THERE is, apparently, a new cinema “coming soon” to Bolton town centre.

I will only truly believe this once I am actually sitting down inside the new place with a box of overpriced popcorn and three litres of Diet Coke, watching some god-awful chick flick – but I am assured it is happening.

Work is underway on another revamp of the Market Place – with a nine-screen multiplex at the heart of the plans, which also include restaurants and bars in the building’s Victorian vaults – and there is also talk of a second cinema at the Crompton Place.

I don’t know ... you wait ages for one, then two come along at once.

This sort of thing has been a long time coming – but there was a time in Bolton when there was plenty of entertainment on offer in the town centre.

There was the Navada roller skating rink, until it burnt down in 1985, and there were numerous cinemas, the last of which was Cannon, in Bradshawgate, which closed 16 years ago.

I’m too young to remember the Nav – honest, guv – but I gather it was the sort of place where there was a bar, helpfully located up three flights of stairs, and stewards, dressed in bow ties and velveteen dinner jackets, were always telling overenthusiastic skaters to stop “bombing it”.

There was also that strangest of attractions, Laser Quest, next door to Cannon, and, of course, the Water Place, in Great Moor Street, where Morrisons now sits.

I know we have Bolton One now – which has a competition-standard swimming pool – but it doesn’t have a wave machine and two water flumes, does it?

It was the only place in Europe where youngsters in their swimming cossies could queue for a water slide up a glass fronted tower, in full view of the town’s shoppers.

It didn’t matter that it was seven degrees outside and pouring down, we were inside, swimming against the tide, risking Legionnaires’ disease.

The Queen opened the Water Place. The actual Queen. Was her diary really that empty in 1988 that she was reduced to cutting ribbons at northern swimming baths and shopping centres?

(While we’re talking about famous figures opening new facilities in Bolton, did you know that former Prime Minister John Major opened the Reebok Stadium back in 1997? An experienced right winger hasn’t been seen at the ground since.)

The point I've been trying to make here is that the cinema, if it does get built, will be a good start — but we still need more.

However, this was mainly just an excuse for a good old bit of nostalgia.

SCOTLAND

So, Scotland voted no. Essentially, they bottled it.

It was, in Alex Salmond’s own words, a once in a lifetime opportunity to take back what once was theirs. But for some bizarre reason, a country, whose national pastime is whinging about the English, voted ‘no’.

Not even a last minute intervention from British tennis hero Andy Murray – who finally broke his silence on the day of the vote – could persuade Scots to reclaim their freedom.

It is as if all of Mel Gibson’s sterling work in that memorable film about some Scottish bloke who did a lot of fighting and shouting in a dodgy accent was in vain.

It turns out Scotland likes whinging. And if they had voted yes, they would have had no one to whinge about.

So we keep Scotland. They can keep moaning. And we can keep beating them at football, and, of course, supporting Andy Murray at Wimbledon. At least until he loses.

THE QUIZ SHOW

Last weekend I auditioned for a TV quiz show. I can’t say too much about it, but suffice to say, it wasn’t Mastermind.

It is the kind of affair which requires you to know things like:

  • Which pop group is made up of Perrie, Jesy, Leigh-Anne and Jade? (Little Mix)
  • Alan Dedicoat is known as the voice of the what? (Balls)
  • And in which county is Stonehenge? (Wherever it is, it is definitely not Berkshire)

It was here – at the auditions, not in Berkshire – that I discovered that while pop culture is one of my strengths, geography is most certainly a weakness.

Ask me the name of David Beckham’s oldest child – no problem. But quiz me on which is the largest of the five boroughs of New York City – and I may start to sweat a little under the studio lights.

I will have to wait to hear if I have been successful. Stay tuned.

WHITE LIES

Just as we prepare to move closer to civilisation (the ‘for sale’ sign has gone up at our tiny little rented place in Chapeltown) our cat is finally adapting to life in the country.

She has been exploring the church grounds behind the house and doing her bit to rid St Anne’s of field mice.

She mostly believes in the humane capture of rodents, at least until they are inside, and so helpfully brings them to us in full working order, tenderly holding them in her mouth as she excitedly runs back through the cat flap, before releasing them into the welcoming warmth of our home.

It was under these circumstances that, earlier this week, at 11.30pm, I found myself trapping one of the little blighters with a hat and a copy of The Bolton News, after the moggie had pawed it and chased it into a dumbfounded stupor as I tried to sleep.

In a worrying state of undress, I took the poor little thing back outside.

I removed the hat to reveal a motionless mouse. I wasn’t sure if it was just in shock, or whether the worst had happened.

I tossed it back over the wall, perhaps appropriately, into the graveyard.

“Was he okay?” asked my animal-loving other half, her eyes full of hope and worry.

“Yes, dear,” I replied. “As soon as he saw the churchyard, he sprang up off the paper and squeaked ‘thank you’ before he bounded back to his little mousey family.”

SIGN OF THE TIMES

I read on a Bolton Wanderers forum this week that the chap who unfurled a huge ‘FREEDMAN OUT!!’ banner at the Reebok – sorry, the Macron – the other night, had spent £180 getting it printed. What happened to making your own banners with dust sheets and black paint? The world’s gone mad.