Happy? We're practically in tears. This has been a rough year for Los Angeles, what with the writers' strike, the cancelled Oscars parties, the threatened actors' strike, the housing crash, the drought, the fires, and the LA Lakers losing 4-2 to the Boston Celtics - so we're due some good news.

And here it is: the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, has destroyed all box-office records, taking $155.3 million in its opening weekend. I tried to go to a 3am showing, but it was sold out and there were people queueing around the block.

It might be 1929 - when the “talkies” were the very latest in entertainment. Of course, Hollywood's Golden Age came about largely because Americans needed a distraction from the nonstop economic horror. It's the same today - and has been in five of the past seven recessions, when box-office revenues soared. But there's a flip side. The movie business in LA is 102 years old. That's quite an achievement, but isn't California supposed, periodically, to revolutionise entertainment with new and technologically superior products? Shouldn't we have “feelies” by now? Shouldn't going to the movies involve a brain implant and an isolation tank?

Ten years ago, Americans used practically to choke up when talking about the innovations going on in California. They'd compare it to “Florence during the Renaissance”. These days, it's more like Transylvania in the Dark Ages. Last week's E3 video games conference - once a riot of surround-sound explosions, “booth babes” and spec-sheet chatter - was smaller and less exciting than the decorative homeware accessories conference next door. As for Google, if the current antitrust hearings are anything to go by, it's becoming Microsoft 2.0. And as much as I love my iPhone, Apple is destroying its mystique with bundled family rollover talk plans and international data roaming minutes. So yes, we're all very happy about Batman. But come on, California - let's have something new; something that lets us forget the recession while helping us to get out of it.

Heath Ledger tipped for Oscar

Black carpet rolled out and talk of a posthumous Oscar at the unveiling of Heath Ledger film The Dark Knight

• The Dark Knight: the first review

• Heath Ledger: The Times obituary

• Heath Ledger died from accidental overdose of prescription drugs, autopsy concludes

Related Internet Links

• Dark Knight trailer

• Dark Knight featurette

• Sky News special report

Background

• Final farewell to Heath Ledger

• Batman Begins

• Who is the best big-screen comic book hero?

Related Internet Links

• 10 things that make Dark Knight the best Batman ever

• Interview: Batman's Special Effects wizard

• Batman Begins: Blu-ray competition

Times Archive, 1966: In defence of Batman

Not a word of complaint was received from the police

• Batman sticks to letter of the law

• Batman's £3m. U.S. success, 1966

Grave offence

Speaking of recession-proof businesses, I made a grim trek to a pawnbrokers' in Beverly Hills (for a story, rather than to pawn my Times laptop). Unsurprisingly, the manager was very chipper. He told me that the latest trend is that Americans with gold teeth are literally ripping them out of their mouths and using them as collateral for loans. After all, the value of gold has been rising while practically everything else has been imploding. Alas, some are taking it too far. Gravediggers are digging up grandma, pulling out her 24-carat dentures, and finding pawnbrokers who don't ask questions about the nasty smell. Such enterprise has its risks, as Joseph Vecchiarelli, a 28-year-old from Connecticut, discovered. He's spending the next eight years in prison for various grave-robbing offences. At least he'll be out for the next recession.

In bond-age

I realised that financial affairs in the Ayres family had become a bit desperate when I spent a recent trip to my parents' house in Northumberland rooting around in the attic looking for the solitary Premium Bond bought for me as a Christening present. The bond, value £1, was purchased in 1975. Surely it must have won something by now? I wrote to National Savings and Investments, asking it kindly to notify me of any multimillion-pound winnings at my LA address.

Within a fortnight a bulky envelope bearing the NS&I logo arrived. Sweating with excitement, I wrestled it open, only to read: “The US Postal Department has told us it is an offence against their Lottery Laws to use the mail service for Premium Bond correspondence... they have asked us not to break these laws. In the circumstances I must ask you to have the bond(s) repaid.”

But if I write back, won't I be breaking the lottery laws myself? Perhaps I'll suffer the same fate as those British poker entrepreneurs who pass through US airports and find themselves rerouted to Guantanamo Bay. Something else to consider - a Premium Bond is supposed to be an investment. Yet my return over 33 years has been 0 per cent - I would have been better off with Northern Rock shares.

Bear and grin

In case all this talk of recession is getting you down, I bring you news of a wee bear cub - he weighs only 6st - who somehow escaped the apocalyptic wildfires raging up in Northern California. When a firefighter found him, the cub's fur was singed, his paws burnt, and he was crying for his mother. He has since been hooked up to an IV, his paws and eye dressed. Soon he will be taught to fish and sniff for honey, before being released back into the wild. His name? “Lil' Smokey”.

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