Monkey Business at the Flicks

by Mary

Valentine's Day hoves into view as I write and the thought brings back memory of a matter I shall boldly declare we all have in common: our first romantic kiss and/or date.

Let me set the scene in proper fashion. My family lived for several years in Gateshead, the town memorably described by Dr Johnson as a dirty lane leading to Newcastle. Then, as now, a visit to the cinema was a popular outing for a date. There was plenty of choice from numerous cinemas on both sides of the Tyne. Many were second run venues and changed their programmes mid-week.

During our Gateshead residency, we lived equidistant between two picture palaces, the Coatsworth and the Bensham. It was the Coatsworth a boy in my class -- I'll disguise him as Bert -- invited me to a cinematograph entertainment for what would be my first date. He was round-faced and dark haired, and yes, I had a bit of a crush on him.

It was Bert who had given me my first kiss a short while before. He was showing me around the pub his parents ran, including the cellar which featured what I believe is technically termed a beer drop door, i.e. double metal doors set flush in the pavement through which barrels of beer are delivered. In any event, having taken the grand tour we were standing at the door talking when he suddenly leaned forward, planted a kiss on my cheek, shoved me off the step, and slammed the door in my face.

Not exactly romantic, was it?

So here we are, not long afterwards, at the Coatsworth Cinema watching Little Red Monkey, which the Internet informs me is based on a BBC TV series of the same name starring Donald Huston and Honor Blackman. It's a Cold War thriller, wherein someone is assassinating nuclear scientists. Richard Conte arrives and attempts to thwart the villains responsible for these deaths in order to get a Russian defector safely to America.

Back to the Coatsworth Cinema. The only things I remember about Little Red Monkey are, first, its perky organ music and occasional appearances by the titular monkey entering or exiting via a window. Also a comment having nothing to do with the film. It transpired Bert kept his cash in a black purse whose shape was near enough to a heart for me to observe wittily -- or at least I thought so at the time -- if it had been red it should have had an arrow through it.

Since enquiring minds may want to know but are too shy to ask, no, there was no kiss at the end of our date.

Alas, it was not to be. Fortuna intervened in that a few weeks later my family moved back to Newcastle and after that Bert and I never met again.

So there you have it. Meantime, having dragged subscribers this far down Nostalgia Lane, they might care to glance at a couple of sites relevant to my ancient bit of personal history:

Trailer for Little Red Monkey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9BBVS4hOw&ab_channel=NetworkDistributing

27 screen shots from Reel Streets, long a favourite port o' call of mine
https://www.reelstreets.com/films/little-red-monkey-aka-the-case-of-the-red-monkey/

The Coatsworth Cinema in all its grimy glory
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/51237/photos/171176

Three Bean or Not Three Bean

by Eric

This time it was the three bean salad.

It's always something.

The awful realization hits me when I'm halfway home, or hauling the bags out of the car, or in the evening, hours after the groceries have been put away.

"Oh no!" I'd forgotten to pick something up.

"Forgetting three bean salad isn't a crime," Mary said.

"Or a snack. Because I didn't bring any home. I could really do with a three bean salad right now."

"Do you think you should be eating three bean salad at ten o'clock at night? You never have it except with meals. Since when do you have three bean salad for a snack?"

"Last winter," I told her. "Or the winter before. I forget. Those were good times. Whenever they were."

"I remember. That was at the end of February. We'd been snowed in for weeks. The shelves were bare. It was either the three bean salad or the tinned okra."

"And the three bean salad was delicious too. Tangy. What else do we have for a snack that's tangy?"

"Never mind," she said. "You can buy two tins of three bean salad next week. Or three tins. This is Liberty Hall."

"There's no point trying to be a Pollyanna about it," I said. "The plain sad fact of the matter is...I forgot."

I might almost have said I was vexed, but I'm not sure if anyone has been truly vexed since the nineteenth century.

"It's easy enough to forget," Mary offered sympathetically.

"Well, yes, there's only one way to remember but endless ways to forget. I mean, I can forget to take the grocery list, or forget to write it in the first place. I might forget to take the list out of my pocket at the store. Or else I put it back in my pocket in order to hold the freezer door open to get at the frozen lasagna, and then forget to take it out again before I get to the tinned vegetable aisle. Oh, I'm a wonder at forgetting!"

"But you did remember the lasagna."

"But I don't want lasagna for a snack. It isn't tangy. I guess I will just have to suffer for my own mistake," I concluded.

"Look on the bright side," Mary told me. "What if you'd forgotten the loo rolls?"

"Oh no!", I said.