A whirled of pain

Now that the wind's gone (calloo callay!) and the sun's out (oh frabjous day!), wouldn't it be a lovely time to wander down to the waterfront and see the much photographed Water Whirler do its thing? Not so fast, matey boy, someone has had other ideas.


It seems that someone has decided that it's more fun to break things than to allow other people to enjoy them, so until further notice, the Whirler is out of commission due to vandalism. This is a family blog (or it would be if it weren't for all the references to alcohol) so I won't say what I think of people who do that sort of thing, but I think that Hadyn has the right word for them.

April Fools

But will it be the Crusaders or the Hurricanes?Tomorrow at the Cake Tin (5.30pm kick-off) we'll find out which team has a [metaphorical] bucket of confetti and glue placed over its door. If you want to go and haven't got tickets I'm afraid you're out of luck because the game has sold out. So 34,000 people will watch this match, a good proportion of these will be from Canterbury so this will explain why on Saturday you will see a lot of red shirts downtown.

We didn't get tickets either so we'll be at Hope Bros from 5.00pm cheering and explaining to our (slow) friends from the south why their allegiance needs to change. Anyone who wishes to is welcome to join us.

By the way, try out these player profiles. Pick a player and watch as they spin into view. Hee hee, its mindless entertainment for a Friday morning.

In other local sports action...

• April 2^nd : Team Wellington takes on Otago in the NZFC
• April 3^rd: Wellington vs Central Districts (Basin Reserve) in the State Championship final (until the 7^th)

Ps. This is my first Wellingtonista post too.
Pps. Thanks to Mike for the photo.

the last festival event?

Could this be the last event of this year's festival?

After weeks of weather-related delays, at last the announcement arrived in the Wellingtonista inbox:

The Bucket Fountain TRANSPLASTICISM is in existance in Cuba Mall for the next two and a half days. [...] You are invited to attend and view the work. [...]

The installation will be removed late on Saturday night so please hurry if you wish to view this unique happening.

The Wellingtonista understands that this event involves several tonnes of clay, the Bucket Fountain, and a station wagon. And who could resist, especially given the involvement of everyone's favourite Wellington icon, the Bucket Fountain?

(Thanks to Andrew for the photo!.)

Open up

Hi all, this is my first post as a Wellingtonista. There's a slew of new shops, galleries and entertainment venues opening at the moment, so I thought I'd start with a quick roundup.

The Bartley Nees Gallery on the corner of Blair and Wakefield streets is undergoing mitosis and splitting itself into Tim Nees Gallery and something calling itself Society of Fashion and Art (SOFA for short). The former will be adding some new artists to its roster, including photographer Rebecca Shanahan, whose work apparently "expresses stillness rather than action in circular or simultaneous rather than linear time". SOFA sounds like it will pretty much do what it says on the tin, selling clothes by Mala Brajkovic, Miss Crabb, Cybèle and Lela Jacobs as well as providing a project space for local artists. Once this all kicks off on Saturday (with a talk by Rebecca Shanahan and a video work by Sarah Jane Parton) this will turn the Wakefield end of Blair St into a tight little cluster of arty fashiony architecty goodness to complement the boozier ambience of the Courtenay end.

For the less fashion-conscious (but presumably still well-heeled), Courtenay Central has The Flight Experience, a 737 jet simulator. For a mere $95 you can take a 45 minute scenic flight of Wellington, or at least a bunch of pixels designed to look like Wellington. I know that you could actually fly to Christchurch for less than that, but I guess the ability to fiddle with knobs and joysticks is more important than actually getting somewhere, and you can intentionally experience landings like these. Anyway, congratulations to the promoters for getting lots of free advertising in both the Dominion Post and the Capital Times (and now here). The Capital Times article includes the possibly sinister information that if you try to fly into the Majestic Centre (personally I'd go for the NZ Post building on Waterloo Quay) they will "take that to the authorities".

Possibly aiming for a rapprochement between such overt blokeishness and the label-conscious fashionistas of Blair Street, a new Swanndri store will open tomorrow morning in Hunter Street (between Minnie Cooper and Keith Matheson). This is not your typical supplier of bush shirts and gumboots (a traditional Swanndri stockist is Wrightsons in Te Awamutu): no, this is "Swanndri by Karen Walker". Struth, mate! A peek in the window reveals suitably ironic kiwiana decor such as stuffed ducks and antler chandeliers. Swanndri are clearly aiming to do a Burberry by transforming a mainstay of rural clothing into urban chic, so if Burberry is anything to go by, the "iconic Swanndri check" will be worn by celebs for a couple of years before becoming the exclusive domain of chavs and Japanese tourists.

Wellington v. Baku

Tom over at WellUrban has been leading the campaign to get Wellington added to the excellent GridSkipper site (an online urban travel guide which is part of the same online blog empire that includes Gawker, Defamer and Gizmodo, amongst others).

As such, Wellington is now in competition with Baku - capital of Azerbaijan - for a hallowed spot on GridSkipper. And if we can't rally enough votes to see off the Bakuites (Bakites? Bakunians? Bakuista?), well, we probably don't deserve that spot.

Head over to here to vote.

UPDATE. The GridSkipper poll was playing up, but should be back now. Go here, scroll down a bit, and there it is. (Wellington winning by 47 to 31 votes at the time of writing this).

Best things-to-do in Wellington post. Ever.

Tom puts us to shame. He really does.

something 4 the weekend

If you've become all festivalled out recently, or, like this Wellingtonista seem to find the whole thing sliding by you without seeming to make any impact despite best intentions otherwise, then take heart: life does continue elsewhere.

For example, this weekend, the suburban environmentalist can get their car's emissions checked at:

[...] the Westpac Stadium car park on Saturday 18 March, between 10am and 4pm. Your car can have a 'drive through' test using NIWA's high-tech laser air emission equipment. It will give you an instant readout of your car's exhaust emission levels. This will tell you how clean your car is running, or whether its emissions levels are too high. The check is FREE and should take only a couple of minutes. Entry to the Stadium car park is along Aotea Quay, heading towards the motorway.

Or, if that doesn't float your boat (it doesn't really compare to Festival activities, now does it), how about Tuatara Day up at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, a.k.a. Jurassic Park?

[...] for a guaranteed encounter with these ancient reptiles, come along to our Tuatara Day on Saturday 18 March. Between 11am and 3pm, visitors will get the opportunity to see and touch these 'living dinosaurs'. [...] There will be a range of activities for all the family, including face-painting, a 'tuatara teaser' quiz and sausage sizzle.

It's all out there to be had, in this city of ours.

You know you're from...

Jimmy Jangles has produced a handy guide to knowing which part the Greater Wellington region you're from...

• You know you're from Wellington when...
• You know you're from The Hutt when...
• You know you're from Porirua when...

Particularly like the Wellington trait of being able to "...detect 27 different shades of black suit."

UPDATE! Old news apparently - Wanda Harland posted this last year.

So here's our man again...

So here's our man again. This time I have a bit more information.

His name is India Bharti (sounds suspiciously like Doderiol Fharti to me), and he is, without doubt the very best Bhartiphone player I have ever heard! No kidding.

Of course, he is also the only Bhartiphone player I have ever heard, but even if there were lots of them, even if Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page had collaborated on a Bhartiphone album... I reckon old India would still be right up there.

Anyway. He's here, Manners Mall, sounds great, and he gave me an opportunity to lean back against a window & ogle passers by listen. And I bought his latest album.

And he has a website.

India Bharti