Author: llew

Wastebustas

Spot­ted near the Mt Vic lookout.

I dunno about the Great­er Wel­ling­ton guys, but I reck­on the Wel­ling­tonista could have put all this inform­a­tion on one sign – the only dif­fernce between the two is the name of the pois­on, and the col­our of the pel­let.  

Dancing with the ‘Stas

It’s a few minutes to 6pm on a Thursday night, a mot­ley group are mak­ing their way along the Ter­race to the St Andrew’s Church Hall. Inside, there are already a dozen or so people in cas­u­al attire. These are the “Advanced Class” who came at 5pm. Many of them stay on after their class to help and coach the “Begin­ners” who are arriv­ing for their ses­sion with teach­er Michael Har­ris. The begin­ners don’t come too early, because watch­ing the advanced prac­tise is very dis­cour­aging.

This is Thursday night dan­cing.

Every 8 weeks a new begin­ners class com­mences. Last night was the second ses­sion of the latest term, and already we’re old hands at the Clap Dance and fox­trot. We’re new hands at Rock ‘n Roll. Next week, God knows what fresh hum­il­a­tions await.

Old hands have expressed delight that this ter­m’s intake is almost equal num­bers of men & women. This means the more advanced women don’t have to dance as men so much. Men nev­er have to dance as women.

The class begins with a simple war­mup in the form of the “Clap Dance”. This is because after every few steps, a lusty clap is required, before tippy-tap­ping back in towards your part­ner to bump hips. On the off chance you man­age to con­nect without dis­lo­cat­ing your part­ner­’s hips, you get an encour­aging com­ment from Michael. Me? After learn­ing the next stage of the tippy-tap­ping, which involves a spin and a clap, I found myself about 10 metres away from my part­ner & hav­ing to sprint back in from across the room to attempt my “bump”.

Some Thoughts on the Botanic Gardens

Ahem … climbs up onto soap­box. I have some­thing to say about the Botan­ic Gar­dens, the Coun­cil & Garden staff & some of the people who go there.

1. To the Wgtn City Coun­cil & Garden staff:

• Many thanks for the doggy-doo bag dis­pensers at the main gates, cable car & Rose Garden – I’m not sure if all dog own­ers have noticed them yet (more on that later), but even those of us usu­ally pack­ing more plastic than the dash­board of an 80s Japan­ese import get caught out now & then. If I’m allowed a wish list, then anoth­er one at the Glen Rd entrance and (dare I say it) Mag­pie Lawn would be grand!
   
• The ‘Get off your bikes & walk’ signs are really piss­ing some cyc­lists off, if the fre­quently ripped up signs are any­thing to go by. I think that ‘Please bike con­sid­er­ately – go slow’ signs would be a good com­prom­ise, par­tic­u­larly on those roads that are already used by cars. Every­where else, they should walk. Most cyc­lists are con­sid­er­ate any­way (not all – and more on that later too).
   
• The play­ground used to argu­ably have the greatest drink­ing foun­tain in the South­ern Hemi­sphere. What happened to it? The one there now is adequate, the oth­er was attract­ive & func­tion­al. Could we get one at the top of the Cable Car too? And (dare I say it again) Mag­pie Lawn?

More after the jump

The Waiting For God Commission

Let’s have a little com­pet­i­tion – the NZ Retire­ment Com­mis­sion­er, Diana Crossan, says she’s wanted a change of name for the Com­mis­sion for sev­er­al years, but no-one has coined a suit­able name.

Wait­ing for God, and The Golden Years were sug­ges­ted at Select Com­mit­tee, but rejec­ted (Un. Be. Liev­able.)

We’ll think of a prize as we go along, maybe a bag of Kapiti Mac­ad­amia nuts, I’m sure we can lay our hands on one of those.

So have at it in the com­ments, we’re look­ing for the best sug­ges­ted new name for the Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night Com­mis­sion, the win­ning label will be for­war­ded to Ms Crossan.

Judges decisions are final & not to be ques­tioned.

Love was in the air – conversation overheard

On my way home the oth­er night, I happened to walk past a young woman & man sit­ting on a grass verge at the Botan­ic Gar­dens. The woman was, I think, recount­ing a friend’s Valentine’s Day exper­i­ence. Here’s what I made out:

… halfway through din­ner, the guy asks, “What’s your policy on sex on the first date?”

And she says, “Nev­er”.

And so then the guy says, (and she gave a hearty & throaty laugh at this point) “In that case, I refuse to pay for din­ner…”

She was still laugh­ing and grasp­ing for the next words when I passed out of earshot. But I was impressed already, and my interest was piqued – like where were they? Had the guy picked a lovely eat­ing house of a qual­ity he thought guar­an­teed some ener­get­ic post-pran­di­al exer­tion? Or what? And is there a place in town so fant­ast­ic, your date’s knick­ers dis­solve some­where between the entree & dessert? If there is, I would have expec­ted the Masked Bar­fly to have repor­ted back already.

Or should the guy maybe invest his pre­cious funds more prag­mat­ic­ally in future, in someone more likely to deliv­er? Like a hook­er.

Midland Park, Right Now.

Any­one know what’s going on at the moment? There seems to be (for­give me my scorn) bad 80s cov­ers (Rhythm of the Night as I type this) being blas­ted accross the road so loud we can hardly hear ourselves think. Owooo Owooo.

If we needed this, we’d have Mamma Mia (the sing along ver­sion natch) blast­ing from the Wel­ling­tonista Home Theatre. Owoo owoo

But we don’t. Because we don’t. Owoo.

Water Metering & User Pays

Two of Wel­ling­ton’s lead­ers are back­ing debate on a user-pays water sys­tem to reduce Wel­ling­to­ni­ans’ reck­less con­sump­tion – now more than twice the nation­al aver­age.

Appar­ently we’re using about 400 litres of water per day, per per­son.

The bulk of it gets flushed away.

And one answer, to drive the cor­rect beha­viour of course, rather than make you behave as “they” want you to, is to install water meters on homes & charge for the usage. Just like Auck­land.

Kind of makes that 6 litre per minute shower head that Nanny was going to make us get, attract­ive.

There are pluses & minuses to this plan & we’d love to hear what you think in the com­ments

Full story here.

Bikes, Boobs, and Ballots

Just a couple of last minute remind­ers.

First, some­where in town there’s rumoured to be a bunch of boobs on bikes head­ing toward Par­lia­ment. Expect gra­tu­it­ous nud­ity, ogling & who knows what once they get to the Bee­hive.

Secondly, please do remem­ber to haul your­self out of the house tomor­row & vote. It’s your civic duty. And I want some ser­i­ous enter­tain­ment to watch tomor­row night.

Also, if any­one’s still sit­ting on a nuc­u­lar strike for one party, can­did­ate or anoth­er, now is the time to reveal it with a flour­ish & an evil “Mou­a­haha!”

Spring Festival at the Botanic Gardens

Tulips, tours, art, “Crafty Fifi”, the legendary Fairy Trina and more at this year’s Spring Fest­iv­al in the Botan­ic Gar­dens. Run­ning from 28 Septem­ber until 12 Octo­ber. I can con­firm that the recent (and typ­ic­al for this time of year) gales have not denuded the tulip gar­dens & so weath­er per­mit­ting, Tulip Sunday on the first day of the Fest­iv­al, should be a beau­ti­ful way to spend an hour or two com­mun­ing with nature. Accord­ing to the offi­cial pro­gramme:

Spring Fest­iv­al is the time to rev­el in the glor­i­ous riot of spring flower col­our and fra­grance at the Wel­ling­ton Botan­ic Garden.

Spring Fest­iv­al is proudly brought to you by Wel­ling­ton City Coun­cil, with gen­er­ous sup­port from the New Zea­l­and Com­munity Trust and the Wel­ling­ton Cable Car.

Steakout

Look­ing for a good steak in Wel­ling­ton? A week or so ago this Wel­ling­tonista was & after con­sult­ing my col­leagues, I can report back on two of the finest steaks I have tasted in this city (yes, two).

First up, it was one of those not­able occa­sions (although not a sig­ni­fic­ant one) that prompts thoughts of a nice lunch and/or din­ner.

First off lunch:

I had expressed to my loved ones, a par­tic­u­lar desire to sample either a great steak, or a great cas­soulet.

So ima­gine my delight on arriv­ing at Copita to find they had “Fil­let steak on a bed of Cas­soulet”! It was meant to be obvi­ously.

It was lovely, as was the squid entree.

Copita itself was quite under­p­at­ron­ised that day, but there was some sport to be had listen­ing to a very loud party con­sist­ing of two older gen­tle­men lunch­ing with two much young­er women. Because they were so loud we soon ascer­tained the gen­tle­men were wine­makers from the Hawkes Bay. It was­n’t obvi­ous who the women were, but we decided that if the women paid, they were prob­ably wine dis­tri­bu­tion reps, and if the men paid, hook­ers. As it hap­pens, we left before them so we’ll nev­er know!

And onto din­ner:

We decided to take the tip from the team & try the Steak Frites at Le Met­ro­poli­t­ain in Cuba St. This was served with a red wine & bone mar­row sauce & we accom­pan­ied it with a green salad & copi­ous glasses of a French wine whose name I can­’t recall.

And once again, I can recom­mend a win­ner!

Le Met­ro­poli­t­ain on this even­ing was well pat­ron­ised but not packed, in addi­tion, it’s a lovely little spot to watch pass­ers by from. The staff were attent­ive & inform­at­ive, the menu offered plenty of vari­ety & the even­ing was a rous­ing suc­cess.

I’m happy to take any oth­er decent steak recom­mend­a­tions for next year, in the com­ments.