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.

1. Have you registered for Web­stock yet? Only 33 more sleeps left to go and we are very very excited!

2. Have you checked out the pro­gramme for Sum­mer City yet? 

Wel­ling­ton City Coun­cil’s three-month fest­iv­al of out­door activ­it­ies. Events include music fest­ivals, extreme sports, cul­tur­al cel­eb­ra­tions and chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment. This year, Sum­mer City’s music per­form­ances focus on Wel­ling­ton bands.

There’s a giant dis­play of info about it at the corner of Man­ners & Cuba Malls, or you can read their event info PDF (because Sum­mer City is not access­ible for every­one?)

3. Brenda has emphas­ised again why she was nom­in­ated for Best Con­tri­bu­tion to the inter­net, with this reveal­ing photo of the por­trait of former may­or Mark Blum­sky, stand­ing out­side Mer­maids Strip Club. Nice one!

Ima­gine our delight to find that this week­end there is a joust­ing car­ni­val in Upper Hutt.

Har­court Park, Sat­urday and Sunday 10th and 11th Janu­ary, Upper Hutt.

As they said in days of yore, be there or be-eth square.