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!