Post by Chips on Jun 4, 2008 10:11:15 GMT 9.5
An age-old problem of hypocrisy
Stuart Allen
June 4, 2008
HECKLER
I WENT to see The Painted Veil with two 30-something friends at Roseville Cinema recently. We were the youngest people there by a margin of about 40 years.
Senior citizens are forever going on about youngsters wrecking their night at the movies. I've read many letters to the editor about young people using their mobile phones during the film, throwing things at the screen, making noise.
Well, old people know how to ruin one's cinema experience as well as anybody.
Even before I went inside, it began. I was waiting patiently in the "candy bar" queue when a demented old biddy breezed by on the inside clutching her thrippence-ha'penny, heading for the counter. She demanded immediate attention, wondering aloud why she could no longer purchase aniseed balls for tuppence a hundredweight, as she did the last time she went to the movies in 1936.
The theatre itself was quite full. We were an island of youth floating in a sea of senility. As the pre-movie ads rolled, I ate my choc-top with a growing sense of unease. More old people were filing into the theatre. Their wheezy murmurings were starting to get under my skin.
As the lights dimmed the volume of elderly chit-chat didn't drop. The movie was rolling, the story was beginning, and these old gits were still gabbing on about the prunes they had eaten or Mabel's hysterectomy. I couldn't concentrate on the film I had paid good money to see.
During the film the elderly misbehaviour continued. One guy in the audience would guffaw at the most inappropriate moments. When Edward Norton's character said to his wife, in all seriousness, "Sit down, or I shall strangle you", this guy laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.
The old girl behind us specialised in the running commentary. When Naomi Watts suddenly threw up - clearly from morning sickness - she leaned to her husband and said: "She's pregnant." When Norton was on the verge of death from cholera, struggling to say his last words to his wife, she insightfully explained: "He's dying."
This is not an isolated incident. Every day in shopping centres, car parks, buses and trains, young people are harassed and intimidated by gangs of lawless octogenarians.
Were old people always this annoying? Not in my day.
LOL... It's called 'payback' Stuart.
Stuart Allen
June 4, 2008
HECKLER
I WENT to see The Painted Veil with two 30-something friends at Roseville Cinema recently. We were the youngest people there by a margin of about 40 years.
Senior citizens are forever going on about youngsters wrecking their night at the movies. I've read many letters to the editor about young people using their mobile phones during the film, throwing things at the screen, making noise.
Well, old people know how to ruin one's cinema experience as well as anybody.
Even before I went inside, it began. I was waiting patiently in the "candy bar" queue when a demented old biddy breezed by on the inside clutching her thrippence-ha'penny, heading for the counter. She demanded immediate attention, wondering aloud why she could no longer purchase aniseed balls for tuppence a hundredweight, as she did the last time she went to the movies in 1936.
The theatre itself was quite full. We were an island of youth floating in a sea of senility. As the pre-movie ads rolled, I ate my choc-top with a growing sense of unease. More old people were filing into the theatre. Their wheezy murmurings were starting to get under my skin.
As the lights dimmed the volume of elderly chit-chat didn't drop. The movie was rolling, the story was beginning, and these old gits were still gabbing on about the prunes they had eaten or Mabel's hysterectomy. I couldn't concentrate on the film I had paid good money to see.
During the film the elderly misbehaviour continued. One guy in the audience would guffaw at the most inappropriate moments. When Edward Norton's character said to his wife, in all seriousness, "Sit down, or I shall strangle you", this guy laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.
The old girl behind us specialised in the running commentary. When Naomi Watts suddenly threw up - clearly from morning sickness - she leaned to her husband and said: "She's pregnant." When Norton was on the verge of death from cholera, struggling to say his last words to his wife, she insightfully explained: "He's dying."
This is not an isolated incident. Every day in shopping centres, car parks, buses and trains, young people are harassed and intimidated by gangs of lawless octogenarians.
Were old people always this annoying? Not in my day.
LOL... It's called 'payback' Stuart.