Cinema Etiquette 1# - Mobile Telephones

Nothing is happening in your life that is so important that it cannot wait for the two hours that most films run.

Nothing.

Trust me.

None of your friends are so witty, urbane and dazzling that their text message cannot be left unread.

Nobody that you know is going to do anything life changing in the time that it takes for you to take your seat, watch the movie and then leave the auditorium.

I promise you.

Your life is NOT that interesting and you are NOT that important.

I know because I'm just like you.

Except I'm not because I don't feel the desperate need to be in contact with the dullards who pass as my friends 24 hours a day. That's why I go to the cinema...to escape the monotony of my life and my friends.

You may well be there to kill some time or to be entertained (that's me sometimes) but to sit in front of me and shine a light in my face while I am watching a film that has cost me the best part of ten pounds to see seems, to me, to be a little bit off.

No?

You don't agree?

You can't see how utterly vile that is?

Hmmmm.

Don't go thinking that this is the preserve of teenage girls or "chavs" either...for the most part it's not. Nor is it only behaviour to be found in the multiplexes. Last night while watching "Run Lola Run" at the Filmhouse the person behind me had their telephone on "vibrate" which meant that when her friend sent her a text I could hear it arriving...that's intrusion enough to be honest but then to have to endure her taking the 'phone out of her bag and then typing out a reply was enough to see me getting very close to causing a scene.

Switch your 'phone OFF.

Don't put it on silent.

Switch the damned thing off.

I promise you that nothing so important is going to happen that cannot wait until the film ends.

If something that important were to happen...you shouldn't be in the cinema, you would have an idea that whatever it was was looming.

It's impossible to ignore the bright lights of the screens flashing on and off around the room. My eyes are drawn to them and that means I'm not watching the thing I've paid to see but am instead looking at you behaving like a massive pillock.

There.

I've said it.

People who keep their 'phones switched on and check them during a film are the worst sort of people.

Arseholes.

You are selfish, bad mannered, boors.

On more than one occasion I've challenged people in the cinema...and on each occasion you get the same response; what's the problem?

The problem is, you dick, that I don't want to keep having a bright line shone in my face while I am watching a film.

If you want to text your friends (who presumably know you are in the cinema which makes them dicks for texting you in the first place) then go out and text them...don't come to the cinema to do it!

In short, if you are the sort of person who keeps their mobile 'phone on while in the cinema and who uses it during the film then I hate you.

That's right.

I hate you.

You are the worst sort of person.

I hope you lose the use of your hands and go deaf...how much use will your mobile telephone be then?

None.

Which is good because then I won't have to endure your rude behavior any further.

If you agree with me then respond below...I expect to read no dissent.