I spend a good proportion of my life in the cinema. I’m no maths whizz or anything but let me see if I can work out the exact percentage for you … right, 24 hours in a day, sleep for 5 of them, work for 7 of them …

I spend about 50% of my life in the cinema.

It is, in a very real sense, my home from home. When the lights go down and the screen flickers into life I feel this overwhelming sense of calm and well being, as if everything’s alright with the world. Financial concerns, global warming, tooth ache, the Middle East question – they all slip into the background, receding like the tide to lap unobtrusively at the edges of my consciousness.

(Except if it’s a Matthew Lillard movie, then I feel nauseous like any sane person would, although I still sit there which gives you a clue just how deep my compulsions run)

I worked in a cinema for a while and ended up sleeping there a fair bit too. Once I became a manager I used to get the projectionists to chain two or three new releases together over the course of a night. Then I’d run from screen to screen watching them one after the other, finally falling into the little cot I’d made under my desk to grab a few hours sleep before I had to open the whole place up again for the early morning Mums & Toddlers crowd.

Good times.

Anyway, my favourite cinema is on Haymarket and is currently owned by Cineworld which is amazing as it means I can use my Unlimited card to see films there for free. (The Unlimited scheme is the only thing that lies between me and bankruptcy, I think it’s the best value for money of any endeavour in the modern world. It’s like something from a warmer friendlier time, like something out of the 50s, like I was sold it by a man in a trilby and a pastel three piece suit.)

It used to be called the the Carlton Theatre  and it opened in 1927 when it was used both as a live theatre and cinema. I guess that’s why I love it so much. It used to seat about 1,150 people, it was MASSIVE, but it’s now been split into three screens, with Screen 1 (the main cinema) being a conversion of the old upper balcony and Screens 2 and 3 built where the stalls used to be. In the 50s it was taken over by 20th Century-Fox and became the West End showcase cinema for their productions. How cool is that? It’s like our very own piece of the old Hollywood studio system right in the middle of London.

The lobby and the main screen still have all this Italian renaissance plasterwork which have been daubed over in awesomely tasteless shades of pink and purple. It’s just  perfect. This hulking great opulent wedding cake of a building all painted up like it was still a pretty young thing, refusing to admit its glory days are behind it and grow old gracefully. It beats every purpose built, brushed steel, neon lit popcorn paradise into a cocked hat without even trying. It’s a one-of-a-kind, flying unbowed in the faces of the multiplexes that want you to have the same beige, homogenous movie going experience whether you’re in Fulham or Tel Aviv.

Brief Encounter had it’s premiere there. Hitchcock has squeezed his rotund buttocks into its faded upholstery. The buttocks of a genius. You can’t compete with that kind of history.

Plus, the last time I was there (watching the Coen’s latest A Serious Man – brilliant) I saw a mouse scurry across the aisle. A mouse. Amazing. It was probably some kind of super-talented mouse that always dreamt of being a film director like Truffaut or Fellini and subsequently escaped his life of rodenty-drugery  to make his home at the Carlton and really learn his craft. He’s probably made friends with a simple yet kind-heatred kid who has just started as assistant projectionist and together they plan to make a film that speaks to all of us about acceptance and how awesome mice are.

You know, like Ratatouille.

Except with films rather than food.

That would be pretty sweet.