We thought we’d be the first to post here actu­ally. That’s “we” because James has giv­en strict instruc­tions that there is no “I” in “Wel­ling­ton­ist”. Um… pos­sibly he said it “starts with “we””. But any­way, it’s clear already who the team play­ers are, eh?

So we had this epi­phany in the bath last night. (By all means avoid the wrong idea & look that up).

No. Actu­ally, we wandered around town this lunch­time won­der­ing what our first post would be about. See­ing as… it’s unlikely it’ll be about any­thing we’ll actu­ally be going to see. Con­trary to Alan’s asser­tion below, he’s not the only ennui indu­cing, middle-aged gaseous emis­sion. We are too.

But that does­n’t mean there’s not an awful lot going on that we’d like to go to. Feel we really should go to. But prob­ably will nev­er actu­ally get around to. So do as we say… maybe. Not do as we do… cer­tainly.

Any­way, if you really want to exper­i­ence some of the delights that we actu­ally exper­i­ence very often… by all means take a stroll on a nice day around the Botan­ic Gar­dens. See the bare earth that in four months time will be won­drous fields of tulips. See the thou­sands of ducks in the pond who are sit­ting out the hunt­ing sea­son. See the bor­ing old fart try­ing to restrain his slav­er­ing dog from get­ting in amongst them.

a fetching, if unnatural pose...Or go to almost any shop & see the poster of the pretty baller­ina strik­ing a fetch­ing, if unnat­ur­al pose, because we prob­ably won’t go & see the actu­al per­form­ance. Although we should really. So go! Someone’s got to do it, or they’ll go out of busi­ness & stop mak­ing those posters. You owe it to us. Really.

So we’ll post about some­thing that we do know a little about…

Fan of the Wel­ling­ton Film Fest­iv­al then? It’s com­ing up quite soon… but con­sider this: There’s a film fest­iv­al that runs pretty much all year round (oh, OK, between March & Novem­ber. It’s even pro­grammed by pretty much the same people who bring you the Film Fest­iv­al.

It’s the Wel­ling­ton Film Soci­ety. To quote their bro­chure “Mem­ber­ship gives you free access to a won­der­ful range of loc­al and for­eign films that you won’t see on the big screen any­where else, as well as dis­counts at down­town cinemas. All full year mem­bers also qual­i­fy for gen­er­ous dis­counts at the Wel­ling­ton Film Fest­iv­al in July.”

It’s easy to join – pick up a bro­chure from many places around town, or front up to any screen­ing which are mostly held at the Para­mount on Mondays at 6.15pm. It’s not too late.

And what exactly will you be see­ing this year if you rush down & join up?

Glad you asked.

Tokyo StoryThe WFS is cur­rently in the middle of a Yas­ujiro Uzo ret­ro­spect­ive. Beau­ti­ful & mov­ing, simple tales of Japan­ese life, in oth­er words. The very next one to screen will be Ozu’s most fam­ous: Tokyo Story. It’s on May 16.

The Ozu sea­son runs till 30 May. By all means vis­it the WFS web­site & check out the rest of the year’s com­ing attrac­tions, and we will try & remind you by giv­ing the Soci­ety a plug each month any­way.