Four­teen and half thou­sand of us watched the Phoenix get their A‑League cam­paign under way with a thrilling 2–2 draw at West­pac sta­di­um this after­noon. An esti­mat­ed (by myself and a cou­ple of oth­er self-appoint­ed experts) cou­ple of thou­sand more were stuck in queues for the first quar­ter and gave up and went home.

Yes, it was anoth­er tri­umph of event tick­et­ing with the com­bi­na­tion of a huge walk-up due to the good weath­er plus a huge pick-up queue for those that booked by phone yes­ter­day caus­ing chaos on Fran Wilde Walk.

If it had­n’t been for Sky and oth­er Asia-Pacif­ic broad­cast com­mit­ments I’m sure the kick-off would have been held back but, as it was, those of us in our seats were treat­ed to an enter­tain­ing spec­ta­cle with the Phoenix sav­ing their best for a sen­sa­tion­al last 15 min­utes.

[Match report after the jump]

*govt3 is a scheme where­by gov­ern­ment employ­ees have their rub­bish bins tak­en away and replaced with a cube the size of a cof­fee mug, so they’re forced to sort their rub­bish into com­post, recy­clables and land­fill waste. It’s a great idea but it’s very very annoy­ing how hard it seems to be for slight­ly old­er gen­er­a­tions to adapt to it. If it gets put in place in your work­place, stay out of the kitchen for a cou­ple of months or get earplugs because OH MY GOD how hard can it pos­si­bly be and is it real­ly worth the hours and hours of com­plain­ing and not under­stand­ing what to put where? No!

I’m sure you know by now that tomor­row the fantab­u­lous Craft 2.0 fair is hap­pen­ing again at the New­Dowse tomor­row from 11am-3pm. And even though this does mean you’ll need to ven­ture out to the Hutt, you’re will­ing to make that sac­ri­fice. Plus, since you can also go see the exhi­bi­tions that are on at the same time, you can take advan­tage of this:

When you trav­el by bus to see Becom­ing King Kong – get a free ride home! Sim­ply bring in your bus tick­et to The­New­Dowse and you’ll receive a vouch­er for a free ride home. Must show a valid tick­et from a City­line Hutt Val­ley, Stage­coach Welling­ton or Go Welling­ton bus ser­vice.

And if you need even more of an incen­tive to get along oth­er than just the great range for stuff for sale, Welling­ton­ista mem­bers Martha, Sue and Joan­na will all be there in the flesh sign­ing auto­graphs sell­ing their wares, which you can sam­ple for free if you get there at 11am for the gift­bags. Hur­rah!

Just remem­ber to take cash along for all your shiny pur­chas­es as there is no ATM.

PS. Welling­ton­ista Che will be sell­ing some­one else’s wares.

P.P.S. 101 gift bags get hand­ed to the first peo­ple through the door at 11am.
You can check out Craft2.0 before 11am, but the the gift bags get hand­ed out with the offi­cial fair start of 11am.

There are a cou­ple of things that we’re uni­ver­sal­ly fond of here at the Welling­ton­ista. Bars. Being enter­tained. Expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fer­ent things. Sex­u­al per­ver­si­ty. If only there was a way we could com­bine all those things togeth­er… Hang on, there is! David Mamet’s one-act play Sex­u­al Per­ver­si­ty in Chica­go starts tonight at 6pm (doors at 5.30) at the San Fran­cis­co Bath House, and we’re guar­an­tee­ing* it’s going to be a good time. If you need more con­vinc­ing, here’s five good rea­sons you should see it.

1. David Mamet’s plays and screen­plays for things are gen­er­al­ly wit­ty and hilar­i­ous.
2. It’s one act only! This means it starts at 6pm sharp and you’ll be out by 7.15pm, which is per­fect if you’re not much of a the­atre-goer and you just want to dip your toes in.
3. You can drink while you watch!
4. It’s only $15 a tick­et (or $10 for stu­dents), and is a great way to see some seri­ous­ly tal­ent­ed up-and-com­ing tal­ent, like the love­ly Lau­rel Deve­nie (pic­tured).
5. SFBH is one of our most favouri­tist venues (not just because of how late they’re open) and the play has been spe­cial­ly staged to fit the space, which will be very inter­est­ing to see.

It runs from Thurs­day 16th — Sat­ur­day 25th August 2007, so we’ll see you there, right?

* Well, not tech­ni­cal­ly. But we are giv­ing you our word as a gen­tle­man.

EDIT: And now I’ve actu­al­ly seen it, I rec­om­mend it like, ten times as much as before. Cabaret-style shows where you can sit at a table and drink and eat while watch­ing hilar­i­ous dia­log and pret­ty con­vinc­ing mid-west accents and also hott boys in their panties are alright by me!

Since the rest of the Welling­ton­ista are doing it, here are a few things about Dami­an Christie’s arti­cle about Welling­ton that I dis­agree with.

• He advo­cates avoid­ing Courte­nay Place. Don’t do that. Yes, it’s hor­ri­ble on Fri­days and Sat­ur­day nights, but with­out Courte­nay Place there would be no beloved Welling­ton­ista insti­tu­tions Sweet Moth­er’s Kitchen, the Para­mount, Arashi, or access to Boulot on Blair St.


• He says “A real city should have at least one bar that stays open 24 hours a day.” Well, The San Fran­cis­co Bath House is often open until 6am, and Sand­wich­es until 7am, and after that, you can jump in a cab and go get a pie from the Hataitai Bak­ery, and eat it in the laun­dro­mat, both of which are open 24 hours. Per­haps you’ll find some anony­mous sex there while you’re at it.


• He men­tions that Welling­ton lacks celebri­ties. Hel­lo, don’t you know who I am? The Welling­ton­ista are socialites. Llew in par­tic­u­lar bears a strik­ing resem­blance to Glin­da Kirk­patrick.


• Dami­an’s men­tioned before how all the girls in Welling­ton wear skirts over their trousers. I know I do every day, but I don’t know any­one else who does. And I know every­one.


• Seri­ous­ly, talk­ing about Fat Fred­dy’s and Fly My Pret­ties? Yawn. It seems like he just googled ‘Welling­ton Music’ and took those names from a Wall­pa­per arti­cle. For some­one seen around town as much as he is, you’d think he might have realised that there’s a lot more going on in our music scene.

The final ques­tion that ends all dis­cus­sions or post mortems of Welling­ton­ista events:

also, did some­one pick up our bar tab?

I like it for its sim­ple, if plain­tive, opti­mism.

Bret and Jemaine chan­nel the Pet Shop Boys cir­ca “West End Boys”…

Real Art Road­show is a mobile exhi­bi­tion of orig­i­nal work by more than 60 lead­ing New Zealand artists. It’s cur­rent­ly parked right out­side the Bee­hive.

More details, incl. list of artists, after the jump.