Leaning, against the wind, on the concrete brim of a water feature in the middle of the Brunswick Centre’s concrete plaza, Henson scratched his recently-bearded chin. Spray, whipped by the breeze, dotted his cheek. Honoria the Dentist was late; the film started in five minutes.
Well, the ads started in five minutes, after the lights dimmed and the screen glowed briefly, an enormous Rothko. And then there were the trailers, ten minutes after the start of the ads. Ten more minutes of trailers, then, and then the click and hum of the curtains, the pitch into blackness and the BBFC title card. The first chords. So, the film started in twenty-five minutes. Still, Honoria the Dentist was late.
He looked at where his watch should have been, then reached into his pocket for his phone. Twenty-four minutes. But then, he never felt comfortable going into a cinema once the lights were down, whether the screen was showing the first seconds of the new Bertolucci or an advert for tampons. So, four minutes.
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Feast your ears and eyes on fictions involving a post-apocalyptic looter, suggestive cigars, sex-starved film-buff flaneurs, an all-or-nothing lover, and the ultimate global consumer.
The two most popular cigar sizes are Churchill and Panatella. Churchills are long and fat. Panatellas are long and thin. If we’re talking about cigars you can say we’re dealing with length and girth. Length is measured in inches. Tell someone you’re offering them two hundred and thirty millimetres and they’re not sure whether to laugh or cry. Tell them you’ve got nine inches, and tears will fill their eyes. They’ll smile too. Girth is measured by ring gauge, calibrated in one sixty fourths of an inch. That’s what it’s all about. Let’s get down to basics. Girth gives you intensity of experience. Length gives you duration. If we’re talking about Henry, it’s not quite so simple.