Their wings have not been clipped…

Last week I encour­aged Welling­to­ni­ans to get out and sup­port the Phoenix as we attempt to #SaveTheNix Plen­ty of peo­ple turned up to the sta­di­um to sup­port the team, 13,654 in fact! That’s over dou­ble what the Phoenix have had at their last few home games! So: THANK YOU! It was a fan­tas­tic evening of foot­ball […]

The Wellington Phoenix are trying to avoid bursting into flames.

In Greek mythol­o­gy, a phoenix is a long-lived bird that is cycli­cal­ly regen­er­at­ed or reborn, by aris­ing from the ash­es of its pre­de­ces­sor. In Welling­ton the Phoenix are the foot­ball team that are cur­rent­ly in a bit of poten­tial trou­ble. Accord­ing to some sources, a phoenix dies in a show of flames and com­bus­tion… one […]

What not to wear to the sevens

It’s that time of year when peo­ple will call us buz­zkills for not enjoy­ing hav­ing our streets extra-clogged with vom­it and hav­ing all of our female friends feel extra unsafe on the streets because of all the doucheca­noes who think that because they’re wear­ing a cos­tume they can harass with impuni­ty. But we’re not buz­zkills, […]

The Rugby World Cup and You, Too

Despite Hadyn’s ear­li­er post we know there’s a rea­son­able pro­por­tion of you out there (just as among the Welling­ton­ista itself) that are rel­a­tive­ly meh about this whole World Cup thing. But what­ev­er your opin­ions about the event, it has to be acknowl­edged that a lot of effort has gone into the asso­ci­at­ed off-field activ­i­ties, many […]

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 […]

Parkour update

In Novem­ber 2007 I post­ed an arti­cle about the excit­ing pur­suit of park­our in Welling­ton, and it’s been one of our most endur­ing­ly pop­u­lar arti­cles, gen­er­at­ing a steady stream of traf­fic and com­ments. In the mean­time, the New Zealand Park­our Asso­ci­a­tion has been estab­lished. They have a strong pres­ence in Welling­ton and recent­ly got in touch to update […]

TAWA5 Best Regular Entertainment

As we know, Welling­ton is full of fun things to do, and on a reg­u­lar basis. Whether giv­ing us some­thing to eat, some­thing to groove to, or some­thing to yell about, these are the events that kept us com­ing back for sec­onds.

Summer lovin’

The Black Caps™ may be pants (tech­ni­cal term) but there’s at least one rea­son to look for­ward to the Sum­mer crick­et sea­son: the Welling­ton Fire­birds have signed Aussie super­star Brett Lee as their sec­ond over­seas play­er for the year. Accord­ing to the Welling­ton Crick­et web­site, Lee will play the sec­ond half of the HRV Twenty20 […]

The rugby sculpture

A pro­pos­al was unveiled yes­ter­day for a Weta Work­shop-designed rug­by-themed sculp­ture to grace the city, some­where, In Time For The Rug­by World Cup.

The sculp­ture is high­ly sym­bol­ic, with the Dom­Post pro­vid­ing a list of all the sym­bol­ism, but what does the sculp­ture most resem­ble?

Star Boating Club Rowathon Tonight.*

ERG!!Here’s a bit of fun to be had — the Star Boat­ing Club (that’s that cool place by the lagoon that you’ve prob­a­bly attend­ed more than a few wed­dings at, or oth­er occa­sions & got your­self com­plete­ly trashed & may or may not have end­ed up in the water in your din­ner suit or ball gown…) in con­junc­tion with Welling­ton Girls Col­lege, Queen Mar­garet’s Col­lege and Welling­ton Col­lege, is hold­ing a 20 hour Row-A-Thon to raise funds for the cur­rent sea­son of races, regat­tas & camps.

It takes place at the Read­ing Com­plex Foy­er (Court­ney Place) between 6pm Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22 (TONIGHT!!), and Noon Sat­ur­day.

And what is a Row-A-Thon when it’s at home? Well… they’re putting 2 ERG machines (that’s short­hand for Row­ing Machine appar­ent­ly — I’m not sure if it is acrony­mous, or if it rep­re­sents the noise the aver­age per­son makes while being sub­ject­ed to oper­at­ing it), one will be oper­at­ed con­tin­u­ous­ly for 20 hours, and the sec­ond, dear read­er, is for you to have a go at.

The row­ers have been dili­gent­ly scour­ing their neigh­bour­hoods, fam­i­lies, and fam­i­lies’ busi­ness col­leagues get­ting spon­sor­ship, and on the day, those not ERG­ing will be shak­ing tins & per­suad­ing pun­ters to part with a lit­tle Xmas dosh. All for a good cause — those ERGs & the boats don’t grow on trees you know.

So head on down for a look — 91FM & the Black Thun­ders will may be down there at 6pm Fri­day dis­pens­ing cheer & freestuff — or if you hap­pen to be pass­ing, please do donate a lit­tle spare ping for, as I may have men­tioned, a very good cause.

And of course, you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to try an ERG for your­self. It has to be good for you right?, and there is almost no chance you’ll end up in the lagoon. Bonus.