Have you been to Aunt Daisy’s Boathouse cafe yet?
Martha did and thought it “tres awe­some” — her frang­lish, not mine.

If you haven’t vis­it­ed the charm­ing 1950s-style tea­rooms in Titahi bay yet, per­haps you need a mid-win­ter week­end of music to tempt you? As if the sea views, Supreme Cof­fee and kids’ play­ground weren’t enough, Aunt Daisy is pop­ping the mulled wine on to heat and putting some live music on the boil from 4pm this Fri/Sat/Sun. Kids get in free and grown-ups can fork over a mere $7 for sweet sounds the likes of Rosy Tin Tea­cad­dy, Achilles Botes and Jess Cham­bers. Go here for more details.

The only sane answer to this insane windy weath­er, I think!

In my younger, lar­val days, I was known to fre­quent cer­tain bars where a band who dared to play a dis­pleas­ing song could expect to find a bot­tle fly­ing their way.

But I was­n’t expect­ing to expe­ri­ence a retro blast-from-the-past of glass-throw­ing in the plush envi­rons of Mighty Mighty.

But there I was, work­ing my way through MM’s splen­did new cock­tail menu and enjoy­ing the sci-fi elec­tron­i­ca of Kaza­am Blam, when sud­den­ly an oth­er­wise respectable look­ing young lady sit­ting near­by picked up a cock­tail glass and hurled it at the space-suit­ed Kaza­am Blam front­man, break­ing the visor of his cos­tume.

A rip­ple of shock and fur­rowed brows spread across the dance floor. Who did this? And why? Was it an expres­sion of rage against the synth? Was it a man­i­fes­ta­tion of extreme artis­tic dif­fer­ences? Or was it a clever stunt, care­ful­ly timed to hap­pen in the last song?

The per­pe­tra­tor was tracked down and the sto­ry came out — appar­ent­ly she threw the glass because she thought the audi­ence, not the band, was being bor­ing.

Ah, in that case, the next time I vis­it Mighty Mighty, I will wear my bondage trousers and bring along a por­trait of the Queen at which I shall flick the fin­gers. Oi.

Item! The next Cel­lar-vate din­ner, which we have drooled about before is on July 9, fea­tur­ing Ngawa­ka wines, and it costs $40. Give the love­ly Rebec­ca a call to reserve your tick­ets.

Item! The super­cute Green Land Cafe under the Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment on Kate Shep­pard Place is run­ning a com­pe­ti­tion to win a bot­tle of the famous olive oil grown on Mt. Vic. Buy a cof­fee, pick an num­ber and go into the draw. Actu­al­ly, don’t, because it’s a gor­geous green vir­gin, and I wants it. So back off! Also, how love­ly are the staff there? They total­ly but­tered my scone for me, if you know what I mean. And of course what I mean is I think it’s part of their waste reduc­tion respon­si­bil­i­ties.

Item! It’s not near Molesworth Street, but it’s just as bleak — Stan­ley Road on the cor­ner of Vic­to­ria Street and Wille­ston is run­ning Hap­py Hour from 4pm-6pm, with all kinds of beers (Coro­na etc) for just $3.50. It’s not a par­tic­u­lar­ly cosy spot, but hey, giv­en how dry this part of town is, con­sid­er it a good oasis to stop at while you cross the desert of Willis Quar­ter.

With the cost of oil reach­ing record highs, it stands to rea­son that more & more peo­ple will see the sense in leav­ing their cars at home & enjoy the has­sle free ride to work, in the com­pa­ny of like mind­ed souls, on the region’s bus & train net­work.

The more peo­ple that switch to pub­lic trans­port, the more eco­nom­i­cal­ly effi­cient the pub­lic net­work will become, right? Might even be worth sub­si­dis­ing, would­n’t you think?

But, less cars on the roads might pose a prob­lem for some of the wack­i­er, recent road­ing pro­pos­als — that 2nd tun­nel through Mt Vic­to­ria isn’t being made for bus­es after all.

So what’s a coun­cil to do? I know, they could look for ways to dis­cour­age peo­ple from using pub­lic trans­port at all.

Secret Talks on Increas­ing Bus & Train Fares

As you may have twigged by now, we likes us some Mighty Mighty. How­ev­er, even we usu­al­ly draw the line at spend­ing two nights in a row there danc­ing our col­lec­tive ars­es off and get­ting Real Sloshed Bitch­es. It’s going to be hard to resist the temp­ta­tion this week­end though, kick­ing off on Fri­day night with TV Disko and car­ry­ing on with the L.E.D.s on Sat­ur­day.

(more syn­th­tas­tic good­ies after the jump)

We’ve men­tioned Habe­bie Restau­rant before (well, actu­al­ly I can’t find a link, so maybe we did­n’t actu­al­ly) but we have excit­ing news — it’s BYO now (and may have been for a while now), but more impor­tant­ly, from Mon­day-Thurs­day, all mains (except seafood) are $17. And since prices for mains usu­al­ly go from $22–28, and that includes meze starter plat­ters, we’re telling you to get your ass­es down there for some awe­some big piles of meat. But take a cardie — it’s not the warmest place ever.

We’re not cock(tail)teases, real­ly. We do want to let you in on all the secrets, but first of all we want to give you the chance to prove that you’re hip­per and groovi­er than every­one else by iden­ti­fy­ing the bar in ques­tion.

In the end, it was­n’t long before one of the many anons picked the last mys­tery bar as Duke Carvel­l’s Swan Lane Empo­ri­um, run by the Bresolin boys and delec­table in every way. But who’s going to be the first to iden­ti­fy this place?

Here’s a cou­ple of exhi­bi­tions with open­ings that you’ll want to attend, and one that you real­ly ought to see before it clos­es.

First up, Page Black­ie Gallery (which is a much less geo­graph­i­cal­ly con­fus­ing name than its pre­vi­ous incar­na­tion as Tinako­ri Gallery) launch­es a new exhi­bi­tion of Gina Jones’ light works tomor­row night (Tues­day 24th from 5:30pm). Jones’ work will be famil­iar to many from her per­ma­nent instal­la­tion in the gallery, and even if the Page Black­ie crowd tends towards an old­er demo­graph­ic (you could almost hear the old mon­ey rustling at the recent Max Gim­blett launch), the open­ings can still be live­ly affairs: the Masked Barfly warns us to get there ear­ly and stake out the drinks table.

The open­ing of Jane Kel­la­han’s Humankind exhi­bi­tion, from which the above image “The Heal­ers” is tak­en, sounds like it’s aimed at a slight­ly dif­fer­ent audi­ence. It will fea­ture live music by mem­bers of Phoenix Foun­da­tion and Fat Fred­dy’s Drop, and it’s on at the Wool­store Design Cen­tre (262 Thorn­don Quay) from 5:30pm next Wednes­day the 2nd of July. If you miss the launch but want to see her work, you’ll have to be quick because it’s only on until the 5th, or if you’re real­ly keen she also runs work­shops.

(more after the jump)