We’ve been out to a couple of excellent things over recent evenings. On Wednesday we finally went to a performance at the Tobacco Factory Theatre, where we saw a lovely performance of The Secret Garden. Although it’s a show, which is primarily aimed at children, we both found much to enjoy, maybe we are not as old as we think we are?

Last night we had another first time visit, this time it was to cinema 3 at The Watershed. Very impressed with the room, it’s a welcome addition to the facilities at this splendid place. We saw “Garden State”, what a great film! It’s a wonderfully understated piece, on being out of step with those around you. Subtly humorous and quietly wise, it was a real joy from start to finish. For a variety of reasons we haven’t seen as many films as usual this year, this one has to up there with the best of the bunch.

My knowledge of Zach Braff before seeing this film was pretty limited, I only caught a couple of episodes of Scrubs and to be honest I found him and the show pretty annoying. However after seeing this film, he has shot up in my estimation. How do these young guys get to write and direct (let alone star) in such wonderful things? The answer is obviously down to talent –pure and simple.

Another thing that made me love the film was the often inspired soundtrack. As anyone who used to shop in Imperial will know, the staff were always encouraged to attach post-it notes to CD’s, hoping to encourage customers to take a chance on our recommendations on stuff they may not have known about. I would always attach a particular one to the first album by The Shins – Oh, Inverted World. It said simply “Is “New Slang” the greatest song ever written?” It provoked quite a few comments from customers and fellow staff members, so I was delighted to hear it being used as the track that the Natalie Portman character plays to Zach Braff as the song that will change his life. With it’s fantastic melody line, how could it fail? How wonderful to hear a tune such as that, coming out loud and clear from that expensive new cinema sound system. Perfection.

Tonight we are off to the Invada Xmas party, where our friend Ian Green is playing, also looking forward to catching Aspen Woods, who feature another couple of mates in their line up. Headlining the whole thing are local riff kings Gonga, it will be interesting to see how much of their set Orynthia can cope with!