The name’s Ache... Back Ache.

My nemesis...

I went to see the latest Bond Movie last week – in our local village hall. By the time it was over, my back was definitely breakin’, not stirred.

So, Community Cinema is a thing. If, like me, you’d never heard of it before, it’s a rather clever scheme whereby you get to watch some movies that have just stopped showing at your nearest mega-screen cinema complex, but at a sensible price, and in your local village hall (other local indoor meeting establishments are available).

Additional benefits include not foolishly convincing yourself you can drink an entire litre of cola just before the film, no requirement to consume a container-full of popcorn so large it actually does come in a bucket, and, in our case at least, an interval that included a raffle.

Surprisingly, it had taken us 9 years of residence before we decided to dip our toes into the wonder of very local cinema and catch the latest Bond Blockbuster, SPECTRE, having singularly failed to sort out doing so in the considerable period of time it was readily available to view at assorted, large, cinematic emporiums across South Cumbria.

Ominously, the publicity suggested bringing a cushion, but I assumed this was probably for hiding behind when the film got particularly tense. It is a 12 Certificate, after all, and at my age it’s not good to be suddenly startled.

Having slithered our way through the snow last weekend, we ended our treacherous on-foot journey a whole five minutes after starting it and were greeted, in the mighty space that is the local Educational Institute’s biggest room, by a end-wall-filling screen, and the sort of data projector that could turn the standard dull Powerpoint presentation into a lethal assault on the senses.

All well and good, and the speakers looked pretty beefy too, but there was one small, hard, problem – the seating. If you can picture those dreadful, folding, plastic and metal chairs from school in the 1970s, then you’re pretty much there – except these seemed to have been specially modified by sadists to be extra uncomfortable.

As 007 pursued his latest, even badder than the baddest of bad guys across the world, (carelessly parking his Aston Martin in a river, which I’m still finding somewhat tricky to forgive), my discomfort grew. Even Mrs G’s generous loan of her cushion couldn’t alter the fact that the biggest trail of destruction occurring was to my spine, and not whatever James was blowing up, shooting, or attempting to get into bed with, on screen.

The interval raffle provided brief relief (if no bottle of wine or body lotion gift set), but by the time Bond was enduring a particularly unpleasant torture scene, I was pretty sure that his on-screen pain level and my seat-induced back-attack were probably pretty even on the hurty front.

So, to summarise: Community cinema is great, the Bond movie was good, but I think I’ll need to upgrade my seat next time.

The name’s Chair. Arm Chair.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 22nd of January 2016. The paper retitled it as "Spectre of back pain hit hard".

It hasn't appeared on their website so far, but if you want to keep an eye out for it, head here. Interestingly, the Opinion section on the site has now started including items with categories of Our View, Letter, and Debate, so it's notably busier than before.

In a further interesting development, having finally obtained a couple of back issues of the print version of the paper, it seems last week's "Schaf Shuffle" wound up with three titles: My original, the one used online (and covered here), and a print version with "Weatherman's intriguing style".

My usual pedantic nature shone through whilst watching Bond, with a rising need to question why he cold have a massive train-destroying scrap with a bad guy, but in a series of carriages apparently bereft of any other passengers, then get beaten unconscious, only to be well enough to bed the Bond girl five minutes later. Still, he is James Bond, so just about anything is possible, right? Licence to suspend disbelief...

(CD A-Z tonight: The mighty ELO! It's time to Face The Music...)

The Schaf Shuffle

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Making an exhibition of yourself

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RIP Jenwis Hamilbutton

We are gathered here in this... (looks round a bit) um... blog, to mourn the passing of Jenwis Hamilbutton. His life may have been short and largely irrelevant, but he touched the lives of so many people that... sorry? Oh. Apparently that was someone else... Jenwis Hamilbutton rose briefly to fame on twitter during 2010, when he was retweeted by BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey, having criticised his shirt. A similarly unspectacular claim to fame occurred when a tweet he crafted at 1am on a windy night appeared in F1 Racing magazine. An amalgam of bits of Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button (mostly the hopeless bits), he came into existence via 3 pints of cider, a Creme Egg and the Electric Light Orchestra’s mournful 1986 farewell album “Balance Of Power”, played loudly over headphones. In his short existence, he was followed on twitter by Paul Hardcastle of “19” fame, and a bunch of slightly odd but jolly nice people, whom he was never entirely sure actually exist

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