Last Tues­day, I was drawn like a fly to a pile of fish­heads to the Over­seas Ter­min­al for the launch of Fish­Head magazine. I had to sort out the Mol­lusc for try­ing to step into my ter­rit­ory. How many anonym­ous trouble­makers does this town need, after all?

The adven­ture star­ted with a boat ride from Queen’s Wharf, where enter­tain­ment came in the form of gir­affe-esque mod­els in ridicu­lous heels try­ing to clam­ber into the trawl­er. They still man­aged the task bet­ter than one Wel­ling­tonista whose flail­ing arm knocked the lens out of some unfor­tu­nate gen­tle­man’s glasses. Per­haps she was unsteady on her feet because of being unchar­ac­ter­ist­ic­ally sober?

The sev­en minute voy­age across the har­bour seemed to have been planned entirely so the hip­sters could get their “on a boat” badge on Foursquare. Oh hip­sters and their ador­able need to col­lect things. Any­one would think that their lives were hol­low and empty or some­thing. Things got more lively on land, where we were wel­comed by Batu­cada, fish­heads firmly in place.

fish head battacuda
The band soun­ded great out­side, march­ing back and for­ward and hit­ting their per­cus­siony bits. When they came inside later on, it was a little too loud though, so this Fly was­n’t suprised to see guests slip­ping out­side to get their Titan­ic on.

I'm the king of the world
It was a beau­ti­ful day out­doors, but things were pretty inside too, espe­cially as the wine and beer flowed freely. Kudos to the ven­ue staff who brought bottles to the tables. Kudos also for the amaz­ing wood­fired pizza that kept com­ing around. Good host respons­ib­il­ity there.

inside the venue
Things were going well with the speeches, until Kerry Pren­derghastly took the stage. When she asked if we could hear her, this Fly heard someone yelling out “No – maybe you should build anoth­er road to our ears”. Not a pop­u­lar lady. Espe­cially not when her stand­ard “Wel­ling­ton is awe­some and it’s all thanks to me” speech morph­ed into an attack on Ray Api­hene-Mer­cer and how she’s going to win the next elec­tion. I’m a fly, and I flour­ish in shit, but that was way out of line, even by my lack of stand­ards. In fact, I was so dis­gus­ted that I had to buzz off then. But thank you Fish­Head, for an oth­er­wise great launch, and we wish you all the best. Except for you, Mol­lusc – I’ll deal with you anoth­er time…