The glorious struggles of the people’s working-class rugby art sculpture

A year and a half ago we were offered a tan­tal­ising glimpse of the mod­el of the Weta Work­shop-designed Wel­ling­ton rugby sculp­ture, not­ing its resemb­lance to a pro­vin­cial juni­or rugby trophy, a knick-knack gift for a rugby-lov­ing uncle, and a vagina. And then finally the full-size sculp­ture appeared, tucked away in Jack Ilott Green, that […]

WOW 2011

It’s WOW time again, and this year’s show is the most amaz­ing and extra­vag­ant yet. But was it too extra­vag­ant this year? I’ll get to that later. Please note that this post will con­tain spoil­ers about the show, so if you’re going, don’t read it until after­wards okay?  The Wel­ling­tonista has a little pre-WOW game. […]

A Travelogue

Mark Shea is an Aus­trali­an film­maker and trav­el­er who com­bines his two loves to cre­ate short travelogues of the places he vis­its. Earli­er this year he was in Wel­ling­ton, and was inspired to get a little more in depth than his usu­al style, tak­ing to the streets to ask the loc­als what it is they […]

WOW comes early

The Wel­ling­tonista has been going along to the World of Wear­ableArt show for the past three years, and we’ve come to have a bit of affec­tion for the grand cel­eb­ra­tion of the extra­vag­ant mash-up of fash­ion, design and cos­tumery that is wear­able art. The WOW show and awards are com­ing a month early this year […]

WOP: The taste of happy

So, a couple more excur­sions to res­taur­ants with Wel­ling­ton on a Plate menus. I’m con­sid­er­ing going to the Ware­house and buy­ing a pair of elast­­ic-waisted track­pants for the rest of Wel­ling­ton on a Plate. Most recently I paid a vis­it to Cuba Street icon Floriditas and Hip­po­pot­amus at the Museum Hotel.

WOP: Give me shelter

So, Wel­ling­ton on a Plate – it’s quite good, yeah? While Joanna is a (deli­ciously) seasoned pro, this is my first year sampling the culin­ary delights of the fest­iv­al of nomz. So I figured I should share my find­ings. Here are my first two exper­i­ences – Mar­tin Bos­ley’s and Fox­glove.

Wellywood Sign Song

Comedi­an Rob­bie Ellis – who you may remem­ber for his show-stop­ping per­form­ance of Man­ners Mall Emo Song (Buslane Through My Heart) at the 2009 TAWAs – has a new video. In reac­tion to the hugely unpop­u­lar plan by Wel­ling­ton Air­port to erect a “WELLYWOOD” sign, Rob­bie has put his feel­ings into song. Sing along!

The duchess’ nice frock

“Oh, look! It’s Kate Wins­let’s wed­ding dress!” On the night of the roy­al wed­ding, while most of us were drink­ing gins and mak­ing snarky tweets about Prin­cess Beatrice’s hat (or poin­tedly not), fash­ion design­er Jane Yeh was hard at work furi­ously sketch­ing and sew­ing a rep­lica of Kate Middleton’s wed­ding dress, ready to go on […]

La Boca Loca

With the open­ing of The Roxy cinema, Miramar has sud­denly become a rather pop­u­lar little neigh­bour­hood. And now things get even more inter­est­ing with the open­ing of Mex­ic­an res­taur­ant La Boca Loca. It’s a taquer­ia – a Mex­ic­an fast food joint. But the fast food in ques­tion is centred around a selec­tion of tor­­tilla-based dishes, […]

A Cuba St cafe that’s not a cafe in Cuba St

Last week I was in sunny Napi­er, idly strolling down Dalton Street, when I came across this curi­ous cafe. Yes, it’s a cafe themed after a ’00s-era Wel­ling­ton-style cafe. Named after our cent­ral cafe dis­trict, Cuba St cafe serves Wel­ling­ton brands Havana cof­fee and t leaf T tea, and I was tickled to hear bar­be­cue […]