Tag: Britain

Saturday Night at the Movies

First Published: 8 February, 2005

We went to see a movie last Saturday night. For those of you with active social lives, this probably doesn’t sound like such a big deal but for us, living over 30 miles from the nearest cinema, it was a special event. It’s not often I have much good to say about our time living in Phoenix, but as a film fan I did enjoy having several theatres all within a few minutes’ drive of our house. Nowadays, it must be a film we particularly want to see on the big screen before we can be bothered to traipse all the way down the hill.

I probably wouldn’t make a good movie critic for the simple fact that I enjoy almost every film I see in a theatre. The big screen, the quality sound system, the atmosphere, I love it. It’s only years later when I see the film for a second time on television that I realize how bad it actually was. As yet, I haven’t been able to persuade the bank manager to let me buy a big screen TV and while our little Sony has seen good service, as it approaches the end of its second decade, it’s not exactly state of the art. So, when I do get the chance to enjoy a new release in the format for which it was intended, it’s something of a treat.

Except when, as in this case, I get stuck behind a talker. The elderly lady a couple of rows in front was of the type who felt the need to give a running commentary on the action taking place on the screen. Admiration for the lead actor’s physique, gasps of horror when something unpleasant happened, admonitions when he did something immoral, sniffles during the sad moments, we got them all. I’m not usually shy about correcting inconsiderate behaviour from other movie-goers, but I suspect this old girl was simply oblivious to the irritation she was causing. I seemed to be the only person who was really bothered so I just let her ramble.

After all, it’s not like I’ve never been an inconsiderate movie-goer myself.

The Kendal Palladium, where I was first introduced to the magical world of celluloid, will never be remembered as one of the world’s great movie palaces. Located in a small northern England town and familiarly known as “The Pictures” it was an enormous barn of a place with a sweeping curved staircase leading to the upper tier, but even in the late sixties it was obviously well past its prime. The paint hung from the walls in long, ragged strips, the carpet was more bare than thread and the framed photos of yesteryear’s stars were faded to the point of being largely unrecognizable. (Even assuming these people had been recognizable in the first place.)

In those days, a trip to the pictures meant seeing two films, the first being an insight into the whale fishermen of the South Atlantic, or the reproductive life of the fruit fly, or something equally enthralling before the main feature finally arrived. Being prior to the age of video, movies used to circulate around the country’s theatres for years after their releases, so it was common to see the same film repeatedly. I saw “The Magnificent Seven” at least five or six times before I was mature enough to follow the plot. Not that we really cared. The film itself was secondary to the experience of sitting in the dark of this vast, cavernous hall, in seats of red plush pseudo-velvet and, safe from the prying eyes of parents and teachers, behaving like the little animals we were.

I’m not talking about picking fights or slashing seats or anything; the wild and crazy days of “Rock Around the Clock” and “The Blackboard Jungle” were well before my time. No, just the simple pleasures of shouting advice to the actors, chasing one another along the aisles, flinging candy and popcorn at the kids in front and for the truly daring, sneaking a furtive smoke. I was a candy flinger myself and over the years became something of an artist.

I was partial to jelly babies (something similar to Gummy Bears) which were just the right weight and size to cover the required distance while retaining enough velocity to make their presence felt upon contact. Smarties (kind of like M&Ms) when fired from the little wooden spoon that came with the tiny tubs of ice cream on sale in the foyer, also made excellent trajectories. However, my personal favourites were Maltesers, which were a confection rather like Malted Milk Balls. Those held an aero-dynamic quality which in the hands of an experienced marksman like myself; meant a bull’s eye almost every time.

Sometimes somebody would have a birthday, which meant that not only would their parents shell out for the admission fee, they might, on very rare occasions, divvy up enough for us to visit the promised land, the hallowed ground, the ultimate in movie going experience…the balcony! Fifteen rows of seats in a curving upper deck, the balcony afforded not only a better view of the screen (no cricked necks from up here) but also allowed the candy flingers among us to inflict hours of torment on the poor souls in the cheap seats with virtually no fear of retaliation. Heaven indeed.

Sadly, like so many other movie theatres in the mid-seventies, Kendal’s Palladium degenerated into a porn palace. Despite being carved up into two theatres, it was usual for both of them to be showing some soft core classic. Too old for the children’s’ matinees, too young for X rated features, my theatre going career went on hiatus. Like many others I embraced the video revolution, but unlike most, was more than a little sad when The Palladium finally closed its doors for good and ultimately, succumbed to the developer’s wrecking ball. There’s an apartment building there today.

Most of the movie watching world has upgraded to DVDs by now; I’m one of the few still using a VCR. People tell me Netflix, the online DVD rental service is the way to go and at some point, I’ll probably sign up. If we had a better quality TV I’m sure it would improve my movie watching experience but even with all today’s technology at my disposal, it will still never be quite the same as sitting in Kendal pictures, with my feet on the seat, talking back at the screen and flinging Maltesers at the folks in front.

Happy days.

The Beautiful Game (or not)

First published: 2 November, 2004

Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning. As in, the pubs aren’t even open early Sunday morning. And oh, what I wouldn’t give to be snug in a cosy bar right about now, with a silky smooth pint or six of ale to soothe my wicked hangover. Instead, I’m standing up to my ankles in mud, wearing shorts which display my white, spindly legs in all their goose bumped glory, hugging my hands under my arms as protection against the icy wind and wondering, as I do at this time every Sunday morning, just why in the hell I play football.

As a footnote to American readers, I’m talking about real football here. The kind you play with your feet. No pads, no helmets, no taking a break every 4 seconds. Real football – nothing but you and twenty-one other lost souls on a windswept, waterlogged field chasing a ball the weight of a small car and ninety more minutes before you can slope off, put on some dry clothes and drink lunch in the comfort of a welcoming nearby hostelry.

The professionals of course have hot baths, and masseurs with warming lotions and Super Model girlfriends waiting for them when they retire from the pitch, but for we happy few, we band of brothers playing in Britain’s Sunday Leagues, football is played the hard way, in city parks and country fields, where the groundskeepers often have four legs, and supply us with milk. Out there, braving the elements week after week, dressed in ridiculously inadequate clothing and wondering if this will be the week when you finally succumb to hypothermia. Real football.

To begin with, there are only two types of amateur football pitch. The one where you toss up to see who gets to defend the shallow end and type where you need ropes and crampons to get from one side to the other. Few are entirely covered in grass. Most pay more than a passing resemblance to ploughed fields. Sometimes the pitch markings are discernible; sometimes the goals have real nets. Very occasionally there’s a referee although the accepted protocol is that in the absence of an official league representative, any disputes will be settled by the spectator. He will be a middle aged man with a black and white dog.

The players on each team may have some tenuous link to one another. Perhaps they all work at the same firm, or are regulars at the same pub. Often they’re simply a group of friends who may or may not see each other away from the football field. Rarely however, does an entire team share the attribute of talent. Oh there’s usually one or two skilful players on each side; the ones who score the goals, know the rules and spend most of the game racing from one end of the pitch to the other, doing all the work while rudely bemoaning the lack of enthusiasm among their team mates. But for the most part, Sunday League players are more like me. Guys who aren’t exactly sure what they’re doing there and are fervently wishing they weren’t.

Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s fair to say that the majority of the players are actually putting some effort into the game and genuinely care whether or not they’re on the winning side. Me, I recognised quite early on in my career that the selectors for the international squads were never going to come a-knocking on <i>my</i> door and if I could get through each game without my team mates attempting to kill me, I was quite content.

Possibly this was the reason I drifted towards the goal keeper’s position (it certainly wasn’t from any aptitude for the role). Rather than spending my morning racing frantically and hopelessly after the ball, I was able to contemplate the higher aspects of life. Just how much did I have to drink last night? How did I manage to spend that much money? What <i>was</i> that girl’s name and how big a fool did I make of myself? While my teammates huffed and puffed around the field, trying not to be sick, I was content to lean against a goal post with my arms folded, stirring every once in a while to flail hopelessly at the ball as it whizzed past my head. Picking it out of the net every few minutes was plenty exercise for me, thank you very much.

Some days, I didn’t even have to do that very often. If we happened to be playing a team even more inept than us, there were games when I’d hardly let in a single goal. Of course, having made my goalkeeping debut in a game where we lost 26-0, pretty much any occasion where I kept the score against to single figures, was something of a moral victory on my part.

There were times, on particularly frigid days; when bending to pick the ball out of the net wasn’t really enough to keep the blood circulating and a little more action would have been welcome. Looking back, it’s a wonder I never thought to take a hip flask onto the field with me, but as this was during my time as a nicotine user, I did occasionally sneak a quiet smoke while my teammates did battle at the far end. It was this flaunting of the rules which caused me to be sent off for the one and only time in my career. I’d just lit up when against the run of play; the opposition launched an attack on my goal. They hadn’t troubled me all day and, not expecting them to make it all the way to my end, I continued my leisurely appreciation of the fine weed until they were dangerously close. Before I knew it, the goalmouth was crowded with action and it was only my lightning reflexes which allowed me to fling my still lit cigarette off to one side before someone got hurt. Sadly, this referee was less myopic than usual and saw me do it. Off I went, my replacement failed to prevent the subsequent (and completely unjustified) penalty kick and we lost by the only goal of the match.

I suppose we must have won some of the games in which I played, but I can’t say I recall any. There must have been some good memories too, but none immediately spring to mind. Just a lot of cold, wet mornings battling the elements while more intelligent folk were snug in bed nursing their hangovers

But that’s Sunday football and is why I loved it.