On Stuff this morning there is an article from Reuters in which they tell you how to "get the most from a short stay in the perfectly formed capital of New Zealand". Awww, that's nice of them, but I suppose it is perfect.

Here are some of the more interesting parts:

• Calculate the wind speed over a local brew at one of the city's renowned boutique breweries, Mac's Brewery
• If the weather is fine then a day trip across Cook Strait to Picton at the top of the South Island is a treat. But equally tempting is a tour of the Wairarapa wine district
• ...have a cool restoring drink at The General Practioner, a modern interpretation of a traditional pub
• Cuba Street has its own selection of late night watering holes, a favorite is the Matterhorn in the Cuba Mall near the eccentric bucket fountain.
• A visit to the national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, is a must. It sits on the waterfront in an ugly, bunker-style building
• Lunch at one of Te Papa's eateries or nip a couple of blocks to SYN bar in Bond Street where Hell Pizzas will tempt you with dishes called Lust, Gluttony and Envy.

I have to say the itinerary does include a lot of drinking (which we also endorse) but it all seems to be in pubs (except the Matterhorn of course).

Naturally I've only selected bits of the article, but tell us what you think you'd tell people to do if they had 48hours to spend in Wellington (oh and no car, the Reuters story often mentions the bus, yay!)

One of the more excellent things we've seen land in the Wellingtonista's intray that allows harried parents to entertain their kids for FREE these holidays, is the Film Festival taking place down at the Film Archive. So if you've got a loved one at home looking after some housebound kiddy-winkles, give 'em a call and tell them to head along...

Classic Cartoons for Kids includes the world's first Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie (1928), Walt Disney classics To Itch His Own (1958) and Ferdinand the Bull (1938), plus a 1933 puppet animation by New Zealand's own Len Lye. Also on the programme is Maurice Sendak's classic childrens tale Where The Wild Things Are (1973). This programme is for children aged 5-12.

Animation Nation - New Zealand Animation 1936-2006 collects New Zealand animations from the past 70 years for an audience of kids aged 10-13+. The programme takes in classic stop-motion, claymation and 3D animation. One of the highlights of Animation Nation is Mr Stinky's World of Trash (2006), a 3D film made by local animator Mike Heynes. Visitors to the screening will be given a special pair of glasses to enhance the effect of characters leaping out from the screen and moving in space! Also on the entirely New Zealand bill are two films by Len Lye including The Birth of the Robot (1936), and James Cunningham's award winning digital animation Delf (1997). This programme is for children aged 10-13+.

Both programmes run for approximately 45 minutes are guaranteed to entertain kids and their parents. The Archive will selling it's usual range of coffee, tea and refreshments to hungry Kids Film Festival goers.

Location: New Zealand Film Archive Mediatheatre
Time: 11am

• Wednesday 4th July
  Classic Cartoons for Kids (Ages 5-12)
• Monday 9th July
  Stop Motion, Claymation & 3D (Ages 10-13+)
• Tuesday 10th July
  Classic Cartoons for Kids (Ages 5-12)
• Wednesday 11th July
  Stop Motion, Claymation & 3D (Ages 10-13+)

[photo: frame enlargement from The Birth of the Robot (1936) by Len Lye. courtesy of the Len Lye Foundation Collection; New Zealand Film Archive / Ngä Kaitiaki O Ngä Taonga Whitiähua]

The Wellingtonista crew have maintained a perfect year-long balance of naughty and nice. However, if you are the type of person who might find a lump of coal in their stocking on December 25, then this weekend offers you a chance to get back in the big man's good books.

It's the annual Farmers' Santa Parade this Sunday. The parade starts at 2pm at the corner of Lambton and Balance and travels down to Manner's Mall (see map a bottom of post). There will also be pre-parade entertainment from 1pm.

This year’s parade will feature a fantastic line-up of all your favourite celebrity characters like: Sponge Bob Square Pants, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Dora the Explorer, and Bananas in Pyjamas - just to name a few!

Well maybe not ALL your favourite celebrity characters (where's Paris Hilton?!).

And for those of you thinking you'll head along just to beat the kids at the lolly-scrambles, remember, Santa checks that list twice!

[Your intrepid reporter Hadyn has been traveling the globe for the last month. When I say “globe” I mean Tokyo, London and Paris.]

Ah Paris! City of romance, city of beauty, city of food. But how does it stack up against the world’s other great capital cities? (Just to recap Tokyo currently leads London and Wellington.)

Public transport: Well the trains ran on time, but to be honest we didn’t travel during rush hour. The trains were also quite old and you had to open the doors yourself. The stations were nice though, not too hot. And there was cellphone coverage. This places it ahead of London but still WAY below Tokyo. Damn they had a good system!

Rubbish: The streets of Paris are world renown for the content of their streets. Parisians are able to walk around the canine deposits without even looking down. Some tourists weren’t so lucky. Not us though, we knew. Everyday attendants flush the gutters of the city and wash out all of the filth, so it’s not too bad. There are also, like London, plentiful rubbish bins. Or rather bags. Some of them were yellow which denoted recycling. Paris still loses to the British though (just).

Wifi: Everywhere in Paris has wifi and just to make it better it was a free. Libre Wifi! Even our hotel (which I heartily recommend btw) had a strong signal which meant I didn’t have to lug the laptop around the city.

Weather: Hot, but it has been hot everywhere. London’s rain forecast turned out to be bollocks. All three cities had their uncomfortable moments of heat with Japan being the only country that used air conditioning. So it’s equal marks for all three cities and a look of shame for Wellington’s regular attempt at summer.

Coffee: The harbour capital still reigns supreme. French coffee was better than both Tokyo and London but falls short of even a bad Wellington short black.

Food: London has a great range of food places, mainly sandwich places and cafes (not cafés). Paris has far more bars and brasseries and restaurants. But the award goes to Tokyo which has so many eateries that to visit ach one would take well over a decade.

London took a few licks in the last bout and so came out swinging with some of the most beautiful public parks I have seen. Hyde Park and Green Park being my favourites. The fact that they have squirells just makes it that much cooler.

But then Wellington tagged in and took down both Tokyo and London with a steel chair to the back, thus holding aloft the coveted Metropolis title belt.

• Wellington: Bars open to the break of dawn public transport open till 3am (on some routes) and taxis are usually cheap as chips.
• Tokyo: Bars open till the break o' break of dawn, Transport finishes at midnight, taxis cost a bomb.
• London: the transport and the bars BOTH stop at (or before) midnight.

We discovered this on Saturday when we strolled into our first bar after dinner (the very arty Foundry in Old Street) and we're told that the bar was closed. CLOSED! at 11 on a Saturday night! The only places that were open were very dodgy clubs with long lines of slappers outside.

Your intrepid reporter Hadyn has been traveling the globe for the last week or two. When I say "globe" I mainly mean Japan, though today is my first day in London. If I had to pit the cities against each other, in some sort of metropolis prize fight, I would have Tokyo wiping the floor with London.

Language barriers: Tokyo is in Japan and hence they speak Japanese, but helpfully they attempt to speak English. This is not the case in London, where they think that they are speaking English when in fact they are speaking some strange dialect of mumbles and grunts that always ends in "yeah?" Tokyo 1-London 0

Transport: Both London and Tokyo have a brilliant transport system. Both are fairly well signposted (in Japan all of the signs were in English as well as Japanese). Both are fairly fast. Both have a good circular service for the central city. The downsides are that Tokyo's service for all trains ends at midnight. London's downfall is the unreliability of its trains. A fire alarm at oxford circus this morning had a station full of people waiting at Paddington Station waiting at one platform. When a train arrived it was incorrectly announced which caused most people to have to quickly jump off again. The announcement for the correct train came over: "Sorry about that, platform one travelers. Your train is delayed at Edgware Rd, I don't know why, it's just sitting there". Tokyo 2 – London 0

Rubbish bins: The only bins in Tokyo are beside vending machines. Admittedly vending machines are almost everywhere in Tokyo but it is still annoying when you need to get rid of gum. Also, they separate their rubbish or at least that's how it looks. They may have different slots but it all goes into the same bin. London has bins everywhere. Tokyo 2 - London 1

Weather: Tokyo was HOT, like 32 degree highs and 29 degree lows. Here in London I am wearing my jacket I'd wear in Wellington (during our famous summers). Tokyo's heat was quite uncomfortable but it was HEAT and I like heat. London is clear at the moment but the forecast for the next few days is rain. Rain. Tokyo 3 – London 1

There are a couplke of things to look forward to this Wintry Wellington Weekend.

1. The Feast of Fools
From 7pm Saturday the annual winter solstice festival will kick off. There will be music, performances (of what, I don't know), food, drink and "much merry banter". Also there will be the choir of St Mary of the Angels and a "mystery play".

Money raised by the feast will go to restoration of St Mary of the Angels' Maxwell Fernie Organ.

2. Un-named beach festival
Earlier Saturday, like 8am, on Lyall Bay beach there will be another Solstice event. This one steeped in ancient lore and devised by Druids. Apparently there will also be swimming, but it is strictly voluntary.

Shadows grow longer, leaves turn to russet and fall to the damp earth, and an autumnal chill settles upon our fair city. So what better time to celebrate the new life and fruitfulness of spring?

Yes, Easter is upon us, so we should prepare ourselves for serious contemplation of the greatest miracle of all. Chocolate.

The good people at Truffle are always ready to help celebrate the abundance of nature, or at least the edible portion of it, and they have some special goodies for the season. Bags of Piedmontese chocolate eggs by Venchi are a snip at $14.95 for 135 grams, and they're also stocking some special items from Wellington's favourite alchemists of confectionery, Schoc. Those with a farmyard fetish can pretend that they're in a Cadbury's ad and gorge themselves on chocolate rabbits and poultry, while aesthetes might prefer the one-off hand-painted hollow eggs. In the same vein as their Christmas bars (real gold, frankincense and myrrh), they offer Easter chocolate bars flavoured like hot cross buns. What sorcery is this?!?

Of course, when one thinks of Easter, one thinks of cabaret. No? Must just be me then. But it seems that others think the same way, since on Good Friday Sandwiches will be home to "Sheba's Dirty Thirties Cabaret". Anyone who's seen one of Sheba's cabaret performances (such as at last year's Midnight Burlesque) will know that "dirty" won't be an exaggeration.

For those who prefer a more sedate cabaret experience, Eateria de Manon (by all accounts the best French restaurant south of Majoribanks St) is having a tribute to Edith Piaf on Sunday night. For $55 you get a three course meal and live music from local Piafophiles Sans Souci. I'm not sure what will be on the menu for the night, but they are known for such dishes as squash and pork trotter soup, brioche-crumbed lambs brains and squid stuffed with wild goat. While those of a sentimental persuasion can ooh and ahh over cutely gamboling easter lambs, isn't it nice to think that some of us will be eating their brains?