I loved Oliver Stone’s Bush film — and I know why the critics hated it

I missed the first three minutes of Oliver Stone’s film about the outgoing US President, W., because the indolent woman serving behind the counter took ages to give me my ticket. That’s because she was serving someone else with ice cream, a beaming fat cow who was ordering herself a bucket of cherry and vanilla and butterscotch, a vat of frozen animal fats in which she would immerse herself for the next seven hours. ‘Ooh, and I’ll have a scoop of rum and raisin too,’ she whinnied just when you thought she was finally done, the veins on her neck bulging out and saliva dribbling down her grey chin. What annoyed me most was the fact that she was not a paying customer, but the bloody cinema manageress. And also that she didn’t realise this was my annual visit to the flicks and because it is a special event I expect everything to go smoothly.