Gollum

Lord of the Rings III

The missus and I optimistically trundled off yesterday evening to see Part III of the Lord of the Rings at the late-night showing of what is euphemistically called 'a cinema' round here. 

(The screen of our neighbour's TV is about twice the size!)

Anyway.

In order to prevent the possibility of the whole performance being ruined by any of the currently mandatory gruesome domestic violence adverts which normally precede all films shown in the UK, the missus decided that it was in her best interests to ensure that I never got to see them - lest I spend the next four hours shuffling aggressively in my seat and moaning about them, thus ruining the film.

And so she timed our most grand entrance into 'the cinema' to occur well after the adverts had finished being displayed.

It was a good tactic.

And it worked!

Regretfully, however, about three-quarters of the way through the film - in fact, just as the King of Wherever was about to be slain by the Evil What's His Name who was flying around on the Whatever It Was With Big Teeth - my bladder could hold out no longer.

Four earlier cups of tea had colluded together in secret and decided that enough was enough. And they insisted most persuasively that it was time for them to move on.

"Time to roll," they said.

And so I tripped my way through a veritable forest of feet, irritating about 20 people in the process of doing so, and then stumbled haplessly in the dark up the so-called 'aisle' to the Gentleman's Room.

And it was very plush!

But there, on every wall, as I emptied myself peacefully, graphic posters were howling at me from every angle.

They were the only posters in the place.

And they were all to do with domestic violence against women.

You know, the usual stuff.

Every week in the UK, 70,000 women are hacked mercilessly to death by wicked men.

420,000 women were grievously molested or raped by their male office colleagues while you were happily carving the turkey on Christmas Day.

Nine million helpless women were brutally assaulted every single day last week in Macclesfield during the lunch hour, not only by close male relatives, but also by passing strangers. 

Some of them were even assaulted by police officers, school children and invalids in wheelchairs.

"Did you know that 50 million women in London are abused relentlessly every day in one way or another from dusk until dawn?" one poster asked me.

Well, I certainly didn't know that.

Something to think about.

And so when I finally returned to my seat, I looked dolefully at the missus as she polished off the last remaining crumbs of my popcorn.

The King of Wherever was already dead. The battle was over. And, according to the missus, the best part of the film had come and gone during my absence. 

And so with uncharacteristic vigour and enthusiasm, I whacked her about the head a few times with my left shoe before sending her off to buy me some chocolate with which to comfort myself.