Robert McNeil : Right, usherettes, phasers on stun and let's silence the neds

Published on Monday 18 May 2009 19:35

I'VE SEEN the new Star Trek film. Eyes agog, you holler: "I thought you never left the house!" Wrong. I'm often outside, sometimes venturing as far as the back garden, there to feed Spot the blackbird and his new offspring with pre-chewed peanuts.

It was my second visit to the cinema recently, having sallied forth to see State of Play, about a print journalist and a blogger, something in which I might be expected to take an interest. I thought the depiction of the inkie hack OK – apart from writing his own headlines – while the vicious, semi-literate self-righteousness of the online community (heroically anonymous commenters more than bloggers, admittedly) was not captured so well.

As for ST, as no one calls it, I wouldn't describe myself as a proper Trekkie. I've two old videos, but no DVDs. I've watched the first series often but very little of what came after. Captain Kirk's idea of saving universes by punching bad guys in the tentacles remains more satisfying than the quasi-intellectual chess that followed.

I think I enjoyed the film. For reasons that will become cloudily clear below, I cannot be sure. The special effects were arguably more impressive than those in the original series (during which the man who made the "shhht" noise for the sliding doors contracted laryngitis).

But I have not come here hotfoot today to address you on the subject of Star Trek as such. My remarks instead will focus on the continuing problem of neds, louts and ignoramuses ruining the cinematic experience for decent, bearded citizens.

It's always me. If you took an aerial picture of a busy road in Britainshire, you'd see every car keeping a reasonable distance from the one in front, except one hanging on the rear bumper of some poor sod in a Focus. Well, that PS in an F would be me. Similarly, take a packed picture house and observe capering neds spoiling the experience for one hapless citizen in a beard. Ladies and gentlemen, that HC in a B would be me.

Previously, I've related how, at a Lord of the Rings film, I suffered hooligans in my row tittering at Treebeard the Ent. On another occasion – a biographical film about JM Barrie, for God's sake – neds sat behind me in an otherwise empty cinema and talked through the whole thing. On confronting their leader, the situation degenerated into childish name-calling: "Beardie!! "Oaf!" "Beardie!" "Ned!" "Er, beardie!" "Beardless hobbledehoy!"

If it isn't that, it's bovine teenagers causing visual distraction with the lights of their portable telephones as they text their best friend, Asda-Chantelle, with important information about their plooks. But this occasion didn't involve teenagers. It involved a 30-something couple, he bald or shaven-headed, tall, skinny and hunched at the shoulders, she squat and boasting a brain the size of a bogie in the beak of an ant which had stunted its growth by smoking from an early age. They'd assumed pole-position in the middle of the back row with uninterrupted views down the centre-aisle. I, too, opted for the back row, something I've always done after being struck with an object bunged at the back of my heid at a cinema in Norwich.

This bizarrely unselfconscious pair spoke in loud Home Counties accents all through the film. And no-one did anything. There were other people closer than I, but nobody took action. Your hero wasn't about to. I have, officially, given up intervening. Instead, I took myself into the Zen state of mushin, or no-mind, and thus was able to ignore them. Unfortunately, I also missed large swathes of the movie.

The point is: why are there no stewards or ushers now, like there were in the good old days? Bloody Thatcher. It's all about saving money. Having said which, everywhere else you go now, from flower shows to festivals, you can hardly move for fat, bald security guards waddling aboot in bright yellow habiliments.

Today, decent citizens at the cinema are presented with dilemmas about intervention, risking violence and the possibility of morally inverted liberals siding with the miscreants. But we must do something! Please, please, speak out, you self-privatised clots! I'll be right behind you.

He moves in mysterious ways…

WHAT now? Only this: former US defence secretary Donald O'Rumsfeld used biblical imagery – "Lo, we have smote them on the heid, Mr President" – in reports on the Iraq war to George Bush.

One message showed a tank with a quote from O'Phesians: "Therefore put on the full armour of God – ken? – so that when the evil day comes, you may be able to stand your ground and, after you have done everything, stand."

Apart from all the standing, this is inspirational. Another message showed an image of that Saddam under a quote from the First Epistle of Kylie: "Yea, it is God's will – ken? – that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men."

All this was calculated to honk the president's horn. Many experts have described George as thick. But this is not incorrect. Indeed, when he ordered the 2003 invasion, evidence shows he was on a mission from God. The sinister thing is that O'Rumsfeld wasn't particularly religious and may have been manipulating the poor boobie. Now, top complainers are describing Donald as a latter-day Rasputin, without the hair gel and agonising haemorrhoids, which later killed the Russian mystic and much admired banjo-player.

Incidentally, according to reports, these revelations were leaked to GQ magazine. Eh? Isn't that one of those organs that bang on about better abs and how to seduce a woman in just 30 years? Whatever happened to tipping off the Washington Post?