THE cinema screen stilled for a moment to allow a certificate to be displayed. 

Using techniques honed in the deep end of Shettleston baths, I emerged from my bag of popcorn to peruse it. 

It read: ''Very strong language and moderate sex."

''Geez,' I mused. ''I have just spent the best part of a tenner to watch a history of my relationships.''

This, of course, is not the most vexing part of going to the pictures. My mate Tam has had a difficult time in his attempts to see all the Oscar contenders. First, he arrives at the movies accompanied by by a pick 'n mix that require the employment of three Sherpas. He does not come burdened with knowledge.

''That was very worthy,'' he said, spraying me with the flavour of purple wine gum. ''But what had that to do with Homer Simpson's sister-in-law?'' he asked of Selma.

He sometimes, too, does not quite grasp the realities of a night at the cinema. He arrived at our rendezvous for Whiplash wearing his gimp mask. This caused almost as much of a stir as the last time he wore it. Put it this way, his wife now attends alone the parents' night at the primary school.

However, he can be sensitive to the message conveyed by a film. For example, after seeing Brokeback Mountain he bought a horse, a cowboy hat and a Barbra Streisand CD and spent the next six months asking me about my feelings, whatever they might be.

Two of this year's Oscar contenders -Whiplash and Foxcatcher -produced a joint wave of nostalgia that, combined with the sugar rush of that pick 'n mix , led to an animated discussion of the way we both were.

There will be those who argue that Whiplash and Foxcatcher are indictments of the dangers of the male desire, nay need for mentoring.

There are those, including the entire Scottish male population over the age of 50, who will look at the excesses of the authority figures in both films and say: ''Geez, there is a lot of bullying, violence and threats being directed towards those young guys. But, hey, they should have tried to make a career in football in the sixties and seventies.''

Whiplash has a bald egomaniac continually shouting at a drummer. Foxcatcher has a creepy millionaire training wrestlers.

We had the jannie and the boys' club coach. I know who had it worse. Whiplash is a day on the Saltcoats sands. Testing, but endurable with a balaclava and a pair of Woollies wellies. The jannie was a campaign on Omaha beach. There were casualties.

There is never a moment when I watch a professional footballer pass across the penalty area and I do not wince, hearing the jannie scream as if he has just been caught in a bear trap. (Strangely, these were not unknown on Glasgow Green).

There is never a time when I see a player pull out of a challenge and I remember the jannie berating a midfielder for cowardice with the passion and disgust that would have made General Patton seem like a person-centred counsellor.

Tam and myself both, too, had boys' club coaches who sent the rejects in terms of fitness and will to the SAS. The jannie and the coach had a distinct version of tough love. It was called tough hate.

Training sessions were conducted with such intensity that they produced a dread only replicated in later life when the boss utters the words: ''I have an idea.''

These trials of body and spirit were conducted in conditions that would now lead to arrests, possibly followed by a judicial inquiry.

Instead, a series of lessons were imparted. They remain with me and Tam to this day. I can honestly say it is more than half a century since I passed the ball across the penalty box. I have never shirked a tackle and in evidence I can present a wonky knee and two shins so scarred that team mates once used them as mirrors to see if their shed was parted properly.

I, too, have long held the belief that substitution was a humiliation that if imposed by the jannie led inevitably to feelings of shame only leavened by an attempt at seppuku with my maw's bread knife which was, mercifully, as blunt as the coach's assessment of my abilities.

This life experience has given me a resilience that shrugs off the excesses of Whiplash and Foxcatcher.

This is shared by Tam. ''We had it much tougher than that and it did not do us any harm,'' he said removing his gimp mask, wiping his forehead with his repeat Valium prescription and sobbing gently.