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.