retiredmartin

December 2023. Sheffield.

Back in Sheff, Mrs RM said she wanted to go and see Wonka, a documentary about the 19th century cocoa industry or something.

Going to see musicals with your wife earns 8.6 brownie points, according to Mumsnet Research, just below letting her finish your packet of pickled onion Monster Munch you’d been saving for yourself (9.1).

I’d been to The Light a few times since we moved. They have the giant armchairs with drink holders that picture-goers require, and there’s only ever half a dozen other folk in there so no chance of catching Covid like in 2021.

Only half a dozen folk in the Light’s diner, which looks like something designed by Whitbread in 1989 for a Brewsters fun pub.

I decided this was the time to add The Light to my award winning series All The Pubs In Sheffield By Foot as we’d walked there, and because the Abbeydale pump was finally working,

Sadly, not Moonshine, but one of those Dr Morton beers that people just stare at blankly and wonder “WTF”.

We could have sat under the shark and downed our pints,

but there’s a thrill about taking a pint glass into a cinema, and those cupholders come in handy. And if I needed a wee halfway through (which I did) I’d only get in the way of three people.

Here’s a shot during the adverts. If I’d taken it during the film I’d have been thrown out.

You can probably tell that’s an NBSS 2.5/3. Perfectly competent. Pint of cask, pint of craft a tenner; cheaper than a medium tub of popcorn.

And “Wonka” is great, beautifully written and most importantly coming in under two hours. OK, you get a bit nervous when the singing starts but (like Barbie) the music doesn’t dominate.

I know what you’re thinking.

That “Simon” on the poster looks familiar.

No ! That’s Hugh Grant the most orange character recorded on film since Daddy BRAPA, tonight.

Pub 2566, Buck Inn, Sadberge. Bit lively outside cos setting up for brass band. Double Maxim burpy but true. Can glowing Daddy B find the County Durham page? Yes he can! pic.twitter.com/MjrmcmN7z4

— Si BRAPA Everitt (@StymieSi) December 13, 2023

What can it all mean.

We emerged into the bright lights of Sheffield Christmas Market, the big wheel “borrowed” from Llandudno Pier looked beautiful but unused,

and headed to Lemongrass in Moor Market for their Thai tea,

Blimey, cinema, Christmas, markets; are we turning into normal people* ?

*No.