlantic flights for a good price and because I'm using United throughout, got an excellent deal on the domestic flights to Iowa via Denver and then home via Chicago. It's a big weight off my shoulders as I wasn't sure what the total costings would be, but this is do-able and I should be out of the UK for about three weeks or so in the spring (including over my birthday) and THIS time it should be warmer!

Despite being well on the mend I've had an annoying headache all week. Not the really bad kind, but the annoyingly clingy kind that just hangs around the back of the head and lets you know its winter. The doctor warned I'd be prone to feeling achey in general, so it's nothing that paracetamol, less screen time and more sleep won't help. The weather generally sucks (and could be worse next week), but it has given me another excuse to wear my Allonzy coat, so I've been swishing all over Yorkshire in it.

Got some photos for articles sorted tonight, updated Facebook and saved the world... so now it's time to catch some Zzzzzzzzzzzs. Roll on the weekend...

Just back from Cinema Days, that thrice-yearly excuse for regional journalists to get together and watch some upcoming films ahead of release. As usual, there's an air of jet-lag after it as the weekend usually involves sitting in a darkened room/cinema, watching around fifteen films over four days, having a few drinks in the bar afterwards and being well fed by the catering staff in the marquee. Yes, I appreciate that doesn't sound like hard work, but it IS a genuine strain on the eyes and the body clock. I avoided the usual obligatory too much alcohol and I've been particularly mindful of the eye strain this time as the last thing I needed to feel was a headache (and I didn't want the last thing I felt to be a headache).

I saw the Clint Eastwood film GRAN TORINO, which I can't recommend enough and some decent fare such as GOOD (which Jason Isaacs turned up to promote), BOLT (a CGI family movie, doggie-style) and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (a very atmospheric suburban vampire movie set in Sweden). Others such as FRANKLYN (a movie that wants to be a Gilliam/Gaiman type but isn't a patch on them), CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC (Yes, as dreadful as it sounds), TWO LOVERS and VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA (doomed love-stories with a ton of unsypathetic characters between them) were more of a pain. But the press conferences were okay (Mr Isaacs, some of the guys from Disney, Franklyn director etc) and it was good to see some familiar faces at the event.

This week I'll be sorting the flights to and from the States in April/May (where I'll be eMCeeing the Highlander WorldWide event and catch up with the LA talent - Hi to Kerry and Gillian!) and then I'll sort out the internal flights to get me back to Iowa during my trip. My current plan is to have a week in LA for Highlander, interviews, socialising etc and then around a fortnight in the US heartland to relax over my birthday. Proper little frequent-flyer I'm turning out to be!

Okay, back to helping my parentals rest up their computer system, searches for chocolate, various deadlines and a long article about the way technology is affecting action entertainment. Maybe with jokes. Well, let's hope so.

So... the Expectations about a certain incoming US President make the Great ones of Charles Dickens fame seem positively minor. They are, of course, impossible to attain and even before the honeymoon period has begun there's a somewhat unnerving reminder of Tony Blair's trumphant, landscape-changing arrival in Downing Street in 1997 to the tune of 'Things Can Only Get Better...' and bluebirds swooping from tree to tree with garlands of flowers (only, of course, the US version has a better-looking leading man, a cooler soundtrack and a higher budget). And we all know how long that sense of euphoria lasted.

So, it's been a week since I got back and, as expected, it's been straight into relatively hard work. Plunged back into my taxes, vainly searching for some old bank statements until I worked out that I never got them and then had to organise dupes from the bank. *sigh* Three-quarters done, but can't do any more until I get them. So back to doing Impact articles and the ocassional Xbox 360 foray with new games. However already planning the next US trip in April...

In the meantime, my brother has run a 'sixteen little known facts about me' list on his own official site ( http://www.theleftroom.co.uk/ )and suggested others take up the challenge on their sites. So for better or for worse, here goes:

1) God has had a tendency to smite me. I hope it's nothing personal and I hope it's over. I nearly died in my first year of life. I was one of a group of babies in Leeds given a faulty measles vaccine of which apparently several died. I have recollections of a little blue pill that finally cured me after a year of seizures (I don’t remember the seizures though I have a couple of memories of being in hospital. Probably for the best). Then I was shot when I was eleven. I was out in some woods not far away from where I lived and was hit by a high-powered air-rifle. The pellet fired missed my kidneys and spine by an inch. Needless to say I survived, but if you’ve read Steve’s most recent best-selling novel A Cry for Help, those in the know may recognise some of the events and locations in the story, despite him killing me off.

2) I have to believe there's more to existence than this. However no-one has the guaranteed answers, no matter what they say...so forget about 'up/out there' and do your best 'down here' just because you can and let the rest take care of itself. If heaven eventually doesn't want me, I'm open to offers.

3) I’ve never done drugs. My life is surreal enough. Perhaps it was a moral stand back in the day, but nowadays I’m pretty ambivalent, others can do what they want and it’s just been a more pragmatic choice not an imperative. If I have a borderline obsession with Jaffa cakes, I’m of the opinion that I would be heroin/cocaine’s bitch for life. Best not to go there.

4) I think people’s opinions of me matter - except when they don’t. My general rule of thumb is that if someone ACTIVELY doesn’t like me, I just like to know why. That way I can choose to rectify a genuine misunderstanding, apologise for a genuine fault of my own or genuinely tell them to go to hell.

5) Though I have a well-honed ability to plan and think ahead, I also have a habit of expecting things to never work out the way I plan and that's usually the case. I can only hope that they will sometimes work out BETTER.

6) In my own home I’m a being of necessity and my mess is sorted to the level I need it. When I’m in someone else’s I can actually be a domestic god. Bow down before me and pass me the dustpan!!!

7) I believe every once in a while you need to do something impulsive: be it silly, dangerous, stimulating or out-of-character. Obviously you should plan this impulsiveness carefully.

8) November 1st/2nd was the scariest day of my life. I had a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage and had to wait twenty-fours for a firm diagnosis and to find out what would happen. Nothing, absolutely nothing, scares you to the core like imminent mortality. Thankfully, I’m now relatively back to normal. Your mileage may vary on that.

9) My brother and I don’t see much of each other, though we don’t live that far apart. An eight year age-gap is an annoyingly significant one in outlook, but he’s a great guy and I probably ‘get’ his humour and outlook more than some. However I’m immensely proud of him as a writer and person and I’m not just saying that because of the Christmas present. :)

10) If I work hard at something and do well, I expect either significantly good financial recompense or enthusiastic appreciation. You rarely get both, I am sadly less surprised nowadays by the fact you can get neither.

11) I’ve begun to feel more at home in America than I do in England. Maybe it’s the outlook of the average person, but coming back to the UK, I find the weather dismal and the people unhappy. The US has its own problems - one about to be voted out - but there’s a better sense of personal responsibility and positive outlook.

12) Highlander changed my life. The film/television franchise, for all its faults, brought me into the orbit of people - professionals and fans - who have changed my life for the better in surprisingly wonderful and unexpected ways. From interviews, to book opportunities, to travelling around the world formally for events and informally for enduring friendships and relationships, it has only shaped my life for the better.

13) I'm not superstitious. Much. But then again, I'm a Taurean, so that's understandable. And probably why this is 'Fact 13'.

14) Not that many would notice, but I can have mood swings - from quite excitable, flirtacious and silly to quite low and brooding. No real discernable reason, but I worked my way through it by creating distractions. It works for me.

15) There’s something about a redhead. There just is.

16) This space available for rent.

Okay, now your turn...

Though I'll deny it later, the common legend about me - or at least one of them - is that I blew up a hotel room.

Despite what Jill McDole and Libby Shaw may tell you, it wasn't quite that way but as the great man once said 'print the legend'. It is true that while in a hotel room that will remain nameless and timeless to protect the guilty, I did something that led to all the lights going 'fizzz' and ceasing to work. I'm not proud of damage in general, but yes, at the time it was quite impressive. At the time, I merely blinked a lot and lied through my teeth to the staff. (Though in my defence, the hotel's electricals must have been dangerousy wonky to begin with!)

It seems that my innate electrical magnetism is still working today and this time I took three rooms with me: my parentals' main room, back room and kitchen. If you count the hall, it's four, but let's not. And I swear, hand on a copy of Firefly, that ALL I did was turn on the light as I went into the room. Fizz. Then a bang. There were actual sparks. There might even have been slight and sudden profanity. And then darkness.

Right now, they're awaiting an electrician. While it's possibly simply fuse-related, it's unusual a single bulb would go 'splodey in such dramatic form and yet leave others dark but not broken and its impossible to tell the *specific* source from looking at the fuse box and without turning off ALL power to the house as it all appears okay there. Bright sparks (see what I did there?) will notice I can still get online and will deduce that my wi-fi and at least one circuit are still working.

Is it the static levels that I've brought back with me from Iowa - where, quite frankly, I gave near fatal ticklish shocks to two cats, a dog and a human being just by looking at them, or just plain co-incidence? To avoid current (see what I did there?) or future legalities, let's go with the latter.

First full day back and the UK doesn't feel much warmer than the US, however I think that's down to the dampness which gives you an added chill - where the Iowa version was a lot drier - hence the static. I hear weather and business things are clearing up for Jill in Iowa too, so good news for all. Hoorah! However we didn't win the lottery. Boo!

Sooooo... time to start the travel fund once more and also to find time to do taxes and play on the X-Box that my superb brother surprised me with on my return. Thanks, Steve. At the moment I'm putting the FU into Kung Fu Panda.

He rocks. Jilly rocks. I rock. And sometimes I take entire buildings with me.

Home again, home again. And, gazing out from the train window...I'd forgotten how green things could be. Not even a hint of snow.

I'm now back in Yorkshire after a pretty reasonable homeward journey over the last day. Bags arrived intact and where they were supposed to be throughout and though I didn't sleep on the plane, I have no doubt I will do so tonight (or, more likely) before. I still live in hope that the last-minute tickets I bought for the Iowa Powerball Lottery will pay off and that I will soon be able to be kept in the style to which I should become accustomed. If not this time, I'll buy more on my next trip out there which I intend to be sooner rather than later.

I've been able to keep up with most e-mails thanks to the Yahoo proxy connection but had some voice-mails on my Blackberry when I got back, so there's a list of things to respond to over the next few days. Then, of course, there's some tax stuff I need to get out of the way! *sigh*

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noted further changes to this page layout. One of the few new year's resolutions I made was to formalise my web presence with a more professional main page linking to different aspects of the things I do personally and professionally. The main 'hub' will link to this page and several others. As far as this Blog page goes, the changes are largely cosmetic but I'll be dividing some of the separate panels that were here into their more appropriate pages over the next week or so. Other pages will include updated Impact, Verbatim and Photographic themes as needed.

It's green outside, but no time for the home-sick blues (I'm home and everyone appears to be sick with colds). Work calls. Hopefully it'll wait until I've had a power(ball) nap.

Tad, Jill's brother drove us to the airport this morning and after a brief detour for errands and a slight hiccup finding the right airport entrance, everything worked well. Nearly left my itinerary on the counter, but then again the lady behind the desk also forgot to give me my travel ticket, so we came out about equal. My luggage is checked through to Heathrow. Supposedly. We live in Hope - a small town just outside Desperation.

I'm currently at MSP airport. The flight from Sioux Falls to Minn., went well with a good seat and a speedy trip - I don't think we were actually in the air more than about 35mins. MSP (Minneapolis St Pauls - the Twin Cities Airport) is pretty vast but I made my way from one main concourse to another without problem and after speaking briefly to the parentals via Skype Video Messaging - ooooh, this new tech is *shiny!* - I'm about to go get some food. Judged my finances pretty well and should be fine for the whole return trip.

Don't think my seat on the Trans-Atlantic leg ( NW 104 for those with access to any of the online FlightTRacker tech) will be so good, but as long as my laptop works (so far, so good) and I'm not sitting next to squealing, dribbling babies (or for that matter squealing, dribbling adults) then it should be good.

Will update as and when on trip back, but hope to have my stylish self in Leeds by about 1:30pm latest Thursday...

It's the ears, isn't it? Walking up from Jill's house to her work tonight (about ten minutes in a straight line - gotta love the American grid system even outside the major cities) I was wrapped up well, but the cold, biting breeze got the ears first. Like some temperature radar or as if someone, somewhere was griping about me (what are the chances?), the burning sensation of the cold starts on the ears first. Then possibly the nose. Thankfully all other parts of torso and limbs were covered by gloves, the clompers or my rather stylish long woolen coat that I inherited from my grandad and which seems to give me a certain stylish swish that makes me feel I should be back in some classy college or shouting 'allonzy!' a lot and running after cybermen. Which wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm just saying.