Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Tulip SundayWell… around them anyway, if you don’t want the gardeners getting medieval on you…

What:
Spring Festival, Sept 23 to Oct 8.

Where:
Botanic Gardens & Otari Wilton’s Bush

The Botanic Garden and Otari Wilton’s Bush will host two weeks of family orientated events.

Activities include:

  • glow worm tours
  • live music
  • petting zoos
  • plant sales

Brochures outlining the events will be available from both gardens and all Feeling Great stands from 1 September. PDF files here:

Spring Festival Brochure
Stamp Your Name on the Stump
Spring Festival Photo Contest

More reasons to moan about the buses…

a mexican juggling green ballsThe fares have gone up! Well, for some of us they have. The new zones do make things a little simpler, but one gets the feeling the 1, 2 and 3 stage price hikes will generally outweigh the discounts the more rare 4 stage traveller will be making. Don’t know about you train users. You can fend for yourself.

If you’re a little confused about it all MetLink have excellent online info about the new zones and fares.

And to the bus-driver who looked stroppy at me this morning when I presented my brand new (but old-school $20 three-stage ten trip), and griped that I should be using one of the new cards, and made his decision to let me on regardless seem as if was the greatest show of magnaminity shown by a single person across the Wellington region this year, might I now say (having checked the rules): “Get stuffed! It’s valid to the 17th!”

Waterfront update

Last night, I once again forced myself to sit through a Waterfront Development Subcommittee meeting. While it was full of enough procedural tedium and political pigheadedness to make sitting in broken glass during a Celine Dion concert seem like a pleasant alternative, it was worth it to get the latest updates and to see an inspiring presentation from UN Studio‘s Holger Hoffman (since Ben van Berkel had to miss it due to illness) about the processes behind their design for the transition building.

Here’s an update on progress and plans, mainly based upon reports from the meeting, but with a few other tidbits.

[read on…]

Celluloid architecture

These days it seem like there’s a specialist film festival for every taste and interest: human rights, vegetables, silent films and even Phoenix dactylifera. There’s even one for architecture buffs, and the Wellington season starts at the Penthouse this Friday.

[Read on…]

Dear Fellow Bus Passenger,

for god's sake, move down the back!…if you find yourself halfway down the bus, during rush-hour, with the entire rear of the bus’s aisle not only empty, but with half a dozen seats still there for taking, please don’t just stand there, acting as a dam against the ever-increasing human stream forcing its way up against your inconsiderate arse.

Moving back, and up that one small step is all that divides you from a possible seat, and from allowing another ten or so people onto this bus, instead of causing them to wait 10 minutes until the next (probably also overcrowded) bus arrives. Arsehole.

Bar Wars

The Capital Times has begun its 2006 Best of Wellington survey (not online), inviting readers to vote for their favourite things under dozens of categories.

However, one category is glaringly absent: best bar. They have best barman, barmaid, music venue and nightclub, but no bar (or best Martini, for that matter).

[read on…]

Newtown words

Newtown spoken word - flier
Tomorrow night, the Newtown Community and Cultural Centre hosts Newtown Spoken Word Winter 06, an open mike event organised by the Word Collective, the people who brought you Sk8board Poets, Karaoke Poetry and the Word Festivals. It starts at 7:30pm at the corner of Rintoul & Colombo streets, and entry is by koha. For more information, call Craig on 027 242 3453.

Snakes! On a plane! In Wellington!

ph33r my photoshop skillsNot that long ago, the London Time Out ran a feature on pirates in London to celebrate the release of Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Way to be hip, Time Out. Everyone who’s anyone knows that the actual most important movie this year is Snakes on Plane – or as some like to call it “Motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane”. So, in tribute to this movie that opens on Thursday, the Wellingtonista is proud to present this very special activity guide to recreating snakes on a plane in Wellington:

Musique Non Stop

While you were sleeping poster, 05/08/06(right, that’s the obligatory Kraftwerk reference out of the way)

This weekend’s a busy one for followers of electronic and dance music. Tomorrow night, Module‘s live band (including Rhian Sheehan and Raashi Malik) plays the late set at Cabaret. From there, it’s just a quick jaunt along Courtenay Place to Sandwiches for Rhombus, who will be starting at about … oh, whenever gigs start at Sandwiches these days.

After a late night like that, on Saturday you might be in the mood for something more laid-back, so try out While_you_were_sleeping‘s explorations of ambient and experimental sounds at Room 101 (under Bar Bodega) from 8pm. To get a preview of the sounds on offer, listen to The Session on Radio Active tonight, featuring tracks and interviews from some of the artists involved (inclding Pang, Panoramica and Anaesthesia Associates).

So So Modern, Disasteradio and Chairman Miaow, will be playing an Amnesty International benefit show at Indigo The San Francisco Bathouse from 9:30. And if you’ve any pills energy left, Concord Dawn and Minuit are playing not one but two gigs at Subnine: all-ages from 7pm to 10pm, and grown-ups only from 11pm.

It’s not my bag, baby!

Posted in the window of a certain shop in Cuba St:

It's not my bag baby! Oh the shame.
I guess he won’t be trying that again.