WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY!

Friday evening saw us driving like fat-heads in chronic weather conditions, to the Trafford Centre in Manchester, to meet up with newly married smashing gal-pal, Doz and her gaylord brother Gaz, to catch up with the latest of the Saw movies.

In a bid to keep Doz (short for Victoria) occupied whilst her dearly beloved Jessica is living it up in the USA - we thought it a good idea to pop to the cinema and inflict upon ourselves 108 minutes of gore induced dismemberment and self inflicted torture - all that with an added touch of compassion, paternal love and forgiveness.

Arriving a few minutes late and positioning ourselves in the closest seats to the front so as not to cause a kerfuffle, we soon got to grips with the storyline - although, having seen the previous Saw films, it doesn't take Einstein to work out what was going on! We had all heard hideous reviews about the latest installment from Mr Jigsaw - people getting up and walking out of the cinema, some unfortunates saying hello to their popcorn as sharpish as they had shovelled it down their necks, some even requiring medical attention upon exiting the cinema - surely it couldn't really be this bad.

Within 10 minutes of sitting down, Amanda and Doz were watching most of the movie from behind their jumpers - which had been pulled up over their faces to try to hide out the hideous story which was unfolding in front of them! Gaz and I remained visually open throughout - I'm not really fazed by blood & guts and neither was Gaz, we even took time out to take the piss out of the guy sat next to us, who apart from rattling his effing popcorn throughout, was sporting a rather amusing arron jumper - I wasn't aware such things still existed!

It started with an interesting premise but quickly squandered it on the usual barely-glimpsed bloodbaths and deathtraps increasingly ludicrous in their mad-lab ingenuity. One chap, for instance, found himself in a vat slowly filling with the liquefied remains of maggot-ridden pig corpses, which were dumped into what I can only call a huge industrial juicer - this scene was the worst for Amanda! My particular favourite was the DIY brain surgery, with a comedy line thrown in, Ol' Jigsaw hasn't been feeling too posh lately, what with this inoperable brain tumour and the like, so he found himself a surgeon, in a bid that she would be able to put him right - the classic line came as she revved up the power drill and said "you might feel a bit of discomfort".. understatement of the year there love!

Anyway - the film ended, still with Amanda and Doz hiding - the cinema had an odd silence about it, obviously most people were feeling "a little unwell" and would be heading for the loos, rather than the string of restaurants close by!

We all went for a cheeky half before going our separate ways - a most enjoyable evening - although I somehow fear the Doz won't be jumping on the funbus when Saw 4 is announced!