Notional Significance: Asylum

[See all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts] After my detour, I head back to the motorway’s edge. My route takes me along Mexted Terrace—a name that is engraved across Tawa’s skin, and with its twin asso­ci­a­tions of car deal­er­ships and rug­by it encom­pass­es two dimen­sions of the sub­ur­ban mythos. On the cor­ner of Treme­wan Street, with the […]

Crafters brew corner

How to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?  That was the ques­tion for the broth­ers who own the build­ing just off the cor­ner of Vic­to­ria and Vivian when their for­mer ten­ants’ ven­ture to open a bakery/café dis­solved. So in true kiwi fash­ion, they decid­ed they’d bet­ter jump in them­selves and do some­thing […]

It’s their birthday but we get the presents

Beloved Mira­mar insti­tu­tion is turn­ing three, and to cel­e­brate, they’re pub­lish­ing a cook­book! You get to vote on which recipes you think should be includ­ed, and go into the draw to win a copy of the book, an invite to the launch, and a vouch­er to spend at the restau­rant. The person/s who nom­i­nat­ed the […]

Is Utopia within arms reach?!

Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val 2014 Utopia can be found at Kit­ty O’Shea’s, on Courte­nay Place, from 8:30pm for the next two nights. Accord­ing to Adam Wright, the come­di­an putting on the show, Utopia can be found by fol­low­ing his 10 sim­ple answers to the world’s biggest prob­lems. In a show that cov­ers every­thing […]

Reviewing the review: David Burton’s goose is cooked

Welling­ton has one dai­ly news­pa­per, and that news­pa­per has one restau­rant crit­ic, who cer­tain­ly has his own… dis­tinc­tive style. The Fly has decid­ed that David Bur­ton needs some account­abil­i­ty. We’re giv­ing him his own series. Nor­mal­ly the Fly is pre­pared to see David Bur­ton’s reviews as some kind of strange per­for­mance art, but his “review” of […]

Review: Other Desert Cities

Lyman and Pol­ly Wyeth are wealthy Repub­li­cans enjoy­ing their lives in Palm Springs. Their chil­dren, Brooke and Trip, are at their par­ents’ place for Christ­mas for the first time in six years. Also stay­ing for Christ­mas is Pol­ly’s sis­ter Sil­da. She’s been in rehab. Every­thing seems to be going well (at least, as well as […]

Easter markets

Here are the YES’s and NO’s for the usu­al Welling­ton mar­kets over East­er if you fan­cy a wan­der and inhale or imbibe: YES’s: Frank Kitts under­ground craft mar­ket on Sat­ur­day Porirua and Hutt River­side mar­kets on Sat­ur­day Hill Street Farm­ers mar­ket on Sat­ur­day The Fringe Mar­kets in Allen Street on Sat­ur­day Har­bour­side mar­ket on Sun­day […]

Southern Cycling

Are you one of the increas­ing num­ber of cycling dare­dev­ils who spend morn­ings and evenings dodg­ing the traf­fic on Rid­di­ford Street, out­run­ning bus­es in the Ade­laide Road bus lane, and watch­ing in dis­may as cars try and over­take you on the down­hill stretch into the Bay when you’re already doing 50km/h? If so, you might […]

Notional Significance: Flat

[See all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts] I set off along Tay­lor Ter­race, and into the slow, steady heart of the sub­urbs. So far my path has tra­versed urban, edge­lands and rur­al land­scapes, with occa­sion­al tan­gen­tial encoun­ters across suburbia’s ragged edges. But here I am engulfed, flanked on both sides, strid­ing out its loose domes­tic rhythms: hip, […]

Sweeties for your sweetie…

As if East­er com­ing isn’t enough (I hear the cin­na­mon bun­nies at Bohe­mein are hop­ping out the door again), we now have more sweet deli­cious­ness on offer around the city. First­ly the new ven­ture on Feath­er­ston Street in the old Capri space – Louis Sergeant Sweet Cou­ture.  By (you’ll nev­er guess…) Louis Sergeant, the until-recen­t­­ly […]