As I took my seat I was overcome with excitement. The cinema was hot, busy and filled with smiles and whispers. Unlike some of the impressively decorated cinemas I had seen showing Arabic films, this one was grey and bare but filled with atmosphere. I had no idea how I had become this excited and as the light dropped, I grinned at the man next to me who quite reasonably answered me with one word "Titanic".

In England I had dismissed the most popular film ever as 'Hollywood Crap' and had cringed when Celine Dion sung on the Oscars, but here, in Egypt, it was a different story. This was not just another film but a whole fashion. Grown men would wear 'Titanic' shorts. I saw a whole family dressed in matching Leonardo di Caprio T-shirts strolling along the promenade and the posters were everywhere. Not put up as advertising but nailed to fences outside peoples houses like a show of support. The music even accompanied one of my darker moments, blasting out of the stereo as I was helped through the window of my crumpled coach.

I initially put down this national love for the film as just pure Egyptian romanticism, but it wasn't just that. It was the sign of a change. As a moderate Islamic country, Western views of freer love and sex have been pervasive among men for a long time but in this cinema there were many more women appearing to embrace the ideology. Of course, a change in belief does not necessarily herald a change in the system.

As the film opened I was squeezed to the back of my seat by a supremely wide woman and her flock of children. The youngest, no older than one, was dropped on the seat next to me. I smiled at the woman who nodded sternly at me and then at the baby. A sign I took to mean "Look at all the kids I've got here, I just want to watch the film, this one's your responsibility". The child, as if on cue, crawled to the edge of the chair and hastily fell off. I managed to scoop it up quite impressively before it the hit the floor and placed it back on the chair. Expecting some praise I looked to the huge woman who merely raised her eyebrows at me. Oh well, the film had gone back in time to the days of 'Titanic'.

For two months I had been surrounded by the biggest Leo di Caprio fan club ever and now I was watching the man at work. As he first took the screen a roar of whistles and applause went up across the auditorium. The man next to me giving him a standing ovation. Kate Winslett was not so lucky receiving little more than a few muttered words of pleasure from the men in the cinema. I had never seen anything like it. People shouting along with their favourite lines, others jeering when the 'baddy' spoke, a situation that reminded me somewhat of the House of Commons.

Being an Englishman I am more used to total silence when watching a film at the cinema and anyone speaking to be severely glanced by those around them so this was quite an afternoon.

The child next to me continued to fall off the chair forcing me to adopt quite a strange position with my leg bent sideways forming a fence. As the film progressed I became more and more sucked in and found myself whooping occasionally when impressive special effects were used. The climax of noise came, as you might expect if you have been to the Middle East, when Kate Winslett strips off. I later discovered that it was cut because no breasts were unveiled to the eager eyes but the men were still so happy with this scene that many jumped into the air whistling and clapping. I looked across at the big mother who sat rigid and poker faced through the whole scene.

As the film came to a close I was getting a bit stressed with the man behind me who had continued to smoke and exhale into the back of my head throughout. Two plumes of smoke would regularly puff out from beside my ears which I put up with as I also smoked but I occasionally turned around to give him an evil look that we English use so well.

As the ship finally began to crack in two the man behind me began tutting as if he could have made the ship better and he wasn't impressed. I could not help but laugh out loud at this absurdity and was fired back countless Egyptian eyes who could not understand how I could be laughing at the saddest moment in film history. I was ashamed and hung my head.

As the credits fell and the audience stood I looked around smiling, the child on the seat was fast asleep against my leg, a little patch of liquid forming on my trousers below its mouth. The mother whipped it up and stood waiting for me to leave so she could get out. I left, and as I lit a cigarette and waited for my eyes to get used the bright Alexandria evening, I heard the voice I had heard three hours earlier telling me the only word that could fit - "Titanic".

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