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)