I was mildly surprised on a visit to the cinema this week to be asked if I wanted a senior citizen's ticket. I was on the point of explaining that no, I was on my own, when I realised that the supposed senior citizen was me. This was the first time I had been asked such a question, and I confess I was momentarily dispirited. But hang on - to the beautiful young lady at the ticket office the bald, white-bearded figure before her must have looked easily old enough to be her granddad. I was, moreover, paying to see a film called No Country for Old Men . . .

But did I qualify for a senior citizen's discount? My first impulse was to lie about my age, as I used to do more than 40 years ago at cinemas to gain admission to X-certificate films. Then I owned up to being a mere 56, and after some debate with a male colleague, the lovely ticket-seller charged me the full whack.

My money was not well spent. In spite of all the praise heaped upon it by critics, the Coen brothers' latest "masterpiece" proved to be a very shoddy and self-indulgent work. "One of the best films of this or any year," said our Damon Smith, which only shows how opinions can differ. Perhaps the stupidest thing about it is its villain, played by Javier Bardem (pictured). He is able to roam the countryside popping off almost everyone he meets with the sort of machine that delivers static bolts in a slaughterhouse. If this cumbersome piece of equipment, which he lugs everywhere with him, was not enough to attract the attention of every lawkeeper in the state, then his absurd haircut - reminiscent of a 1920s cloche hat - would certainly see him fingered in a second.

Furthermore, the movie reaches no satisfactory conclusion - indeed, no conclusion at all. Actually the damn thing ends with Tommy Lee Jones's world-weary sheriff character recounting how his father had appeared to him in his sleep the night before. Is anything more boring than someone else's dreams?