Recently in Bury St Edmunds Category

Bury St Edmunds was last week treated to a brand new 8 screen cineworld cinema, complete with a "Benny and Tranny" (or whatever it's called) restauarant and a couple of other bland nationwide food outlets.

Righty I thought, I'll pay them a visit, grin and bear it as I mingle with the hoardes of Suffolk Chavs for whom a trip to the cinema is the highlight of their social calendar, a step up from hanging around the war memorial or larging it up outside the chip shop.

Imagine then, my surprise to discover that for an 8 screen cinema, only the following films were showing this evening:

Flightplan, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Harry Porker and the Noblet of Jizz, and In Her Shoes.

None of which were showing within an hour of my arrival in Bury St Edmunds courtesy of One Railway. Bollocks to that then. I headed off to the old tiny two screen cinema hidden down a back street, to see what they were showing.

This small cinema, which recently rebranded itself as the "Hollywood Film Theatre" the week Cineworld opened, simply oozes small town charm. I especially liked the hand written ticket, and the invitation from two members of staff to sit wherever I like. The seats were were wide and spacious, with plenty of legroom for even a lanky chap like myself. It was a pleasure to sit through the advertisements, which were not shown for as long as any other local cinema. Yes, Arts Picturehouse, I'm looking in your direction. I imagine Vue is even worse, but it's been so long since I've visited their spunk stained piss smelling cesspit of a cinema.

It's also the first time I've been to a cinema where the staff say "good evening sir" when you leave the auditorium. Hurrah for friendly customer service. I hope you don't get put out of business by Cineworld. Judging by the letters in the local paper, and the comments I've heard from people who've been to cineworld "and won't be going back in a hurry", the Hollywood Film Theatre could be around for a while yet, and good luck to them.

The Hollywood Film Theatre can be found in Hatter Street, Bury St Edmunds. (Tel 01284 754477).

[I'll do a review of Cineworld when they finally show a film at a time that is convenient for me, rather than vice versa]

You are almost certainly unaware that Bury St Edmunds, a small market town in the east of england, has the worlds first Internet Bench. This bench resides in the magnificent Abbey Gardens, which is also the birthplace of the Magna Carta (some document from about 1000 years ago, our equivalent of the bill of rights, if you will.).

Well, I went for a cycle into Bury St Edmunds today, and noticed that there is a security recording camera located just above this internet bench. Not only that, but it would appear the footage from this security camera is available online!

So, for the voyeurs out there, you can see me sitting on the Internet Bench enjoying the sunshine. Sadly I didn't have my laptop with me, otherwise this article would have been written there as well.

Click on the image to view the footage: