Hey all, just did a site upgrade (from Drupal 5.something to 6.17, for those that are inter­ested).

I seem to have lost some com­ments off the last couple of posts – they should be recov­er­able and back online tomor­row.

If you notice any­thing else amiss, drop us a line at our info email address.

(Incid­ent­ally, this new theme is tem­por­ary – we’re work­ing away on anoth­er one in the back­ground – this one was just easi­er to use with the upgraded sys­tem instead of upgrad­ing the old theme, which was riddled with, errr, idio­syn­crat­ic code).

Te wiki o te Reo Maori is draw­ing to a close, with the finale being held at the mar­kets on the water­front this Sunday. This year’s theme is ‘te mahi kai’ (the lan­guage of food) and what bet­ter place to cel­eb­rate than the food mar­kets on Wellington’s water­front. 

So go grab your fruit, vege and gour­met good­ies from Har­bourside and City Mar­kets and live the lan­guage of food in te reo.  There will be biligual sig­nage, haka, wai­ata and the release of the a biligual CD of songs Tipi Haere Te Reo.  

Form­al­it­ies kick of 8.00am at Har­bourside Mar­ket and there will be enter­tain­ment until mid­day. 

Over at the City Mar­ket (inside the Chaf­fers apart­ment build­ing) they will be doing what they do best: mak­ing us drool with treats from their kit­chen.

Te Kihini Makete i tenei wiki: Kau tunuumu Greytown, hupa paukena Pine­haven penu ma te mina-aua­hi, he paku hirikaka me te kokonati,Wairarapa pai ika, pai kaimoana, Kawakawa parauni.
Mar­ket kit­chen this week: Braised Greytown beef, manuka smoked mash Pine­haven pump­kin (paukena) soup, hint of chilli & coconut Wair­ar­apa fish pie, dill mash. Kawakawa brownie.
 

Kaua e whakama ki te korero maori.

(Again apo­lo­gies: mac­rons give our site indi­ges­tion)

So many present­a­tions are like really really weak broth, with only a hint of actu­al con­tent float­ing around in far too much weak sauce. If only we could turn up the heat on that soup and sim­mer it down to a con­cen­trated jus burst­ing with fla­vour and taste. Would­n’t that be awe­some? No filler, just killer! That’s what the Ignite series of talks aims to do: 

Have you ever been to a 60-minute talk and lamen­ted that there was only five minutes of good con­tent?  Ima­gine if you could hear only that five minutes…

that’s Ignite Wel­ling­ton!

Come along to the second Ignite Wel­ling­ton and be inspired, amused, edu­cated and amazed!  We have an array of tal­en­ted Wel­ling­ton speak­ers, who will each speak for five minutes on top­ics that range from couch­surf­ing and Ern­est Ruther­ford, to Out­doorKnit, wall­pa­per and build­ing the dream!

At the heart of Ignite is its fast-paced format.  All presenters must give their talks in just five minutes – using 20 slides that appear on screen for only 15 seconds.

The even­ing will start with an Ignite Con­test, which will help par­ti­cipants unleash their inner cre­ativ­ity.  The last event had teams build­ing the tallest pos­sible struc­tures out of spa­ghetti and marsh­mal­lows

Ignite is hap­pen­ing on Tues­day August 3, at the Para­mount Theatre from 6.30pm-10pm. Ignite is free, but you need to register in order to guar­an­tee a seat. For more inform­a­tion, includ­ing the full list of speak­ers, check out their site. You can fol­low also them at @ignitewelli and become a Face­book fan

 Con­grat­u­la­tions to Nicole and her fan­tail for win­ning our Rata com­pet­i­tion. This week, to cel­eb­rate Wel­ling­ton on a Plate, thanks to the lovely Pos­it­ively Wel­ling­ton Tour­ism, we have a $100 vouch­er to the Gen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­er on the corner of Wil­lis & Boul­cott to give away.

The res­taur­ant gets its name from the build­ing’s ori­gin­al pur­posee – it was con­struc­ted for Dr. Henry Pol­len in 1902, with his fam­ily liv­ing on the top floor and sur­gery on the bot­tom. Legend (or just hearsay?) has it that not too long after that moved in a troop of ladies to take care of oth­er needs of the body besides medi­cine, before even­tu­ally it was refur­bished as a posh res­taur­ant we once took my grand­moth­er to, but I can­’t remem­ber the name of it.

So, speak­ing of stick­ing things in buns, part of Wel­ling­ton on a Plate is Bur­ger Wel­ling­ton, in which over 30 Wel­ling­ton res­taur­ants and cafes are cre­at­ing spe­cial bur­gers and you get to vote for the win­ner. The Gen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­er­’s con­tri­bu­tion sounds espe­cially good:

An unfor­tu­nate num­ber of Wel­ling­tonis­tas are rather fond of mak­ing rather ter­rible puns quite fre­quently, which means a lot of my time is spend mak­ing “Badoom chish!” sounds. Ima­gine how much cool­er it would be if the jokes were bet­ter and instead of me, there was a whole damn band play­ing the rim shots. Wait, you don’t want to have to ima­gine it? You want it to be real? Well, have we got the gig for you then!

Remem­ber TAWA-nom­in­ated Rob­bie Ellis and the bus lane you put through his heart? Well, he’s been work­ing on a new show called Band Sub­stances:

It’s music­al stand-up com­edy with a full band!

Join some of Wel­ling­ton’s favour­ite music­al comedi­ans:

• Gab­ri­el Page
• Sarah Harpur
• Carlo & Cyn­thia Wake­field from Young and the Wit­less IV
• The Fringe Bar Opera Soloists and more!

It’ll be Band to the Bone! (Jo’s note: BADOOM CHISH!)

The show has with Jerome Chandra­hasen as MC and Rob­bie as music­al dir­ect­or.

You know how there is often cool free stuff hap­pen­ing at lunch­time if you have your ear to the ground (actu­ally Twit­ter may well be the mod­ern digit­al jungle drum or smoke sig­nal if you know how to fos­sick and fil­ter, you could just just fol­low us on Twit­ter).  We have had com­plaints in the past about post­ing juicy tid­bits a little too close to the time for ya’ll to cram into your busy diar­ies. 

Well, suck it up people, you may have missed the free titi (mut­ton­bird) tasters at Mid­land Park on Monday or the noodles today at Wagamama but at least you have time to make a packed lunch for a free lunch­time con­cert tomor­row for Te Wiki o te reo Maori in the Illot theatre, Town Hall.  This con­cert will fea­ture the spine-tingles of Ria Hall who bought the house down at the Sev­en Sis­ters con­cert at Te Papa last month.  There will be a range of per­form­ances, includ­ing the Ngati Poneke maori club juni­ors and fresh back from the world expo in Shang­hai Elena viol­in­ist, with her world-class kapa haka clas­sic­al fusion and impress­ive mohawk. 

So BYO kai and enjoy this cel­eb­ra­tion of the Maori lan­guage and cul­ture.  This is what liv­ing and work­ing in cent­ral Wel­ling­ton is about people: free access to cul­tur­al treas­ures, excite­ment and hap­pen­ings every­where, even on your lunch hour. 

Where: Illot Theatre, Town Hall

When: 12.30 – 1.30 Wed­nes­day 28 July

Cost: Free

Not that it needs any pimp­ing by us, but thought you should know that Wagamama in the Meridi­an build­ing on the Water­front is giv­ing away free noodles today from 12 – 2.00pm.  We are talk­ing don buri, udon and beef noodle salad here people, well worth wait­ing in line for if you have the time.

Behold the line at 11.30am last year.…