Debunking the Target urban myth

For the past cou­ple of years, we keep hear­ing peo­ple tell us not to go to a cer­tain eth­nic restau­rant because “they were filmed by Tar­get scrap­ing left­over food back into the food to sell” and var­i­ous oth­er sto­ries along the same lines. We got an email recent­ly say­ing that some­one else had heard the rumours, but had also heard that Tar­get nev­er actu­al­ly filmed there. So we put on our Seri­ous Inves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist Hats, and sent out two very easy emails set out on a quest to dis­cov­er the truth. Tar­get wrote us back:

Yes we’ve been get­ting that for years too prob­a­bly because tar­get was filmed just around the cor­ner at top shelf’s office down there for the first two or three years. Its nev­er been on Tar­get and I have con­firmed this with the own­er. We think that for a cam­era to be in the kitchen it must have been anoth­er staff mem­ber film­ing. I have no idea if its true or false but again it wasn’t filmed by us and no one in our office ever recalls see­ing it. Urban myth?

And just to dou­blecheck, we emailed an Envi­ron­men­tal Health Offi­cer at the Welling­ton City Coun­cil, in the Build­ing Con­sents and Licens­ing Ser­vices, who told us that this par­tic­u­lar restau­rant has a Cer­tifi­cate of Reg­is­tra­tion valid until July 2011. So can peo­ple please stop spread­ing this rumour? It’s ridicu­lous and untrue. If you don’t like the food, don’t eat there, but find anoth­er tar­get for your defama­tion.

And no, we’re not going to name the restau­rant in ques­tion if you haven’t heard the rumours, because mud clear­ly sticks regard­less of whether it’s deserved or not.

Need something indoors to do with the kids?

Dur­ing the school hol­i­days the good folk at the Film Archive run a kids movie pro­grammed called Mini Sized Square Eyes (not to be con­fused with the Square Eyes Foun­da­tion).

Every Mon­day, Wednes­day and Fri­day at 11am dur­ing the hol­i­days the kids can be enter­tained for an hour with gems from the Archive’s exten­sive col­lec­tions, includ­ing the orig­i­nal film ver­sion of Where the Wild Things Are, ear­ly Walt Dis­ney ani­ma­tion and clas­sic slices of NZ exper­i­ments on film. Screen­ings designed for kids aged 4 — 12 years. Bug­gies wel­come.

Entry by gold coin dona­tion.

 

Click Local

North of Welling­ton is a sun­ny par­adise, known as Petone. Petone and its sur­round­ing sub­urbs now have their own web­site cre­at­ed by local web­by types, Brent Dick­ens and Michael Haymes. Click Local sets out to give local peo­ple, groups, busi­ness­es, artists and organ­is­ers a place to pro­mote their ideas and events. Its evo­lu­tion will depend very much on the peo­ple who con­tribute, so it would be great to see heaps of peo­ple get involved.

If you’re keen, con­tact Brent Dick­ens: brent@clicklocal.org.nz

 

Botanic infamy

OMG. The Welling­ton Botan­ic Gar­dens, cur­rent­ly teem­ing with life and colour and gen­er­al spring­time joy, gets a men­tion on an upcom­ing episode of The Simp­sons, the first of the new series.

The episode guest stars local boys made good Bret and Jemaine Con­chords, and the pair use the Botan­ic Gar­dens good name for great lolz:

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJkdPbpoc5s]

And remem­ber the annu­al Spring Fes­ti­val is cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing at the Botan­ic Gar­dens, so why not take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to frol­lick in the spring blooms and say you were down with the gar­dens before they were famous.

Grouper (US) with Pumice and Glass Vaults tomorrow night.

For those who caught Grouper dur­ing her last trip to NZ, she will need no intro­duc­tion. For those who missed her — don’t repeat your mis­take! We are lucky to have a return vis­it from this Port­land native, play­ing once again with Auck­land’s Pumice with new­com­ers Glass Vaults at Hap­py tomor­row night (Tues­day Sep­tem­ber 28th). Pre­sales are $15 from undertheradar.co.nz. More on the door.

Liz Har­ris’ GROUPER evokes the ghosts of songs, using minor-key, folk-derived melodies swathed in sheets of delay to car­ry her frag­ile vocals. Over albums such as Wide (2006) and Drag­ging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (2008), Har­ris has expand­ed upon her decep­tive­ly sim­ple form, mov­ing from all encom­pass­ing ambiance, cocooned in oceans of reverb, to a more stark, yet no less absorb­ing form, vul­ner­a­ble imagery emerg­ing from the music like half-remem­bered dreams.

Auck­land’s Ste­fan Neville a.k.a. PUMICE is in no need of an intro­duc­tion for dis­cern­ing NZ lis­ten­ers. A ram­shackle one-man band, play­ing gui­tar, vocals, tape loops and drums simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, he bridges the void between all-out impro­vi­sa­tion and tight­ly exe­cut­ed song craft. It’s noise, it’s lo-fi, it’s drone, it’s pop — often all at once — Pumice defies all expec­ta­tions with his live show. Neville’s discog­ra­phy is beyond exten­sive, hav­ing been con­sis­tent­ly pump­ing out releas­es since 1994.

Hav­ing already brought her arrest­ing and beau­ti­ful show to NZ in 2009, Grouper’s return is a wel­come chance for those who missed out first time around to see Har­ris’ aching and mov­ing music in the flesh.