Minding your Manners
There was a bit of a ruckus on Victoria Street yesterday, when anti-Manners Street, pro-Manners Mall protester Benjamin Easton started smashing up the road with a sledgehammer.
The incident drew a large crowd, who watched as the police arrested him. One of the bystanders – a DomPost reporter – filmed the incident, and the video is available to view on Stuff.
Watch as policemen with shields and a policemanette with a Taser do their best to disarm the self-described "political busker".
The busification of Manners Mall is proving to be good entertainment value.
A fair weekend ahead
If you haven’t recovered from Craft2.0 last weekend, make sure you do by Saturday becuase it’s Fabric-a-brac time again.
The event is being held at St Anne’s Hall in Newtown on Saturday 19 June from 9am – 12noon. It’s all put together by the amazing Josie who who describes Fabric-a-brac as "bringing together fabric-lovers, who have too much fabric, with others looking for a unique bargain".
Fabric-a-brac is a dream wonderland of awesome for crafters, sewers, and makers. It’s full of fabric, buttons, notions, supplies and anything your crafty heart can dream of.
There are some exciting new stallholders at Fabric-a-brac, including:
- Stitchbird fabrics, who right now is running a marvelous auction to raise funds for Mary Potter Hospice over on her blog.
- Absolute Sewing are coming to the rescue of all crafters with blunt scissors, which is most of us. They are offering scissor sharpening, and since Fabric-a-brac is not NZ Customs, you can bring your scissors alsong to the fair for sharpening.
If that doesn’t bring joy to your life, next weekend is Knack Craft Fair. They’ve got a new venue as well, Wellington South Intermediate Hall. But more on all things Knack next week.
Ghost in the hall
Over the coming weekend, the town hall will echo with the sound of New Zealanders competing furiously against Australians and Americans to build a website for charity in 24 hours. There’s more information about how you can support your chosen team here, but if you’re not into competition, perhaps you’re into THE SUPERNATURAL?
At the same time as FullCode Press is happening, there’s also going to be a Full Code Ghost investigation going on at the Town Hall. It’s a grand old building (and also the subject of my first ever Wellingtonista post back in 2005!), so they’re bound to find something. Perhaps there might even be ghosts in the library next door…
King of the Kapital
King Kapisi was spotted around Welly town today with a laptop of new tracks. He is actually a Wellingtonian, who knew? Take that Auckland and Samoa, we will fight you for him if we have to.
Anyway here is a clip of Kapisi showing some local favour.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fSHTFXhGJ8]From the Terrace to Pompeii and back
Those of you with an interest in textiles, history and dressing up might be veeeeeeeeeerry interested in an upcoming lecture to be held at St. Andrew’s on the Terrace at 2.30pm on Saturday June 19.
Join the Dreamstress and the Wellington Historical Costume Society for a fundraising fashion history extravaganza: From the Streets of Pompeii to the Salons of Paris – The Classical influence on Western Fashion.
Textile and fashion historian Leimomi Oakes will present a entertaining and informative talk on the way Greek and Roman art and fashion have influenced Western fashion from the 18th century to the 20th. The talk will be illustrated by 10 models in historically accurate recreations of period attire – from a 1770s’ robe a la francaise to a 1920s’ flapper dress.
The talk will be fascinating, and the frocks will be fabulous – it should be an event to remember! Proceeds to benefit the Wellington Free Ambulance. Tickets are $15 waged, $10 unwaged. Tickets will be available at the door, or can be purchased in advance by emailing thedreamstress@yahoo.com.
What’s for lunch, Lower Lambton?
Because we are so almighty powerful and capacious, we’re frequently opening up branch outposts of the Wellingtonista Towers. Previously we’ve asked you what we should be eating for lunch in Molesworth, Mid Lambton and Mercer Street. Now we want to know what to eat in Lower Lambton. So far we’ve discovered good coffee and crazy-tall scones at Trade Kitchen, but mostly it seems like Wishbone is getting most of our money. Where can we pop out to in order to grab a quick sandwich? What hidden gems are in the area? Where should we avoid? Have at it in the comments.
Stars in our eyes
Estadio at the Temperance — viva o futebol!
We at Wellingtonista Towers are pleased to see something happening at the old Temperance premises on Blair St. (Previously on the Wellingtonista). Some enterprising local Latin Americans are setting up "Estadio" in time for the World Cup. They promise "great Latino breakfasts" from 6 am. Football and beer — it’s what’s for breakfast. We await your reports.
Word on the street is that this is the start of a longer-term plan to transform the Temperance into a permanent Latin-themed bar.
Click "read more" for the details:
Locals and Tourists
Eric Fisher has been geomapping Flickr photos of cities around the world. He tracks the locations of photos taken by locals (blue) and tourists/out-of-towners (red). This is what Wellington looks like:
There are noticeable tourist areas around Te Papa, Mt Victoria lookout and Parliament. Tourists and locals are both dominant along Courtenay Place, Cuba Street, Lambton Quay and the waterfront. Aro Valley gets a locals-only burst of blue, as do Te Aro streets off the golden mile.
The New York version of this has been touted as a way for locals to avoid tourists, but the way Wellington’s compact geography works, there’s really nowhere to run. And besides, our tourists are quite nice.
Click though for a look at the bigger Wellington photo, and if you have any observations (or corrections of my notes!), share them here.
Hey Victoria, tell us a story!
Hey you, Vic student! Shouldn’t you be busy studying instead of reading blogs? Well fine, if you’re looking for ways to occupy your brain, Vic Books has a suggestion for you
Vicbooks is running a duo of writing competitions, one for Poetry and the other for Short Stories. We want to see what Victoria undergraduate students are capable of when they delve into poetry instead of economics, dip into fiction rather than history (wait… was that irony?) and draw fully on their talents and imagination.
The selected winner in each category will receive over $200 in Book Tokens, plus a pile of selected books from our excellent stock. The winners will also be published in the student paper Salient, on the vicbooks website and on our blog. There are no entry fees and all the details are on our website.
Of course, if you’re not a Vic undergrad, you can always tell us a story instead. Have at it in our comments section.