TRADITIONAL? On yer bike. We don't do anything traditionally anymore.
We can't give too much away - not even the film people will be watching
Three courses sat down in a restaurant? Yeah right, we'll have our £9 Marmite & Monster Munch cereal slopped in a polystyrene tray and served next to a 180dB speaker, please.
Go out to a bar and meet somebody? No time for that, log on to Tinder and find someone on the bus who fancies a tumble. Fancy a cuppa? Of course. But only if you have vintage Pu'erh leaves plucked from the vast tea forests of the Yunnan Province by a one-armed orphan with rickets.
TV on the sofa? iPad on the khazi. Food shopping? iPad on the khazi. Read a book? Kindle on the khazi. Walk? Uber. Talk? Emoticon. Breathe? Do we have to?
So it comes as no surprise that people are turning their backs on the traditional cinema experience.
Reports last year suggested the UK box office had suffered it's biggest drop for two decades. Why? Because we're now incapable of doing anything, even sitting on our arse, for five minutes without distractions. We've got bloody apps for sleeping. Sleeping!
Last month came the news that the Hot Tub Cinema Party was heading to Manchester, meaning if the film is bobbins you can at least put on a funny hat and stare at someone pretty in a bikini (or speedos, of course).
Next up for Manchester comes the Secret Film Society, a take on the 'immersive pop-up' movie experience developed by London's Secret Cinema group; who've been causing a right old ruckus since 2007 by sticking camels in Alexandra Palace for a screening of Lawrence of Arabia and admitting punters to a psychiatric hospital for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
Secret Film Society, however, will not be "charging eighty quid just for a ticket and using unpaid actors," according to Manchester organiser Asif Hayat.
Secret Film Society will provide immersive cinema experiencesHayat and partner Jodie Bannister are the duo behind Manchester's revitalized Castlefield Markets and collaborators in the hugely successful debut season of street food event Friday Food Fights.
"We've wanted to do something like this at Campfield Market Hall (home to the Castlefield Markets) for years," Hayat tells me, "but we wanted to make it more interesting, take it on the road, and make each location relevant to the film being screened."
The SFS's inaugural event on Sunday 14 June will see 70 people bundled onto coaches in Manchester city centre and driven out to a secret location in deepest darkest Lancashire.
"We can't give too much away," says Hayat, "not even the film people will be watching, we can say this one is by a British director but the rest they'll find out when they get there. It's the adventure people are buying in to."
But with tickets priced at £45 a go, isn't it all a bit expensive?
"Not when you consider the whole package," explains Hayat. "This experience covers coach travel, a guided tour to the location, a three course meal created by a professional chef, wine and the film."
Fair enough, but what if you turn up and it's Spider-Man 3 (perhaps the worst film ever)?
"Our aim is to champion great films or TV shows which are bold, creative and distinctive, those that have enriched our culture," says Hayat. "It's not our intention to screen films people won't like..."
Purchase tickets for the first Secret Film Society event on 14 June here.
