Yesterday’s Protest March & the Second Coming of Christ
The Anti-Smacking Bill? The Child Discipline Bill? I’m not entirely sure what it’s officially called, and in standard tradition, I can’t be bothered looking it up. But you know what I mean.
Rusticity
Following the success of the recent Wellington Flickr Group‘s exhibition at the Paramount, cames yet more photographic goodness from a Wellington flickr-ite legend A Different Perspective (aka Jim Henderson).
He’s putting on an exhibition of his work down at Island Bay’s The Bach café, from the 1st to the 30th of April.
To get a feel for what you might be seeing, check out his awesome flickr photostream here.
Wellington Phoenix FC
Gah. If the stories we’re hearing tonight are true, then we are … underwhelmed.
Seriously, Black Star Wellington was the bomb.
And even Wellington City or Wellington FC were better options.
But … “Phoenix“?
Ah well.
Update. Well, it’s official, and, having slept on it, I suppose it’s something we can live with. At least it’s not the Wellington Bumblebees.
The Dead C are coming to town
I wouldn’t wanna put money on it or anything, but I’m pretty sure that the last time legendary NZ noise-rockers The Dead C (wikipedia) played in Wellington was when they supported Sonic Youth on their Dirty tour in 1993. And to be frank, with an utterly transcendant performance in the face of much tribulation, mopped the floor with them.
Now they’re playing at the City Gallery on Saturday night. It’s free. What the hell else do you need to know?
City Gallery Wellington is proud to present The Dead C. These noise/rock heroes who have most recently played in the UK at Thurston Moore‘s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival will perform in the Gallery. Support from local band Thought Creature. Gallery opens at 7. Music starts 8. Be sure to make it to this unique performance.
Here’s a (reasonably famous) video of The Dead C on now-defunct Friday-nite music show Ground Zero in 1999, playing Sky (off what some claim to be their greatest album, Harsh 70s Reality) and talking about Suicide with the hosts:
Flight of the Conchords: Business Time
Wellington’s fourth most popular digi-folk paradists are currently shooting their 12-part HBO comedy series in New York, with fellow Wellingtonians Taika Waititi directing a couple of shows, and Duncan Sarkies providing the script for one of the episodes.
All this, of course, is just an excuse to post some classic Flight of the Conchords for your listening enjoyment. Oooohhh yeahhhh, it’s business time…
World’s largest phubble
As always, the photoblog over on the right hand sidebar proves itself a rich source of short-term distraction. This morning it was displaying this photo, from where I went on a little voyage of ‘phubble‘ discovery, which eventually led me to this brilliant image of a phubble at the Basin Reserve…
The worlds largest soap bubble blown by 10 year old Mary Smith of Wellington who can just be seen at the bottom behind the bubble. It took her 7 hours and 38 minutes to get it to this size before a passing seagull flew through it and burst it. Mary was treated for Hypoxia and given a lolly.
Brilliant.
[Image by Mark Turnbull]
Getting Moore for less
Fashionistas may be excited to know about the very temporary-looking Andrea Moore ‘workroom’ set up by the bus stop on Manners St, whose windows are promising 50-70% off. But those who recently bought a (gorgeous) Andrea Moore dress at full cost might not want to read this at all…
Bypass surgery complete. Has the patient survived?
At last, the final stage of the bypass has been opened, and the decades-long drama is drawing to an end. The DomPost reports…
At 6am yesterday, southbound traffic was directed from The Terrace Tunnel onto a one-way Vivian St via a new off-ramp.
At the same time, Buller and Ghuznee streets reverted to two-way streets.
Transit New Zealand project manager Jonnette Adams said some motorists had teething problems with the new layout, but were mostly courteous to each other. Some “tweaking” of intersection lights helped alleviate congestion on other routes linking with the bypass.
A team of engineers would be on hand today to make sure things ran smoothly, Ms Adams said.
Transit opened the northbound section of the bypass in December.
Meanwhile, frustrated Wellingtonians are turning to the Web to vent their anger at delays caused by the region’s transport infrastructure.
Aha! Haven’t they just.
So, how was it for you?
Quote of the night
James, whilst walking through Cuba Mall with us all: “Hey, that bollard (covered in posters) looks just like our site!”.
Also, James gets super large bonus points for coming swimming tonight.
(And also: I heart Wellington.)
Where we’ll be
If you’re trying to stalk the Wellingtonista, and/or find something to do this weekend, here are our hot tips:
- The City Art Gallery tonight because Luke Buda is adorable and Aspen has a good track record
- The Aro Valley Fair. Perhaps you can find out for me why it seems that everyone in Aro owns a dog and/or a baby.
- Trying to find the Wellingtonista on our big night out on Saturday – it would be cheating to tell you where we’ll be, but there may be clues in these posts here.
- If the poster’s this good the Voom and The Sneaks gig should be good as well. Voom used to be the laziest band in NZ – their songs are so effortlessly pop perfection – but it seems they’ve finally got their act together after many line-up scandals.
- The Festival Italia on Sunday. Perhaps you could adopt a bad accent and try the “Do you have any Italian in you? Do you want some?” line you neglected to use on St. Patrick’s Day.