Joe Lycett is on a mission to visit every one of the 17 Birminghams in the US and the one in Canada too. Why? Because he is a native of the UK’s own Birmingham, and he wants to see if there is any shared identifiable vibe and to foster a sense of togetherness among the scattered Brummies. Also, as he says, he has a pressing need to make a travelogue for Sky “and if anyone can do it, it’s Frank Sk– … it’s me”. There is also a Birmingham on the moon (a remnant of an impact crater – save your jokes, please, that’s Joe’s department) and one in Belgium. But “we don’t have a lunar budget and I’m not going to Belgium,” says Lycett, so off he sets round the US in a tour bus suitably decked out in Cat Deeley and Alison Hammond scatter cushions. They both hail from Birmingham in the UK. This is not difficult, people. Do try to keep up.
Joe has a sheaf of “friendship agreements” for the Birmingham mayors to sign – including a promise to stand together in Nato’s stead should it fall – a pen once used by the Queen Mother with which to do so, a collection of commemorative plaques and some Birmingham-centred presents to give to the people he meets along the way. There is Cadbury’s chocolate, of course, originally manufactured by one of the Quaker families whose histories are centred round the city; Bird’s custard (“sugar and asbestos”) invented by Brummie chemist Alfred Bird in 1837; HP Sauce (born of Nottingham but made famous under the aegis of the Midland Vinegar Company); and some of the 723 novels by “the David Walliams of her day”, Dame Barbara Cartland, originally of Edgbaston. Not all of these facts are in the programme, by the way. Joe’s enthusiastic spirit and evident love for his home town inspired me to go digging. He has that effect on you. And indeed on his driver, the North Carolinian Randy who, once he has figured out what little there is to figure out – and, indeed, that there is that little to figure out – relaxes and gets into the swing of things and functions as the perfect foil for his passenger.
