some of the prizes were AWESOME!Drum­roll, please!

(Almost) Live, from Mighty Mighty, we relay to you the results of the First Annu­al Welling­ton­ista Awards for Out­stand­ing Achieve­ment in the Field of Excel­lence!

Com­pered (and com­men­tary) by Welling­ton­ista’s own Jo Hubris!

1. When I am not hav­ing a mar­ti­ni, I like to drink a:
There were clear­ly only two real con­tenders for this award, although var­i­ous stay-at-home type peo­ple thought that their write-in results were more wor­thy. Per­haps it was­n’t clear enough that the cat­e­go­ry was basi­cal­ly “best cock­tail” as peo­ple nom­i­nat­ed venues with­out a spe­cif­ic drink. In the end, it came down to a one point dif­fer­ence. The run­ner-up was a Falling Water at the Mat­ter­horn,
And the win­ner is: a caipir­in­ha at Havana.

2. I spent all my rent mon­ey on din­ner here, but at least when the bailiffs beat me to death I will die bliss­ful­ly:
If the Welling­ton­ista ever goes in pur­suit of the almighty adver­tis­ing dol­lar, we prob­a­bly don’t want to let on what some of our read­ers rat­ed as an expen­sive eat­ing expe­ri­ence. In the end, the result was­n’t too sur­pris­ing. The run­ner-up was Fran­cois,
And the win­ner is Logan Brown.

3. I found $20 in my flat­mate’s room, so it’ll be din­ner at:
Peo­ple who nom­i­nat­ed their favourite Malaysian restau­rants got count­ed as a vote for Malaysian any­where, because there are so damn many Malaysian places in town. Not that we’re com­plain­ing about that. The run­ner-up, Sweet Moth­er’s Kitchen had a good show­ing, but in the end was obvi­ous­ly defeat­ed by those damn Asian crim­i­nals that Deb­o­rah Cod­ding­ton believes are invad­ing New Zealand.
And the win­ner is Malaysian any­where.

4. When even Win­ston Peters has gone to bed, the best bar to go to is:
One vot­er sug­gest­ed that Peters sleeps dur­ing the day, so the best bar would be a table out­side Leu­ven in the sun. Almost every­one else thought that a late night trip to Cuba St was in order, with fierce com­pe­ti­tion between the three bars in that area. In the end, Good Luck was the run­ner up.
And the win­ner is Havana. Per­haps it’s a case of caipi­ra­nias all around.

5. Good things hap­pen in the sub­urbs too, hon­est — like this place:
Who knew that Welling­to­ni­ans could be so snob­by? Sev­er­al vot­ers claimed that noth­ing good ever hap­pens in the sub­urbs and it was there­fore a trick ques­tion. But it turned out that what we like best is to eat by the beach, and so the results came down to a one point mar­gin again.
The run­ner-up was the Choco­late Fish Café in Seatoun, with their famous six dol­lah shakes.
And the win­ner is the Maranui Surf Club, Lyall Bay. Good luck get­ting a table there now!

6. The Welly solu­tion to a hang­over is:
Only one vot­er had com­ment­ed ear­li­er that they did­n’t drink, so it was fair­ly log­i­cal to think that peo­ple would need to have an easy solu­tion to a hang­over at hand. The run­ner up was cof­fee any­where, but Welling­to­ni­ans are obvi­ous­ly bloody com­mu­nists and beat­niks.
And the win­ner is: Brunch at Fidel’s.

7. The place that’s like, so total­ly over is:
This was an amus­ing cat­e­go­ry to score. Both the Mat­ter­horn and Dock­side attract­ed strong­ly word­ed expres­sions of dis­gust in the mar­gins, like “the pre­ten­sion is becom­ing pal­pa­ble” or just a sim­ple “UGH!“ But giv­en the afore­men­tioned pop­u­lar­i­ty of the Falling Water, the Mat­ter­horn was­n’t going to win. The run­ner up was Dock­side.
And the win­ner, with­out any com­ments, is Jet Bar.

8. The sin­gle best thing I’ve had in my mouth all year:
Hon­est­ly, you peo­ple. Kudos for say­ing “my new boyfriend“, and kudos to those who named var­i­ous tasty-sound­ing food items. The win­ner was the only item to receive mul­ti­ple votes, but at over 10% on a write-in answer, they must be doing some­thing right.
And the win­ner is Schoc Choco­late.

9. How I enter­tain those from out of town who might not want to drink all day:
As one vot­er put it “I don’t have any friends who don’t like to drink“. Still, if hypo­thet­i­cal­ly you did, some unlucky tourists would be giv­en a tour of the Hutt, because all ghet­tos look the same. The view from Mt Vic was just beat­en out of the run­ner-up spot by a trip to Moore Wilson’s. But you’ll prob­a­bly get some strange looks if you go and make out at Moories.
And the win­ner is: Te Papa. Helped along by a vote from some­one who works there

10. My favourite part of town is:
Although Tom put a lot of pres­sure behind his whole “Chur­ton Park is so hot right now” move­ment, almost every­body vot­ed for the win­ner. Willis Quar­ter got no love at all (which is fair enough, because there’s like, noth­ing there), and Lambton Quay was the run­ner-up, but by a very long shot,
The win­ner is: Cuba Quar­ter.

11. Welling­ton most needs:
Accord­ing to you lot, there are many things that Welling­ton needs, includ­ing a big­ger run­way at the air­port, a dayspa, a new coun­cil, and one fel­low went so far as to include a “vote for me when I run!”. Oth­ers think sal­va­tion lies in roller skates, and in a clear demon­stra­tion that some­one is out of our key demo­graph­ic, one per­son even vot­ed for a bypass. Clev­er­er peo­ple tried to com­bined things, call­ing for a tiki bar-themed light rail to the aquar­i­um. Ulti­mate­ly though, our heads over­ruled our liv­ers, rel­e­gat­ing a tiki bar to run­ner-up sta­tus.
And the win­ner is: light rail.

12. The event that made me get off my arse the most:
It’s pos­si­ble that with Welling­ton’s pro­lif­er­a­tion of film fes­ti­vals this ques­tion was a lit­tle like the Malaysian food one, but chances are peo­ple were vot­ing for the grand-dad­dy of film fes­ti­vals rather than small­er ones like the Palm Fes­ti­val. Craftwerk put up a strong fight, but was the run­ner-up.
And the win­ner is: the film fes­ti­vals. Because we would­n’t want to have to get up off our ass­es too much.

13. If I was­n’t eat­ing out all the time this is how I’d DIY it food source:
A cou­ple of peo­ple who vot­ed for New World point­ed out that they were embar­rassed that was their answer and they would rather be vot­ing for Moore Wilson’s. They did­n’t need to though, as it romped home as the clear win­ner.

14. I look good because I am dressed by:
My moth­er dress­es some of you guys, appar­ent­ly. So does your moth­er. And your girl­friends. And your wives. And your daugh­ters. This would imply that men are use­less, and so it is a lit­tle iron­ic that the win­ner was Manda­to­ry.

15. You can nev­er buy too much stuff from:
There was no clear win­ner for this cat­e­go­ry, because it was so wide open. So instead, we will say that you can nev­er buy too much from Par­son­’s, Real Groovy, Iko Iko and Baby­li­cious, as they were all tied for first place.

16. Most bad­dest wickedest evilest supervil­lan of the year:
It seems that some vot­ers are too nice or naïve for their own good, as this was the only cat­e­go­ry with pre­set nom­i­nees that more than one per­son chose to skip. Some media-savvy picked the Domin­ion Post as the bad­dest, and in a case of “blogs are the new news­pa­pers” blog­ger DPF was also nom­i­nat­ed. The weath­er was a pop­u­lar write-in, with the fog tying with pro­lif­ic vit­ri­olic let­ter-writer H.Westfold, Hataitai for sec­ond place. How­ev­er, it’s quite obvi­ous who is the most evil per­son in Welling­ton, and so the win­ner needs no expla­na­tion, although the vot­er who wrote “She made Jo upset because she took her table at Boulot” (twice!) gets a spe­cial men­tion.
And the win­ner is: Ker­ry Pren­der­gast.

17. Damn I’m proud you’re from Welling­ton entertainer(s):
You know that all the nom­i­nees from this cat­e­go­ry are prob­a­bly all in bed togeth­er right now, don’t you? Take a minute to think about that visu­al. Hott. This was an extreme­ly close race, with Fat Fred­dy’s Drop being one point below a three-way tie for the top
And the win­ners are: The Phoenix Foun­da­tion and Flight of the Con­chords.

18. I love you the mostest Welling­ton­ian of the year:
You know who we love the mostest? You peo­ple who vot­ed for an amaz­ing selec­tion of peo­ple as your favourite Welling­to­ni­ans, includ­ing musi­cians like Barn­a­by Weir, Hol­lie Smith, Jon Too­good and War­ryn Maxwell. You vot­ed for your girl­friends, pen­pals and man­agers. You vot­ed for pho­tog­ra­ph­er slash scen­ster Blink and the late, great author Nigel Cox. You vot­ed for fash­ion design­er Lau­rie Foon, and food­ies Remiro Bresolin and the woman who works in the crepe shop. You vot­ed for Pub­lic Address peo­ple Kei­th Ng and Che Tib­by, Welling­ton­istas Tom and Martha, and the peo­ple behind Zoomin. You vot­ed for groups like Craft­work and the Real Hot Bitch­es. One vote was for a sports per­son — Jer­ry Collins — and one vote was for the sculp­ture com­mit­tee, but the win­ner was a man in a loin cloth.
That’s right. You love Blan­ket­man the most. Now go and give him a hug.

19. Best for­eign per­son or group to come to lit­tle old Welling­town
Poor John Howard. Not a sin­gle per­son vot­ed for him. I think we should all take a moment to say sor­ry. In a con­tro­ver­sial write-in, one per­son vot­ed for Ani­mal Col­lec­tive as the best group, while anoth­er vot­ed for them as the worst group ever to come here because of their refusal to do an encore. Some peo­ple vot­ed for Elton John, even though he has­n’t actu­al­ly been here yet.
But of coruse, the win­ners are the Rolling Stones.

20. Best dub dub duber- Web-Writ­ing-Welling­ton­ian
You did­n’t have to vote for a mem­ber of the Welling­ton­ista in this cat­e­go­ry, but most of you did. Evi­dence of our indi­vid­ual cam­paign­ing can be found in the votes of peo­ple who did­n’t both­er fill­ing in any oth­er cat­e­go­ry.
And the win­ner is: Tom Beard.

21. If this build­ing was a per­son, I would be mak­ing sweet luu­urve to it right now:
There are a lot of hott build­ings around, evi­dent­ly. One vot­er loved the Futu­na Chapel “so much it hurts”, but more peo­ple love the Embassy the­atre which takes the run­ner-up posi­tion.
And the win­ner is: the Welling­ton Pub­lic Library.

22. My cul­ture fix­es are prin­ci­pal­ly deliv­ered by:
Nat­u­ral­ly, we are the most cul­tured city in New Zealand, and this is evi­denced by the num­bers of peo­ple who ticked “all of the above” in this cat­e­go­ry. But that’s not good enough, so luck­i­ly still more peo­ple vot­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly, leav­ing us with Uni­ty Books as the run­ner-up, although oth­er book­shops were writ­ten in.
And the win­ner is: The Para­mount The­atre.

23. This sub­urb is so hot right now:
To the two peo­ple who vot­ed for John­sonville as So Hot Right Now — you’re ridicu­lous. Hataitai was the run­ner-up in this cat­e­go­ry, but it must stand back to watch the hot three-way tie between Island Bay, New­town and Petone as the win­ners.

24. For­get park­ing places, the best park is:
Wai­t­an­gi Park is per­haps not as con­tro­ver­sial as the papers would like you to think it is, as it takes sec­ond place in this cat­e­go­ry, but old­er is appar­ent­ly bet­ter with the Botan­i­cal Gar­dens in first place by a land­slide.

25. Best pub­lic art:
One vot­er tried to tell us that the “ferns” in Civic Square were actu­al­ly Nikau palms. We instruct­ed him to go and lie down in the cen­tre of the square and look up. This was­n’t enough to get the ferns to win though, as the water whirler beat it to the run­ner-up plac­ing — despite nev­er being on.
And the win­ner is that cul­tur­al insti­tu­tion the Buck­et Foun­tain.

26. In 2007 I will resolve to:
You’re going to be doing a lot of worth­while things next year, like going to more live gigs, being more eco-friend­ly and endeav­our­ing to get the hell out of the Hutt Val­ley more often. If you do make it as far as run­ning for city coun­cil, per­haps we’ll vote for you although we can’t sup­port the per­son who said that they’re going to be learn­ing to enjoy mar­ti­nis less. Tied for first place we have vis­it­ing more art gal­leries, sup­port­ing local busi­ness­es instead of chains, and learn­ing to enjoy drink­ing mar­ti­nis, so we sug­gest that maybe all three could be done at once. Enjoy!