Author: Joanna

What’s the real reason the Miss Universe pageant has moved to Wellington?

 Last year the Miss Uni­verse New Zea­l­and pageant was held in Lev­in. Which makes sense, because Lev­in is actu­ally pretty much the centre of the uni­verse, based on the laws of grav­ity and dense­ness and all that kind of sci­en­cey stuff. And this kind of shock­ing beha­viour happened at the event: 

The beauty queens sash­ayed their way through Lev­in and Par­a­pa­raumu shop­ping malls last year, leav­ing eld­erly shop­pers agog.

But this year, the pageant is mov­ing to Wel­ling­ton: 

Event organ­iser Val Lott has instead opted to hold the final in Wel­ling­ton after a “gor­geous” day out at the Wel­ling­ton Cup. “The [Lev­in] event centre was not set up well enough. The cater­ing was not up to stand­ard. It cost a dread­ful amount of money,” Mrs Lott said.

But one com­ment­at­or on the art­icle sug­gests that there is a much deep­er con­spir­acy going on:

I think this is all com­plete rub­bish, and the organ­iser just wants to glam the thing up and get rid of the ruggeds that might oth­er­wise have atten­ded.

So what exactly is going on here? Are we through the look­ing glass? Do we even need to men­tion Terry Serepisos here, giv­en that it’s Don­ald Trump who owns the Miss Uni­verse fran­chise? 

Answer the poll – The Miss Uni­verse Pageant is mov­ing to Wel­ling­ton because: 

Good bastards like you to drink vodka

 42Below’s founder Geoff Ross has writ­ten a book with his wife Justine about the story behind the vodka called Every Bas­tard Says No. They’re hav­ing a book launch this Fri­day at the’Ho that’s sup­posedly invite-only but we bet you could sneak in if you were smart enough. In order to pro­mote the book, I got to inter­view Geoff and Justine via email (my choice, things are crazy hec­tic this week at the Wel­ling­tonista towers), but of course since it’s not released until April 30, I was­n’t sure what to ask. Vari­ous Wel­ling­tonis­tas help­fully sug­ges­ted I should enquire about the War Memori­al Scan­dal – but that’s not related to the book – or the allegedly homo­phobic ad cam­paign in the USA, but I know noth­ing about that. And I don’t want to risk hav­ing my oppor­tun­it­ies for free booze taken away from me. I’m a blog­ger, not a journ­al­ist, after all. So, after the jump, I lob some soft balls at them, and Justine in par­tic­u­lar impresses me with her love for Wel­ling­ton. 

Ques­tions and answers with Geoff

1. Why did you start with vodka? What is it about the spir­it that drew you to it?  

I drunk it. And actu­ally more spe­cially I saw more and more Vodka Cock­tails emer­ging. Vodka is the Switzer­land of Spir­its – it goes with any­thing. And with the re birth of cock­tails I could see it being the uni­ver­sal ingredi­ent. Also New Zea­l­and seemed it might have some cred with Vodka. We couldn’t do Tequila or Scotch because of Provence – but Vodka kind of fit­ted. (someone  once told me New Zea­l­and was the Sweden of the South pacific) 

Week Ends & Odds April 12

Some link lov­ing for you to start your week right.

• There’s a new hair salon on Cuba Street called Wildilocks. The pretty girls like it. 
• Met­link Wel­ling­ton have star­ted a twit­ter account to keep bus riders informed of delays. They could prob­ably use some feed­back about it. 
• The Auck­land­ista point out that Wel­ling­ton’s social page pic­tures in the Sunday Star Times are of Ladies’ Night at the Estab­lish­ment. How embar­rass­ment. 
• You like food reviews? Here’s one of the Cel­lar-Vate din­ner for Coney Wines. 
• Richter City Roller Derby is throw­ing a Quiz Night Fun­draiser on April 28 at the Watusi. You should go along, but be warned – the Wel­ling­tonista team will prob­ably beat you.

What else should we know about? 

200 People I Used To Know

Toby Mor­ris is pretty fam­ous in Wel­ling­ton for his awe­some gig posters, and for his time in Bat­rider. 

Now he’s star­ted a new pro­ject, called 200 People I Used To Know

This blog is my memor­ies of 200 dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters I’ve known over the years, drawn and writ­ten about as I remem­ber them. So I hope I remem­ber right.

Because this is Wel­ling­ton, we bet you will know at least half of the people too (Hi Jimmy!), so you should check it out, and thank The Morgue for giv­ing us the hot tip. 

What up, Easter?

 So today we asked on Twit­ter for people to tell us what’s going to be open and what’s going to be closed over East­er. This is our list so far, please feel free to add more in the com­ments. 

• Leuven is “open every day over East­er”. They get away with it because they are a res­taur­ant.
• The Malt­house is open Sat­urday and Monday and sur­charge free all the way. They’ll be clos­ing at mid­night on Thursday and the Sat­urday, how­ever. 
• Read­ings Cinema will be open. We kind of figured that, but since they took the time to reply, we thought you should know. 
• The South­ern Cross will be open “for din­ing only” all week­end. Which means they will put cut­lery on the tables and you can drink as usu­al. 

The Wellingtonista’s top ten things to do in Wellington

 This list was pub­lished in abbre­vi­ated form in the first issue of Fish­Head, which is hav­ing its launch party tonight. Here it is in all its smoking-pro­mot­ing, Ori­ent­al Bay-enra­ging glory…

1. Wander aim­lessly around the Cuba Quarter: win­dow-shop, have cof­fee, sit in the Mall & people-watch, draw or pho­to­graph the build­ings.

2. Go to the water­front on a sunny day: Put your polar­oid sunglasses on, then get some­thing nice in a cone from Kaf­fee Eis on the water­front, and go spot­ting eagle rays in the Frank Kitts park lagoon. Don’t for­get to point them out to swim­mers and people in small ves­sels.

3. Swim on the South Coast: Ori­ent­al Bay is for pussies. Any of the beaches near Seatoun are where it’s at, or if you’re hard enough, brave the surf and the cold at Lyall Bay.

4. Go bush, then go posh: Zeal­and­i­a’s all very well, but take the #14 bus to Otari/Wilton Bush for free nat­ive bush­ery, water­falls, tui and an 800-year-old rimu. At night, take the #14 in the oth­er dir­ec­tion to peek into all the expens­ive real estate along Ori­ent­al Parade and Roseneath where the res­id­ents obli­gingly leave all their lights on, and ima­gine what it would be like to be rich.

5. Hide out: Go to almost any bar that’s tucked away upstairs, in a base­ment or down an alley; Hooch, Hawthorn, Lib­rary, Good Luck, Watusi, Mighty Mighty are all gems.

6. Get cul­tured: Te Papa and the City Gal­lery are obvi­ous choices, but add vis­its to Manky Chops, the Adam Art Gal­lery and Museum of Wel­ling­ton City and Sea and you’ll feel much more well-roun­ded (and sore-footed).

7. To mar­ket, to mar­ket: Head to Wait­angi Park on Sundays for the City Market/Harbourside Mar­ket combo, plus fresh fish when the boat pull up to the dock.

Get your fresh Fishheads today

 Wel­ling­ton has a new magazine called Fish­Head and the first issue is out today. From their press release:

Fish­Head magazine will cov­er the full spec­trum of life in Wel­ling­ton includ­ing polit­ics, opin­ion, wine, food, fash­ion, loc­al issues, film, books, art, theatre, music and more.

I have yet to get my hands on a copy of it because I am wait­ing for the launch party next week, but I can tell you that at least two of the art­icles are awe­some, because I wrote them – a para­graph on why I love Wel­ling­ton, and the Wel­ling­tonista’s Top Ten Things To Do in Wel­ling­ton – albeit in edited form so as not to enrage the cit­izens of Ori­ent­al Bay.

I don’t think that Wel­ling­ton has ever had its own prop­er magazine (remem­ber UNO? hahaha!), so I, for one, wel­come the new pub­lic­a­tion.

Week Ends & Odds

Noth­ing about signs here, I prom­ise, except that a tweet I saw after the storm wished that the sign had been up so that we’d have alpha­bet soup in the har­bour right now. But in some bul­let points that you might be able to use: 

• Con­grat­u­la­tions to Ange whose Four Sea­sons Cock­tail has won her a double pass to the 42Below Cock­tail World Cup. Can you please email us your address so I can send that out to you, Ange? And the rest of you can buy tick­ets for your­self online or at the Hawthorn Lounge. The Old Museum Build­ing is a lovely ven­ue and cock­tails are always a good time. 
• Speak­ing of alco­hol-related events, Cel­lar-Vate are start­ing up their wine­maker din­ners for the year with Coney Wines on March 31. Tick­ets are $45 and are avail­able in store, or you can book on the phone. Coney make deli­cious wines, and their tast­ing notes are kind of hil­ari­ous, so it should be a good night. 
• Our cous­ins in the north, The Auck­land­ista are mak­ing a go of it again, so if you had deleted it from your book­marks due to inactiv­ity, you might want to resub­scribe. 
• We set up a form­s­pring account so y’all could ask us anonym­ous ques­tions, and while it was easy to reply if we get paid by any of the bars we men­tion (we’re not. Full dis­clos­ure though: occa­sion­ally we get treated extra nice, but only as reg­u­lars are, rather than because we wield the almighty power of teh blo­go­sphere) it’s much harder to advise on how could someone find a book­club to join. Do you guys have any answers? 

The new issue dividing our capital

First it was “Bret or Jer­maine?” then “Smash Malice or Bru­tal Pae­gent?” but now it’s time for the really big decision – which Face­book group to join – “Hey, let’s NOT have a ‘Wel­ly­wood’ sign in Wel­ling­ton“or “A WELLYWOOD sign on the Miramar Cut­ting Hill is a STUPID idea”?