via Spleen…

I was on the Mt Vic bus yesterday afternoon, and there were two very loud young men in the back seat behind me.

"Lincoln was gay you know."

"No way."

"Yeah, he fucked men bro."

"How do you know?"

"It’s knowledge, bro."

If you’re already on Twitter, we imagine that you already know that the Wellingtonista has a twitter stream.

Well now like a moth to a flame, the Masked Barfly has decided to get in on the action with its own brand of insider gossip. If that’s your thing, follow the fly!

This weekend Aucklanders Los Hories visit Wellington (via tenacious teeny Wanganui venue the Eye of Night) to celebrate the release of their debut long-player What’s the Time!?

The title comes from drummer Kim‘s penchant for wandering out from behind the kit – often taking parts of it with him – to eyeball the crowd and demand the same question of them; the correct crowd response being, of course, "It’s Horie time!!".

They’re bringing Palmy’s tractor enthusiast and house party king Boss Christ, and are joined by tough-talking locals Knife Fight – 2/3rds of whom relocate to Melbourne in March, so catch them while you can.

Saturday 31st January

The Adelaide, Adelaide Rd, Newtown

The streets of Wellington on a day like today are a joy, the sun is shining, the breeze is more balmy than bluster and you probably have a home to go to if you need some cave time.  In Wellington the streets are shared with all, and if you head into the CBD you will see suits, students, hipsters, children and gold-card holders utilising public space alongside street people and alcoholics.  Auckland is responding to the challenges of in-your-face social problems by considering a bylaw to force homeless people off the streets by making the police responsible for moving the problem around. Good luck with that one. 

Wellingtonians can’t afford to be smug about the issue but at least the focus is on a range of solutions including a wet hostel and liquor bans.  There was plenty of thoughtful discussion over at Poneke about this issue last year.

The Wellington City Council would like to hear from you tonight. Like, seriously. According to their ads in the paper, they even want you to stop watching Coronation Street long enough to call them up and tell them what you think about them. Or to be specifically quoting their old news story (one of the things I would complain about first would be how hard it is to find current news on their site): 

Do you have views on the city’s future? Then call our hotline, talk to the Mayor or Councillors and tell them what you think. Wellington City Council is running the hotline … 7.00pm to 9.00pm – phone (04) 801 4205) to canvas views from residents about what they value about the city, what level services should be funded and what services could be reduced.

As always, we have some suggestions:

1. Get the trolley buses running more often because we value them,
2. The ‘service’ of building roads and bypasses and flyovers that we don’t actually need can get scrapped. Or moved to Hamilton cos that city totally needs a bypass. 
3. How about along with the rubbish collection we think about having a green/compost collection? It works in San Francisco… 

What would you say if you called? And also, you’re going to call, right? 

We admit it: we’ve been slack. Normal blogging service will gradually resume as we re-emerge from the rum-induced inebriation heat-induced torpor of summer, but things are taking a while to crank up again.

Some of us have been out of town on summer holidays, enjoying all the clichés of the Great Kiwi Summer^TM: beaches, jandals, boats, sunburn and ill-advised sexual liaisons. But some of us have stayed put, and frankly, why not? Even if (like many Wellingtonians) you don’t have a car, with a Snapper card and Shanks’ pony it’s not too hard to get to a whole range of beaches. Here’s a little Flickr photoset of the Wellington coast this summer, showing people doing all those sorts of things that we’re supposed to have to leave town for. Erm, except the sex (and we wouldn’t be surprised if that was just around the corner, too).

There’s less than a month to go now until the greatest conference ever, and since the Wellingtonista is always keen to show off the best parts of our city, we made a Beginner’s Guide to Wellington for those who are coming in for it from out of town. Even if you live here, there might be something of interest on the list for you, so do have a read, and when you see us at all those places, do feel free to say hi and buy us drinks.