The Cinema.

What's happened to cinema etiquette?

I was stupidly under the impression that you go the cinema to watch a film. Apparently, that's not the case. 

I thought it'd be a nice idea for me and my parents to go to the cinema. I was very, very wrong.

Cinema owners are clearly not very business-minded. More and more people are watching pirated DVDs and illegally downloading films on the internet. You'd think that the people who run/own the cinemas would come up with some clever way to entice more people to want to go to the cinema. Raising your prices and lowering the standard of service is not what I'd call enticing. Might want to work on that one guys.

Now, not only do you have to pay an extortionate amount of money to actually see a film, you then get to share the cinema with some absolute cretins. There are the following types of people who should just NOT be allowed to go to the cinema:

• The coughers/sniffers/sneezers - these are the people who are always, always sat right behind you. Not only do they sneeze with such force that you can feel your hair move, they don't even bother covering their mouths. Delightful. Or better yet, they have a phlegmy cough, or as I like to call it, 'the old man cough', where they literally sound like they're coughing their guts up. You're clearly ill. Go to bed. Don't come to a public place where the same air is circulated in the same room for a number of hours. 
• The flirters - these people think it's a really good idea to go on a date. To the cinema. The one place where it's not socially acceptable to talk. Bad move. Not only this, but they also seem to think it's alright to show massive amounts of PDA. It's not alright.
• The young'uns -  here we come to the spritely, young children who are taking a break from misbehaving 'in the streets' and doing something a bit less 'yobbo-like'. I'd rather they just stay on the streets and misbehave to their hearts content, that way they can't disturb my cinema viewing by running up and down stairs and throwing popcorn at each other.
• The talkers - in my opinion, these are the worst sort of cinema-goers. YOU DON'T GO TO THE CINEMA TO HAVE A CHAT. The thing is, they don't even try and whisper, oh no, they carry on with their conversation at normal volume. The mind boggles.
• The stinkers - I really feel for anyone who's come across a stinker. This person will sit down next to/near you and absolutely reek. Suddenly, it dawns on you; there are no other seats, you have to stay there and breathe in that smell for the WHOLE FILM. You can't get away from it. The film's ruined.
• The kickers - you get these delights on airplanes too. They should have their legs cut-off. Now I'm not a very big person, therefore, when some eejit kicks my chair, the chair and I tend to move. Why do people, I say people, it's generally children (another sweeping statement, I'm full of them today), think it's acceptable to kick the back of a complete strangers chair? Repetitively. How would they like it if I started kicking them in the back? Repetitively. 

If you recognise any of these characteristics in yourself, please, do us all a favour: don't go to the cinema. Just stay at home. Wait until it comes out on DVD. Don't ruin the experience for everyone else just because you have awful cinema-etiquette, either that, or stop being a massive tool and learn how to behave at the cinema. Simple really.

As you can probably tell, I encountered all of the above at my recent trip to the cinema. However, I did a very un-British thing. I said something. That's right; I spoke up.

The adverts were on, there was a couple behind my parents who were flirting away to their hearts content; measuring the size of their hands, snuggling up to each other and generally talking shit. Not only this, but they'd brought along their single, male friend. Poor, poor guy. My heart went out to him. How he wasn't dying inside, I don't know. 

Anyway, they were flirting away, quite loudly. I could tell my parents were getting more and more worked up. But, it was only the adverts, you can't really complain; the film hadn't even started - unfortunately, they were entitled to act like love-sick puppies.

But then the film started; a couple of minutes in and I could feel the anger radiating from my parents. They're like me: we don't stand for any of this chatting/coughing/flirting nonsense - we watch the film, we may make the odd comment (whispering it, obviously) but we don't disturb anyone else, we keep ourselves to ourselves and expect everyone else to do the same. And being very British, the idea of complaining is alien to them.

So I did it. I took it upon myself to man up. I turned around. I told them to shut the hell up. Well, not quite; I very politely asked them to keep it down. After all, I am a Brit.

The effect was immense.They shrank away from each other, heads down, eyes to the floor and nodded. I felt invincible. If that's what it feels like to be a teacher, I'm there. It made my cinema experience that little bit more awesome. I could feel the gratitude, not just from my parents and their gooseberry friend, but all the other cinema-goers in the nearby vicinity. You're welcome. 

The actual film was good (Taken 2, if you're interested), obviously not as good as the first, but still enjoyable. However, I learnt, as I do every time I go to the cinema, unless it's pretty much empty - and even then you'll get someone who sits next to you, what's that about? - I will not enjoy it. I'll be too busy waiting for someone near me to reveal their awful cinema etiquette.