Words appar­ent­ly don’t mean any­thing any­more, so here’s our best of the week cov­er­ing… a lit­tle bit more than a week. Because life. So here’s what’s good and Welling­ton-relat­ed this week!

Best adult learning option that you didn’t know about

Some peo­ple know Make Room for their won­der­ful chil­dren’s STEM edu­ca­tion class­es, but you may not be aware they run fan­tas­tic pro­grammes for adults too.  From laser cut­ting, to weld­ing, to mak­ing your own neon sign.  I just com­plet­ed the Intro­duc­tion to Ardi­uno Pro­gram­ming where we learnt to build and pro­gram cir­cuits for sen­sors, led strips and a  weath­er sta­tion.  I can’t empha­sise how much joy learn­ing as an adult is, to be pro­vid­ed with every­thing you need, shown exact­ly how to do every­thing, and to focus on t the task of learn­ing.  For most adults under a lot of stress in our day to day lives, it is a won­der­ful dis­trac­tion for two hours a week.  and I have noth­ing but praise for our teacher Nigel and his patience, as I am ter­ri­ble at lis­ten­ing.

They have mul­ti­ple loca­tions through­out the city includ­ing Mira­mar, Karori, New­lands.  They are cur­rent­ly tak­ing book­ing for next term, with some class­es start­ing next week (pos­si­bly already start­ed cos this post has sat in draft so long — Edi­tor).

Check them out here! - Nadia

Best in the pink experience

A friend What­sAp­p’d us the oth­er day:

“A very spe­cial screen­ing of the Pink Pan­ther is on at the Embassy with live music sound track by Lau­rence Ara­bia. 11am Sat­ur­day. Who wants to come?”.
What, the 1963 movie? Or one of the sequels? Weird.
Turns out she was mis­tak­en and it was a Square Eyes Fes­ti­val screen­ing of six of the ’60s car­toons that were spun-off from the films’ cred­it sequences, with a live sound­track to be pro­vid­ed by Lawrence Ara­bia. Sold!
We turned up this morn­ing to find things basi­cal­ly going off. Peo­ple dressed in pink. Many many chil­dren. Many many nos­tal­gists like me who grew up watch­ing the Pink Pan­ther Show on TV. A Pho­to­booth. Free pink dough­nuts and rasp­ber­ry cor­dial. And not only Lawrence Ara­bia but also Riki Gooch and Con­nan Mock­asin, who togeth­er impro­vised a con­tin­u­ous sound­track to the six car­toons — orig­i­nal­ly made for the­atri­cal screen­ings — for a full 45 min­utes, includ­ing extra jams in the pink-screened paus­es between car­toons. Not a note of Hen­ry Mancini’s, just a glo­ri­ous new car­toon vibe, com­plete with well-timed musi­cal fx for the many moments of clas­sic car­toon vio­lence, which judg­ing by their delight­ed guf­faws the younger mem­bers of the audi­ence lapped up.
The show — and the fes­ti­val — was expert­ly wran­gled by Nic Mar­shall who has relaunched Square Eyes since she and it left the NZIFF this year, and is now fly­ing free. Good on her and all her staff, includ­ing the young Ambas­sadors respon­si­ble for hand­ing out tick­ets, ush­er­ing and clear­ing up the pop­corn.
It’s all over for this year, but watch out for the 2025 sea­son. - Tom A

Best bakery discovery by me, a person who hadn’t been to Fix Federation before

Crunchy tiger bread with lemons

Hey, do you know what’s deli­cious? Fix Fed­er­a­tion! I hap­pened to be in Pito-one vis­it­ing my sis­ter and steal­ing her lemons, and asked her for a bak­ery rec­om­men­da­tion. I knew Fix Fed­er­a­tion was famous for their donuts, but I was­n’t expect­ing their bread to be so good too! This crunch chewy tiger bread brought back mem­o­ries of Ger­man and Japan­ese bak­eries, glo­ri­ous places that took bread seri­ous­ly, unlike the cot­ton wool tiger bread of super­mar­kets here. Very rec­om­mend­ed. And yes, the Nutel­la donut was glo­ri­ous too. - Joan­na

Ooooooozing nutella donut

Best new (to us) liminal space

There’s just some­thing about lim­i­nal spaces. Con­sid­er how uneasy you feel every time AceM­cWicked posts this one on Twit­ter. Well, we’ve got anoth­er for you to add to your list of places to do a post apoc­a­lyp­ti­cal fash­ion pho­to­shoot — in the cor­ri­dor to the toi­lets behind the café build­ing on Tory Street that hous­es Gem­i­ni, Dam­as­cus, Le Ceil and oth­ers.  Too scary to take pho­tos of. - Joan­na