Children

I'm going to surprise no-one by ranting a bit here but, no, this is not a pop at children per se (no matter how irritating the ones which belong to lawless chavs seem to be). This is my observation as it revolves around the human species in general: a human baby is born and, to all intents and purposes, it is useless. Very useless. And it is useless for years.

You can pick any other creature in the animal kingdom and compare the two. There are loads of examples of animals being born, stumbling through their early minutes of life and then jumping to their feet and wandering off to look for food. This happens all in the space of about half an hour. Human baby? Not so good. It requires constant attention and doesn’t even get off its backside or bother learning how to communicate properly for years. Even when they do they’re incapable of caring or providing for themselves for many, many years after that. Granted, our civilisation’s a touch more complicated than that of a horse but it makes you wonder how children got by at the dawn of mankind.

Now, I know that many species have a much shorter life span than homo sapiens (the Mayfly is lucky to reach a day so it has to learn pretty quickly), but there are plenty of animals with a similar lifespan which don’t need their hands (paws? Hoofs?) holding for years before they get to grips with the elementary basics.

In the UK the legal age for being able to have a paper round is 12. Now I can understand that children are not necessarily equipped to deal with the dangers of odd men in raincoats with bags of gummy bears but it’s not the only reason. It seems they can’t be trusted to cross the road without decorating the front of a truck. Well, again, this proves the hopelessness of human young. No-one helps out the newborn rabbit by allowing it a couple of years to get a grip on its surroundings and suss out which animals are likely to rip its throat out. Added to which, those predators will purposely do that, whereas the tabloid-reading, arse-flashing truck driver would probably prefer you didn’t clog his wheels with bits of your intestine.

Anyway, 12 also appears to be the age at which children can be left alone in the house. There’s less chance of them being approached by Gary Glitter in your front room and, unless you’re really unlucky, they’re unlikely to be in danger from an eighteen wheeled Scania. Apparently though, if they’re any younger, they will spend their time jamming forks into electrical sockets, testing the toaster’s ability to float and creating a helter-skelter on the stairs from step ladders and garden forks. It’s hopeless. Survival of the fittest I say; leave them to it and let Darwin decide... except for my young children. They're wrapped in cotton wool and are not leaving the house until they're at least twenty.

Cinema

I love the cinema, I really do (with the possible exception of 3D). There’s nothing better than the excitement of sitting and watching a new movie you’ve been looking forward to on the big screen. Unfortunately, as a generalisation, I dislike people and I’ve yet to purchase my own private cinema. This creates a big issue for me.

When I watch a film I want to be engrossed in it. I mean completely caught up and immersed, and that involves absolute silence outside of the sound of the film itself and no distractions. If the director had wanted me to hear someone rustling popcorn, he’d have added it to the soundtrack. When I watch a new film at home the lights get turned off, the dog gets kicked out and the volume goes through the roof. There will be no external noise until the end credits. Luckily (for both of us) my wife is on-board with this. Sadly, none of the cinema going public is.

Why do people spend the money to go to the cinema only to chat through a movie? It’s a genuine question as I really can’t work it out. Go to the bloody pub; it’s a place designed especially for socialising and the money you spent on the cinema ticket will pay for your drinks! If you don’t like that idea then stay at home. You can talk as loudly as you like and it won’t cost you a penny. Idiots.

I have, in my time, asked many people in cinemas to stop talking. In fact I went through a stage where it happened more often than not. I was particularly impressed when my wife did it on three consecutive visits. I once went to see The Thin Red Line with an ex-girlfriend. Anyone who’s seen it will probably have been impressed with the choreography and beautiful sweeping shots which, for a war film, might be considered unusual. (It was nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar.) I think the pensioners in front of me thought they’d come to watch something different, but that didn’t stop them “ooohhh”ing and “ahhh”ing every five minutes. It didn’t take long for me to ask (politely) if they could refrain from talking. And they did. My girlfriend? Furious. Apparently they had paid money and should be allowed to enjoy the film however they like. If I didn’t like then I should have moved. She was obviously unaware that purchasing a ticket doesn’t give carte blanche rights to ruin everyone else’s experience. Anyway, I think she’d have changed her tune if I’d flopped my tackle out and starting rubbing myself off the next time Kate Beckinsale appeared in a film, but the principle’s the same.

When the new Star Wars film came out I heard about a guy in America who purchased all the tickets to one showing. He had the entire cinema to himself. He was ridiculed online and people were making comments about how the atmosphere is the best thing. Yes, it is, but I want the FILM's atmosphere, not a bunch of imbeciles whooping and hollering at the screen and ruining the movie's ambiance. If I'd had the cash, I'd have done exactly the same thing.

Another ex-girlfriend went with me to watch The Usual Suspects, a truly brilliant movie. I was captivated and she was bored. Not only was she bored but she didn’t have a watch. This meant she grabbed my wrist every five minutes to check the time. I still believe to this day I’d have been well within my rights to punch her in the face.

Having the back of your chair kicked constantly is never much fun and I’m sure most of you will agree with me there. I know there’s not much legroom but do you really want someone’s sized eleven, muddy, Doc Martins tapping away an inch from your shoulder? No, me neither.

Tall people can’t help being tall but that’s no excuse for an eight foot basketball player to study an empty cinema before deciding the seat he wants is right in front of me. If it happens again I might take some scissors and start cutting his hair so I can see around him. I went to a great screen, many years ago, in Slough (I knew the place must have had at least one thing going for it). It was so steeply raked that a giraffe sitting in front of a midget wouldn’t have blocked his view. Honestly though, it was so steep that after a long film I got up too quickly and nearly pitched forwards. I’d have ended up five rows closer to the screen with a broken collarbone and a tub of popcorn on my head.

I briefly mentioned the eaters but I didn’t do it justice. To be honest I’d be happy if they banned eating in the cinema. It’s not going to happen, obviously, as that’s where cinemas make the most of their money. I’d be happy with a compromise though (i.e. only allowing the sale of items which it’s impossible to make a distracting noise with). People with popcorn seem incapable of picking pieces up and eating them, they need to rustle around continually, seemingly searching for the perfectly formed corn. They’re not as bad as the people who chose the individually wrapped sweets from the foyer shop though. Excellent. Not only do they rustle the bag around (“Eww. I don’t like the yellow ones!”) they also make a racket while they’re unwrapping each bloody sweet. A woman at a recent showing did this and then proceeded to continue folding the empty sweet wrappers in the dark, like some origami Jedi. I almost stabbed her in the eye with the straw from my drink. Yes, much of this links back to my misophonia but I'm not taking the blame for people interrupting me while I'm consciously trying to listen to something that I've paid for.

Finally, yes, you guessed it; children. Film studios have cottoned on to the fact that if they keep the certificate rating low more people will see it, because it’s open to a wider audience. Gone are the days of the 80s when all action films were 18-rated. Now they all seem to be 15 or, worse, 12A. This means you have to go at midnight (and contend with possible drunks) or else risk the wrath of a gazillion noisy kids. I went to see Casino Royale at the cinema, Daniel Craig’s excellent first outing as Bond. The film was rated 12A. Sat next to us with a bloke (who was obviously too tight to fork out for a baby-sitter) and two bored kids. The film’s almost two and a half hours long and they spent most of it getting up, sitting down, talking and rolling around on the floor under the screen. The benefit of dealing with small children is that after I asked them to pack it in and shot them a stern gaze they didn’t make a sound. Give it a couple of years and they'd probably have knifed me. Meanwhile, their dad was unaware, the ignoramus.

I hate all these complaints, with a passion, and yet it’s not (quite) enough to keep me away.

The Trophy Hunting of Rare and Exotic Animals

Whilst I'm far from being a signed up member of PETA, a Greenpeace flag-waving environmentalist or a tree hugging, vegan hippy some things come across as conspicuously and morally wrong to me. One of these things is the hunting of rare and endangered animals for "sport".

I've made my views on fox hunting clear before now and some of the themes cross over. It’s a subject that’s irked me for some time but some Twitter posts from comedian Ricky Gervais this week pushed it back into my consciousness and prompted me to write this.

Let me start by saying that, yes, I do understand the difference between illegal poaching and licenced hunting. It doesn’t mean that I agree with either and the “it’s legal, get over it” argument holds little sway over me. It’s also legal for you to down a bottle of vodka in thirty seconds, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Sure, hunting as a form of population control is vastly more commendable than tracking down one of those few remaining rhinos in order to desecrate its corpse in the pursuit of money borne off the back of a ridiculous notion that rhino horn will cure cancer and enable time travel. Just this week a story broke that the one remaining male northern white rhino in the world is now under 24-hour armed guard, from fear of poachers. I’m left incredulous.

Once again, I realise that this situation hasn’t been effected by hunters, but by poachers. However, at least they take a certain amount of responsibility for their actions and are very clear in their motives. I’d genuinely have (a tiny bit) more respect for some of these hunters if they just said “it gave me a massive rush to kill a dangerous animal which 95% of the population will never even see”, rather than the painfully transparent “I did it as an act of conservation”.

Take Rebecca Francis, who was pictured gleefully lying next to a slain giraffe. Apparently the animal was “inevitably going to die soon” after being expelled from its herd. Who made you the grim reaper? I’m fairly certain society would have issues with me applying the same principal if a widowed pensioner stepped out in front of my car…

Anyway, the picture was apparently to “honour” her prey. Yeah, I’m sure the animal felt extremely honoured as the round tore through its rib cage and heart; “thanks for choosing me!” Maybe it’s the way that she posed with the dead body like a trophy whilst sporting a huge grin that it should be grateful for?

She was then pictured with a dead lion and bear. No word yet on how they’ve been honoured by a self-important and overly privileged American with a sexism complex and too much time of her hands.

Francis is not alone though and, admittedly, probably gains more attention because she is female. It matters little to me as her actions would be equally deplorable from a man, but another woman produced in the same vein is Kendall Jones. She’s a young cheerleader from Texas with a penchant for murdering exotic and rare animals for no reason too.

No wait, I’m clearly wrong. She’s obviously “doing her part in conservation to make a difference”. Yes, you might think I made that up but that’s what she said in her defence. “Hunters are the biggest conservationists there are” apparently. Clearly the education system can only teach you so much and Texas Tech University shouldn’t feel too bad because you just can’t teach common sense, humility or morality.

These women (and many more hunters I suspect) have been subjected to all manner of threats and abuse. It’s more than a little paradoxical to decry the lack of humanity in killing animals by wishing death upon the perpetrators. I’ve previously written about the irony of the public issuing death threats to people involved in releasing music advocating murder. It’s largely pointless, but one can’t help but imagine a situation where the hunter and prey meet in more natural circumstances.

On a lighter note, I had to laugh at the story (from 2011) of a hunter that tried to finish off a fox with the butt of his rifle only to have the fox hit the trigger and shoot the man in the leg. Karma’s a bitch. Now I await the story of a rare predator which stalks one of these hunters and turns the tables.