Hey, guess who’s been too busy with oth­er brain things to update this for a while? That’d be me. But let’s not waste time on it. Here’s the best things for a while. 

Best behaved weather of the week

Nice weath­er on a pub­lic hol­i­day allow­ing us to sit out­side around a fire and set inten­tions and let go of the things we no longer need? Cheers Tāwhir­imātea!

Best new cafe in the Cuba Street area

There’s a new place for cof­fee and snacks near the top of Cuba St, on the cor­ner of Tonks Grove, called Orange. It’s tiny but cute, with excel­lent banana bread and cheese scones (if you catch them quick enough), and a lot of cus­tomers seemed very excit­ed by the res­i­dent fluffy dog. — Tom B

Orange Cafe counter, loaded with treats

(Any­one else remem­ber the Orange Din­ing Room, next to the Bake­house Gallery in what is now Noble Rot? Any­one? Bueller? Bueller? — Edi­tor)

Best ridiculous campaign for you to get behind

We’re start­ing a cam­paign for the most des­per­ate­ly need­ed rev­o­lu­tion in Welling­ton: For Fred’s Sand­wich­es  (hey ANOTHER orange place on Cuba St that has an Insta­gram account but no web­site) to add sweet treats to their deliv­ery menu, so we can have a lit­tle dessert after our per­fect sand­wich with the last of our deli­cious cof­fee please.

The ide­al would be cups of the dreamy tiramisu from their sis­ter The Ram (yes yes, that Welling­ton-wide tiramisu review is still com­ing), but brown­ies or cook­ies would be just fine. I’ve done some exten­sive research (look­ing at their insta­gram) and found that on 23 March, “Car­rot cake w/ maple wal­nuts & brown but­ter miso cook­ies also on the menu!” so it’s not like they don’t have bak­ing on offer to the peo­ple who vis­it them instore!  Please, Fred’s, help us home work­ers out!

Best article about A DANGEROUS MENACE TO SOCIETY

The Spin­off’s The shock­ing drag sto­ry­time event Bri­an Tama­ki did­n’t want you to see. 

Threats of vio­lence against a chil­dren’s event (or any event) is unac­cept­able, and using footage from an R18 show to claim that’s what hap­pens at Drag Sto­ry Hour is fuck­ing pathet­ic. While we can’t allow grift­ing thugs to con­tin­ue to shut down events like this, Alex did a great job in shred­ding Des­tiny’s claims about the event  being unsuit­able for chil­dren.

Tama­ki and Des­tiny Church mem­bers have com­pared the drag sto­ry­time events to “the wolf dressed as granny wait­ing for [Lit­tle] Red Rid­ing Hood”, labelling it “foul preda­tor behav­iour” and “tar­get­ing our inno­cent kids with their filth”. Oth­ers have posit­ed it might just be a per­son dressed in spark­ly clothes read­ing a book.

In excel­lent news for any­one who would have been unable to make it to the live read­ing, you can catch Willy’s record­ed Face­book live any time now! I will warn you though, the last sto­ry was so beau­ti­ful it made me cry.

And if you wan­na show some sup­port to Willy, buy them a ko-fi.

Best other place for your rainbow dollars

Welling­ton Pride Fes­ti­val (WPF) is being sued by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of an anti-trans group called Les­bian Action for Vis­i­bil­i­ty Aotearoa (LAVA) after WPF made deci­sion to not accept LAVA’s request for a stall at a gala event after the com­mu­ni­ty alert­ed WPF to their anti-trans views. . The case will be heard by the Human Rights Review Tri­bunal (HRRT) in 2025. Full dis­claimer — I am a new mem­ber of the WPF Board. 

To quote co‑chair Tas­min Prichard in the New Zealand Her­ald:

Prichard said the fes­ti­val and Lava had very dif­fer­ent views on trans peo­ple.

“At the core of it, our organ­i­sa­tion believes trans peo­ple exist, deserve the same rights as oth­ers, and have a place in Pride cel­e­bra­tions. We work hard to put on a bright, colour­ful fes­ti­val every March that wel­comes thou­sands of peo­ple, whether they’re part of the rain­bow com­mu­ni­ty or are whā­nau and friends.”

Welling­ton Pride Fes­ti­val have a Givealit­tle going right now — “Funds raised by this Givealit­tle will be spent on sup­port­ing expert wit­ness­es to help us and oth­er legal costs. Any and all remain­ing fund­ing left over will be donat­ed to trans*/nonbinary sup­port caus­es and char­i­ties.”