Welcome to me
It is time to reveal my last name, and join the Wellingtonista.
My usual cosy pad is over at Wanda Harland. Generally I write complete crap, so it is surprising to find myself on such a fabulous website as this.
I promise to try and resist writing about the price of beans at Pak n Save, while keeping it real peeps (did I mention I’m a gangsta rapper?).
God. Enough. They’re going to sack me before I even get started, and I value my corner suite at the Wellingtonista Towers too much to stuff it up at this stage.
Wellington’s World Cup alter-ego
There’s been a bit of discussion up here at Wellingtonista Towers as to just who we should be supporting in the World Cup. We need a team with whom we Wellingtonians can identify with – soccer’s equivalent of the Hurricanes: a team that blows hot and cold; a team full of star names, but who inevitably fall at the final hurdle; a team that are a joy to watch, but typically lose to more dour, joyless sides.
To that extent, we came up with a short-list of four: Holland, Spain, Portugal and Mexico. All these teams have been frustrating their fans for years, making the latter stages on relatively regular occasions, only to lose to more methodical plodders like Germany or Italy, or falling to the perenially brilliant Brazilians.
At the moment, we’re veering towards Spain, partly because they’re sure to be a good source of sporting ups and downs, but mostly because they’re our Earth Sandwich partner, and if that doesn’t count for something, what does? Any votes from anyone else?
And, tell you what, there’s some ‘interesting’ hits for “World Cup” on Google image search. Keep your eyes on the ball, son!
Library Blog
Wellington Library has gone and got itself a blog!
And it’s a good’un too. From latest releases and staff picks, and the occasional look at what’s popular amongst the patrons, such as the latest post: Evidence of Good Taste among Wellingtonians.
Wellingtonians, apparently, are a fairly literate and intelligent buch of readers, with Alain De Botton’s ‘Architecture of Happiness’, Irene Nemirovsky’s ‘Suite Francaise’ and ‘Hard way’ by Lee Child being the most sought-after items of the moment.
And remember, if you haven’t already, sign up to the Library Elf service to get library reminders sent to you via a personalised RSS feed.
Shed in Transition
Just quietly, there’s an intriguing little exhibition on at Shed 11 until Sunday: “Transitions” is a collection of images by photography students at Massey University. All the photographs are of the waterfront, covering diverse subjects such as the visiting “Big Lift” ship, the inner workings of the Brewery and the way that marine life manages to colonise even rubbish and pollutants.
It’s all a little bit self-referential, since many of the images investigate the ever-changing nature of the waterfront, and the venue itself looks likely to see a significant change soon. There are plans afoot to make it the permanent home of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery and the New Zealand Centre for Photography. The photography theme continues next week with the start of the World Press Photo 06 exhibition.
Good hatitude
Do you have a hankering for a homburg? Are you bereft of bowlers? Is it time to farewell that fading fedora?
Fear not: Hank Cubitt is bringing his unique sartorial style to Wellington’s bareheaded masses with the new Wellington Hatters shop in Woodward St. And Hank being Hank, he’s not content to just bring you traditional headwear, so his offerings extend to straw top hats, patchwork tweed cheesecutters and feathered felt creations that will certainly help you stand out among the Lambton Quay crowds. It’s not just for the chaps, either, as he also stocks chapeaux for the chapettes.
Now, does anyone have any hints on how to keep them on your head in a Wellington northerly? I once had a very fine Panama that ended up somewhere near the Chathams.
Bleep!
Well, the flyer tells the story, really – if you want to participate in some fun electronic music-making, head along to the Wellington Arts Centre this Sunday (June 11).
Brought to you by our favourite Wellingtonian electronic music-making blogger: Frey.
blognapped!
So, there I was, idly trying to export the old Wellingtonista blogspot entries across to our snappy new dot com address, and failing miserably.
I decided to call it a night, and switch the publishing target back to the wellingtonista blogspot address, as my co-contributors were doubtless champing at the bit to post their latest, insightful thoughts on our fair city onto the site.
But, upon toggling from the FTP publishing option back to the publish-to-blogspot option, something weird happened: “Sorry, this blog address is not available.”
Yes indeed, in the couple of hours I’d had the blogspot address offline, someone had come in and blognapped it, replacing our lovingly crafted site with a spamblog.
Arseholes.
Anyway, this has but accelerated our site shifting plans, so, farewell blogspot, and hello wellingtonista.com.
Those of you with RSS links shouldn’t have to change anything, but if you’ve got a link to us on your website, we’d appreciate it if you could update to the new dot com version of the address.
Grid time
I’ve been so busy the last week, for reasons that Hadyn can explain better than I, that I’ve got a bit behind on my Gridskipper reading. In fact, I totally missed the fact that not only did Wellington beat Baku in the “Pitch Your Burg” contest, we now have our first official Gridskipper post! It has all the obligatory Wellytown references, including Fat Freddy’s Drop, the ‘Canes, Waitangi Park, the fact that we’re all so over hobbits, and of course, a mis-spelling of “Courtney” Place. It also somehow manages to mention pretty much every Wellington blog in existence. And only one reference to P!
Wellingtonian Wally of the Year: nomination #1
Might we nominate the two adults who thought that taking eight pre-schoolers for a walk through the Terrace Tunnel as ‘Wellington Wally of the Year’? Yes, we might. [photo courtesy of taniwha]
Coupled
It’s been a bit quiet up here at Wellingtonista Towers over the last few days, mostly because our two most recent and prolific contributors – Haydn and Tom – have been working flat out on their entry for this year’s 48 Hour Film Challenge.
Their hard work has has resulted in ‘Coupled’ – co-written by Hadyn and starring Tom, and which will screen at 5.45pm tonight (Tusday 30 May) at the Regent Cinema.
No doubt the claims of ‘cinematic brilliance’ are well founded, so get along to enjoy this, and the other quality and not-so-quality pieces of film-making whipped up in your fair city over the weekend.
For a full list of screening times head over to the official 48 Hours website.
(And for more Wellington-based 48 hours blogging action, check out Talula and Che Tibby (the latter being another member of the Coupled team.))