Wake Up Little Suzie

Did I tell you we saw "The King's Speech" the other week? Wednesday afternoons Orange offer 2 tickets for the price of one. Well we pensioners (missus excluded) have to do something to keep down the cost of living.

Walthamstow does not have a cinema. In the dim, distant past it had them coming out of its ears. The last one closed 7 years ago - it's now threatened with being converted into a church. I find it strange that God's more of a theatre draw than Leonardi DiCaprio. Anyway, we had to go out of our comfort zone to see the pic.

To Picketts Lock...in Edmonton. The lock itself is part of the Lee Navigation Canal, but you won't find it anywhere near Picketts Lock which is a god forsaken dump with a multiplex cinema with as much atmosphere as the moon and a few derelict buildings which were once eateries until the clientèle died of fat overload.


The cinema foyer was empty except for the hot dog, doughnut, pop corn and ice cream franchises staffed by rejects from "Britain's Got Talent". We bought our cinema tickets from Ben and Jerry's, but not the ice cream which I priced at more per ounce than the going rate of gold.


For those of us brought up with cinema going in the 50's, 60's and 70's, today's cinema experience is a great disappointment. Then you sat in huge auditoriums, with a two reeler and the main film. Ice cream girls and "God Save the Queen" which we all stood for: except the Teds and Mods and their girlfriends, locked in carnal contortions in the back row where even the usherettes' torch don't dear to shine.


I still remember the whole of the Odeon, Leicester Square's 3000 punters cheering as one as Luke Skywalker bashed the baddie. And the collective shock as the alien ripped out of John Hurt's stomach in "Alien".


At Pickett's Lock's "Fanatical About Films"  Odeon , the "sitting room" auditorium was full to emptying with people like us. Even though it was a small space there was acres between the punters - so few was the number. So it was really annoying when a couple sat directly in front of us!


But once the auditorium darkened, after totally inappropriate ads about sex, sun and sangria, we settled back to a treat.


Isn't he lovely that Colin Firth; so well mannered and English. However, I thought Geoffrey Rush acted the socks off him. Helen Bonham Carter wasn't acting - she was visiting the relatives such is her pedigree. Nevertheless I thought she was great; as she was in Harry Potter; but a different sort of role.


I even watched the BAFTA's - doesn't Jonathan Ross look more and more like Cardinal Richelieu, with his beard and locks. I enjoyed it but hated those bloody shots of the stars in the  audience. If the event's so boring you have to distract us with "Spot the ever so slightly famous" why bother broadcasting the thing at all.


So there you have it. Not actually Mark Kermode but I learnt my art watching "The Dam Busters" and the "Cisco Kid" at the ABC Portland Road, Hove; with the rudiments of sex thrown in.