Yes­ter­day twit­ter was all atwit­ter try­ing to fig­ure out where all the smoke in Wel­ling­ton was com­ing from, before someone figured out that it was a fire in Titahi Bay. What’s been inter­est­ing today has been the amaz­ing col­lec­tions of pho­tos of the fire on Flickr – not just in our side­bar or this great shot by Wel­ling­tonista friend Lisa Fur, but also this cur­ated flickr gal­lery. Nice work, flick­ri­nos!

We’d been won­der­ing for a while where our oth­er favour­ite McK­en­zie broth­er has been at because we haven’t seen him behind the bar at Hooch or Hawthorn for ages, but of course we kept for­get­ting to ask, because nat­ur­ally we were too busy ask­ing for anoth­er drink.

Well, it turns out that Justin has been work­ing as 42Below’s vodka pro­fess­or (we hope this means he gets a cap and gown) and he’s been rather busy today with the region­al finals of the Cock­tail World Cup. The three bar­tenders who’ll be rep­res­ent­ing New Zea­l­and will be Auckland’s James Gog­gin from Rack­et and our own Josh Craw­ford from Hooch and Calum Chad­wick from the Mat­ter­horn.

As usu­al, there’s all kinds of fun and games in Queen­stown around the event, but since we’re the Wel­ling­tonista prob­ably the bit that you’re inter­ested in is that the grand finale is hap­pen­ing in Wel­ling­ton on March 27, fea­tur­ing the world’s best bar­tenders and (I’m going to quote the press release here) “New Zealand’s best rock group ‘Mid­night Youth’ ”, and prob­ably quite a few splashes of vodka as well. And we’ve got a double pass to give away to it!

Along with the invited VIPS, 42BELOW is offer­ing a select num­ber of people the chance to attend the Grand Final Shake off as vodka groupies. Tick­ets are being sold for $42, which includes four cock­tails, food and enter­tain­ment so get in quick for a chance to party with New Zeal­and’s best music and with the world’s best bar­tenders.

The coun­cil is going to draft a by-law to ban drink­ing in pub­lic places.

But don’t worry, respect­able cit­izens! It’s not aimed at you! It’s aimed at pesky booz­ers.

Extend­ing the liquor ban would mean we could deal with prob­lems in the sub­urbs. It would­n’t be about stop­ping people hav­ing a quiet beer or a glass of wine on the beach or in the park – and the Police are already on the record as say­ing they would use dis­cre­tion.

Anoth­er “x-ing while brown” offence in the mak­ing.

They break bottles, yell and swear, vomit and cre­ate chaos – but there’s noth­ing the Police can really do at the moment about the drink­ing of alco­hol – which is gen­er­ally the cause of the prob­lems.

This is a puzz­ler. If people are behav­ing badly, that’s dis­orderly beha­viour. If they’re not, who cares wheth­er they’re drink­ing?

If only there were some­where for hard­core street drink­ers to go. Mean­while, wast­ing police time on herd­ing them around the city is appar­ently the only way out.

There’s a Face­book group in oppos­i­tion. Here’s hop­ing that’s just a start.

Petone Fair is this Sat­urday (20th Feb­ru­ary) 10am-4pm.  Jack­son Street is closed for the fair from Cuba to Vic­tor­ia Street.

Word on the (Jack­son) street is that there are genu­ine Lower Hutt made ginger­nuts for sale with a cuppa at the Rotary tent.

If the ginger­nut does­n’t fill the gap­ing void in your tummy, the Wel­ling­tonista recom­mend grabbing a deli­cious Rush Mun­ro icecream and New Zea­l­and made artis­an cheese from Cul­tured, under the clock tower. 

There are many great eth­nic food stalls, and the sam­o­sas from out­side Curry Heav­en are bril­liant. Go Bang is a Wel­ling­tonista favour­ite for a sit down feed and a cof­fee, and if you’re stick­ing around until even­ing, Gusto Bis­tro is a great choice.

Where are your favour­ite Petone food spots?

Te Papa’s fore­court may look as if it’s under attack by giant glit­tery space balls, but it’s actu­ally the start of a two-year kin­et­ic sculp­ture install­a­tion called “The Mimet­ic Broth­er­hood”, by Peter Trev­ely­an.

There’s not much kin­es­is evid­ent at the moment, but once the install­a­tion is com­plete, expect the plinth-eat­ing mon­sters to start pulsat­ing in their full hydraul­ic glory.

Hey guys.

Below is the line up of Ori­ent­a­tion events this year, with thanks to The Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity of Wel­ling­ton Stu­dents Asso­ci­ation and the VBC88.3FM. Not just for stu­dents, tick­ets are also avail­able to the gen­er­al pub­lic. (For full dis­clos­ure: I had a hand in this years line up. I hope you like it!)

VUWSA 2010 ORIENTATION LINE UP

STEVE WRIGLEY, BEN HURLEY AND JAMIE BOWEN
Uni­on Hall
Tues­day March 2
Stu­dents $10/ Pub­lic $15 + book­ing fee
6PM

THE CHILLS
With sup­port from SECRET KNIVES and JOE BLOSSOM
Stu­dents $20 Pub­lic $30 + book­ing fee
Tues­day March 2
San Fran­cisco Bath House
8pm
*Tick­ets for this show also avail­able at undertheradar.co.nz

Anthony McCall Draw­ing with Light
Late night at the gal­lery w/ KazaamBLAM!!
Adam Art Gal­lery
Wed­nes­day 3 March
FREE ENTRY
OPEN UNTIL 9PM

HAWNAY TROOF
With sup­port from SETS and 47 DIAMANTES
Wed­nes­day March 3 2010
Mighty Mighty
Stu­dents $10/ Pub­lic $15 + book­ing fee
9PM
*Tick­ets for this show also avail­able at undertheradar.co.nz

THE GREAT DEBATE
Thursday MARCH 4
UNION HALL
$5 DEBATING SOCIETY $10 STUDENTS + book­ing fee
6PM

ALL AGES SHOW with STREET CHANT + NEVERNUDES
Fri­day March 5 2010
THE MOUNT STREET BAR – CAMPUS
FREE ENTRY
5:30PM

Someone (or someones) has got their out­door knit on at Kil­birnie Park. Hur­ray for loves! I won­der what the coun­cil’s take on this kind of graf­fiti is…

Pasi­fika was can­celled this morn­ing due to high winds mak­ing it unsafe for per­fomers and stall hold­ers.  Safety first eh.

So no Cindy of Sam­oa or Yan­dall Sis­ters and tasty food for us.

Well actu­ally, I think you will find that if you head to a cer­tain Pasific Island Com­munity Church in New­town you will find the food and the odd act has relo­cated (rumor has it that the Yan­dall Sis­ters are keen to belt out a few tunes).

A group of stall hold­ers from the Cook Islands have flown over espe­cially so if any­one knows of some­where they can sell their wares tomor­row let us know in the com­ments.  They would really appre­ci­ate it.