WHISPERING SMITH: Grey pound brightens up box office takings

UK cinema receipts rose by 6 per cent last year, and that is competing against the Queen’s diamond jubilee, the Olympics and Paralympic. But the most important statistic and, to some, the most surprising, is that people aged over 45 make up the largest proportion of cinema audiences.

You only had to go to the Windmill to realise that, with movies such as Quartet and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel being so well attended. It shows that the British film industry also recognises this and is catering more and more for that age group.

I expect Song For Marion and the new Alan Partridge movie would have put bums on seats as well.

ALWAYS something to see on a walk in and around our town. For instance, where Sea Lane meets Sea Road, the shingle and rocky beach corner there is frequented by oily black, glistening crows, gloomy looking birds with a morbid air about them.

I watch them for a while and sometimes I fancifully wonder if they are the wandering souls of long dead mariners.

EVERYWHERE I go these days, I seem to see Liam Gallagher lookalikes. Is the singer being cloned by aliens? Is there a secret site in the West Country creating beings in his image?

Are they simply another figment of my over-active imagination? Look out for them. They are everywhere, you will see what I mean…

THE PEOPLE speak and I listen! Mr Benham and friends (Gazette letters, August 14) are none too happy with the initials often used to identify Littlehampton.

I must confess, I have never really been too comfortable with their usage, either. So, whenever space permits, I will use the full name of our fair town and consign the LA initials to Room 101.

THE SEARCHERS: Dragged my sorry backside over to Brighton to see The Lone Ranger – would have been so much easier and cheaper to have moseyed on down to the Windmill, still, ‘a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’ 197 days closed now and counting…