Who's watching Watchmen? Not me!

Last Saturday I was going to go to a fund-raising ceilidh with my boyfriend and his friends just outside of Glasgow. However, through lack of organisation on the male part they were left with no kilts to wear. As a further blow we were all struck with extreme lack of finances and another plan was sought out.

It ended up just being me and the other half deciding to scrap together the cash we had to have some dinner and go to see Watchmen. A brilliant plan from the outside, sure, but that night was to follow a series of badly timed and careless decisions.

It began when we went to view cinema times and, it being a weekend night, I was drawn to the late night showings of the film. The boyf was sceptical, suggesting it might be too late as we would have to hang around (it was currently about 5.30) and that perhaps we should see the 8.50 one instead. I insisted that I was too full from lunch and I couldn't possibly eat until around 8 leaving no time to see that one and how much fun would it be to see a midnight movie?

He consented.

This plan might have worked if we had perhaps gone to mine first and not, as it was suggested, to stay out, have a couple of drinks, then dinner, then movie. Considering the length of time we had to kill and the lack of funds we had to kill it, this was never going to work.

The first place we decided to go was the Blue Dog for a couple of cocktails. Hello? We have no money! When was this a good idea? At least our stupidity was made up by the delicious cocktails. I had a chocolate cherry martini and then a strawberry one with pepper for a spicy kick.

Then it was an Italian dinner at Sarti's. The food was spot on; delicious, big portions and reasonably priced. my one qualm would be that the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu is £18, but (after ordering of course) we noticed that people were drinking carafe's of wine, clearly the house and obviously cheaper than ours, and our wine was not even of a high standard. I think it would have been less cheeky if they had put ALL the wines, including the cheap ones, on the menu. As we finished our meal I noticed we were in time for the 8.50 showing (silly me) so we went up to the cinema on the off chance we could switch our tickets. A Saturday night with a brand new release of a big budget highly anticipated movie? No way. The queues for the one big cinema in Glasgow were spilling out on to the street.

So, with 2 hours to kill and less than a tenner between us, which we really shouldn't be spending, and the weather absolutely atrocious (think Wizard of Oz blizzards but add west coast rain) meant we didn't want to go far, but had no money to do something close by. In the end we went to the lovely Bar 10 down Mitchell lane, purchased a bottle of wine and slowly sipped it until it was time to go.

It's just lucky we have constant, flowing conversation.

On the wet and windy way to the cinema, with slightly woozy red wine heads, I consoled our wear souls with the knowledge that the brilliance of this film would make up for the disastrous, yet surprisingly fun, mistakes of the evening. We get into the cinema, surprisingly busy for so late at night, find a perfect centre middle seat and make ourselves comfortable.

The film starts. It is visually stunning and compelling from the start. Dark, cruel and cynical; this dystopian America sucks us in and, with no typical film structure, we are bemused, but fascinated throughout. That is, until, during one particularly loud moment in the film involving Dr. Manhattan, a speaker explodes.

As it occurs in an "explosive" sequence in the film we don't notice it immediately. Not until we realise this buzzing won't go away and there is a piercing ringing in my ears. From being in a heavy comfortable zoned in state and then being blown out of it, finding myself suddenly out of the cinema with a pounding headache and actually feeling quite dizzy. I was not impressed.

Fortunately we have free tickets to go and see it another time. I cannot wait.

And maybe next time we won't be so frivolous so that we cannot afford popcorn.