Review: Absolute Monster by Alice Sneddon

Abso­lute Mon­ster, guest reviewed by Lena Beets. It’s quite hard to write a review for a com­edy show that has a medi­um to large bomb­shell admis­sion in the middle that changes the con­text of all the jokes told thus far, but I’ll try my best because Alice Snedden’s Abso­lute Mon­ster was great. I’ve been a […]

Review: Actual Fact

Reviewed by our fant­ast­ic guest review­er, Shan­non Gil­lies (@dashright­in) on Twit­ter! The audi­ence arrived warm and will­ing to be enter­tained – and they were. Actu­al Fact explored story telling. Not in a way that is gen­er­ally cel­eb­rated in our soci­ety – such as I’m an adven­turer, sportsper­son, a politi­cian – listen to or read of […]

The city chocolate fix

Hur­ray, anoth­er guest post from Heath­er at Food­ie Gems of Wel­lie Where to go in the city for a qual­ity chocol­ate fix between usu­al excuses – chocol­ate fest­ivals, Valentines, East­er, Xmas, nation­al chocol­ate day, your birth­day, your best friend’s birth­day, White Day in Japan, Chocol­ate Dipped Fruit and Fon­due day in the US (hmmm, any […]

Wonderful Wellington Lux

Today we have a guest post from Suz­anne over at Obser­va­tions. Yay guest posts! Last night I went to the fas­cin­at­ing Wel­ling­ton Lux light­ing event on the Wel­ling­ton Water­front. (Runs from 6pm to 11pm, 1 to 9 Septem­ber) This  “teas­er” event con­sists of four light­ing install­a­tions, using new and inter­act­ive tech­no­logy. The idea is to […]

Wellington winter nostalgia (no, really)

Today’s guest post comes cour­tesy of Daisy Coles – you read more of her stuff over at daisyandzelda.wordpress.com I’m sit­ting in my togs on shady grass in a hid­den corner of Europe. I’m watch­ing the dragon­flies flit round a lazy little branch of the Danube, with a wine spritzer in one hand and an incom­pre­hens­ible news­pa­per […]

Get creative for Queen’s birthday weekend

Typ­ic­ally a Wel­ling­to­ni­an makes haste for the nearest air­port or road come Queen’s birth­day week­end, but the reverse is start­ing to hap­pen for those of a cre­at­ive bent as Hand­made hap­pens for the second year in a row. Hand­made is home to all sorts of mak­ing related things – from cook­ing to craft­ing they are […]

One year on…

This post­ing brought to you by Sandy Mamoli (deeply hon­oured inaug­ur­al guest blog­ger).

Have you got some­thing to say about Wel­ling­ton? Would you like to guest on the Wel­ling­tonista? Drop us a line and we’ll add you to the door list.


I dis­covered the Wel­ling­tonista on day two after my arrival. It took them almost year to dis­cov­er me …

In fact, it took them exactly a year. I cel­eb­rated my one year New Zea­l­and anniversary last Fri­day with the con­tra­dict­ory emo­tions of someone who sim­ul­tan­eously feels like a true long-term Wel­ling­to­ni­an and a rook­ie who has just stepped off the boat.

I am still strug­gling with a wee bit of cul­ture shock – com­plain­ing about Wel­ling­ton’s pro­vin­ci­al­ity and second-world infra­struc­ture while mar­veling at the vibe, friend­li­ness and genu­ine feel­ing of com­munity one can only find in Wel­ling­ton (I think).

Apart from being with a Kiwi part­ner who has been too long out of the coun­try to remem­ber any­thing use­ful and hav­ing read halfway through a travel guide I did­n’t know much about New Zea­l­and a year ago. And my former life in Vienna, Copen­ha­gen and Ams­ter­dam proved to be way too lim­ited an exper­i­ence of the world to shel­ter me from the sur­prises I was in for.

A Snark at the Park

A guest post from Kenno…

Wait­angi Park, yeah, sigh, it leaves me flat. Be warned, that will become the most over­used descrip­tion of the next few years. It’s an urb­an space sur­round­ing the mar­vel­lous Te Papa and thereby it’s not simply a Wel­ling­ton space but a space that should migh­tily reflect the nation­al char­ac­ter.

Well, if the idea was to reflect bland con­ser­vat­ive con­form­ism and lock-step simple minded­ness with all the indi­vidu­al­ity and self expres­sion of a school­girl uni­form, then it will suc­ceed. I, for one, thought we might want to reflect oth­er, per­haps more appeal­ing aspects of the nation­al char­ac­ter. Don’t get me wrong, this place would really wow them in Nel­son or Timaru, but, this city is a little bey­ond that, a bit more mature, slightly more cos­mo­pol­it­an and farther away from pig-dogs and pad­docks. Right? God, I was really try­ing to under­state the case.