At last those of us who are not sport­ing­ly inclined have a rea­son to vis­it the Cake Tin, and what a rea­son it is! The annu­al food show is upon us again, and I hope you’ve been train­ing. There real­ly are few things that match drink­ing large amounts of tiny lit­tle cups of wine and beer, then stum­bling upon free bacon sand­wich­es, drink­ing some more and then com­ing across more bacon sand­wich­es. It’s enough to bring tears to the eyes.

As a vet­er­an of at least one sea­son, the Welling­ton­ista thought we should prob­a­bly pro­vide some help­ful hints for this marathon event.

1. Don’t eat break­fast unless you absolute­ly can’t leave the house with­out doing so. You want to make sure you get to try every­thing at the show, right?
2. Wear extreme­ly com­fort­able shoes. You’re going to be walk­ing for at least four hours if you want to work your way around the whole sta­di­um. If you’re fash­ion con­scious, this prob­a­bly isn’t the place to care any­way, as you’ll be sur­round­ed by more sub­ur­ban­ites than food­erati.
3. Take a back­pack — do not under­es­ti­mate the amount of stuff you will end up buy­ing, espe­cial­ly wine. Remem­ber you’re going to be drunk and caught up in the hype and excite­ment of it all, and there’s noth­ing worse than car­ry­ing plas­tic shop­ping bags around for four hours.
4. Take the bus or the train to the sta­tion. You’re going to get drunk and you should­n’t need to care about dri­ving after­wards.
5. Don’t make plans for the rest of the night. Chances are you’ll be at wine and cheese explode‑o point and all you’ll be able to do will be lie on the floor alter­nat­ing between groan­ing in pain and moan­ing in plea­sure.
6. Try every­thing. Even if you’re of the “oh, I grind my own spices to form my own cur­ry paste, I am cul­tur­al­ly elite” still give the old Wat­ties cur­ry-in-a-tin type stalls a go. They can help to enforce your cul­tur­al supe­ri­or­i­ty.
7. Get out of my way if you see me. I will be on a mis­sion from Diony­sus and you do not want to come between me and free stuff.

The Food Show, Fri­day 12 May — Sun­day 14 May, 10am-6pm, West­pac Sta­di­um.