Christmas tree

Shameless promotion really, but this is pretty cool I think - I'm off to Auckland today for the launch of our Christmas tree. Wellingtonians will have also noticed that one has popped up in Frank Kitts Park as well this year which gets switched on from Tuesday night. (hard not to notice a 30m or seven storey tall tower)

There a phone boxes at the base of the tree for kids to call santa from - their wishes shoot up the tree to the star. For the older kids you can just sit on the beanbags underneath it and gaze at the lightshow.

So check it out - Western Park, Ponsonby Rd Akld or Frank Kitts Park, Jervois Qy Wgtn.

Vid gives you the idea

All White Motherf@%kers!

Well it still doesn't quite seem real but the All White's are in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

I've never seen anything like last night. The crowd was amazing - almost entirely in white, chanting and carrying on the whole night. Unbelievable noise - my ears were ringing when Fallon scored from Leo's cross and yet it still got louder and crazier when Paston saved the penalty from the spot.

Wellington is the only place where you could pull off that atmosphere in New Zealand - it was epic.

Watts and I were both kitted out in our All White gears and we were still carrying on well after the final whistle.

How badass would it be if we had England, Australia and the All Whites in one pool? How badass is it that we can even talk about which pool we are going to be in!?

Time to book some flights to Africa!

Kingmaker

Family Cactus now even have a music video - friend'o blackbird singing, Adam is of course on vox and lead

How cool is this?

Just seen this over at the Eye of the Fish (Wellington urbanism and architecture blog)

The Wellington City Council has agreed to put over $4million towards cycleways and as part of this they are going to explore building a 70km cycle and walk way from Pencarrow point right around to Owhiro Bay. Yay!

I think this is an awesome concept.

Prickly downloads

Big ups to Adam's band, The Family Cactus, who have finally released their first single - Kingmaker.



You can listen to Kingmaker and two other tracks including my favourite, In Transit, on their MySpace site or download Kingmaker at iTunes - go on spend the $1.79!

Otherwise the Family Cactus are playing Mighty Mighty on 3 July.

Positively Musical

Big news today that Acca Dacca are coming back for the first time in ages to play Auckland and Wellington in January - yus!

It will be ACDC's first NZ concert in 14 years - I really can't wait!

I loved this bit of the Stuff article, talking about the new vocalist -

"Tragedy struck the group in February 1980 when lead singer Bon Scott died but like true rockers the group continued making music. Scott was replaced by Brian Johnson, who helped complete their album Back in Black which featured singles Hells Bells and You Shook Me All Night Long and has sold more than 22 million copies in the US alone."

By the time of the Auckland concert - Bon Scott will have been dead for 30 years FFS.

In other news - Wilco have a new album on the way which is all very exciting. I was a big fan of Sky Blue Sky and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and and to whet your appetite they have released a free download track on their site here. It's a cover of Woody Guthrie's The Jolly Banker - it's not actually on the new album but hey its free and awesome.

It's a small world after all

So I somehow ended up with two spare tickets to the Steve Coogan (Alan Partridge) show tomorrow night and I decided to chuck them on Trade Me. Now I had never actually bought or sold anything on Trade me so I wasn't entirely sure of what I was up to.

Anyway, so the auction happened, reserve was met etc etc and then I get an email telling me what the successful bidder's email is and how to contact her...

Turns out I recognise the name of the bidder... she's only my cousin who lives about 5 minutes away from my place.

Honestly, what are the chances?

On the plus side - at least since I had never bought or sold anything prior to this, there were no dodgy purchases to be seen by said family member in my purchase history...

In Transit

Over the past few weeks I had been wondering what the Council and Sculpture Trust were constructing on Karo Drive (the bypass). Initially I was a little worried that it would be yet another kinetic wind sculpture... but I'm really not sure about what is going up - it looks a little too shantytownish for my liking.

Don't get me wrong - i'm loving most of the works put up by the trust since it came about in the 1980s - so many have become icons of Wellington (the fern ball, albatross fountain, sky blues (the neon lights), Per Capita (the silhouette one) and so on), but this one looks like it should have one of those wacky sign things where you poke your head through a hole and get your photo taken, or some stocks.

I'll reserve judgement till we see the final thing - I really do hope it works.

A better product required

For both the first and second days of the third test between India and New Zealand, Wellingtonians have turned out in great numbers and while it was windy today, it was still a cracker.

In terms of selling the TV rights back to India, tours by Indian teams have become cash cows - with this present tour estimated to be worth around $23 million to NZ Cricket - which will pretty much pay for everything till they are due to tour again. But it seems as though NZ Cricket have allowed this to get the better of them and they look like they've got a bit greedy.

They are now charging $27 for a single day pass - almost double what a day pass cost a year ago and roughly what you pay for a one day game or 20/20. Now if this was India vs Australia - then yeah, I'd be happy paying that - but we're shithouse and test matches against us only really test one thing - the patience of NZ supporters.

In other cricket related news, through work I went to a function at St John's head office the other night. St John's is now the official charity of the NZ team and THE NZ batsman, Ross Taylor, and bit part, James Franklin, were there. After the formalities and photos with the sponsors (ie me) etc Taylor basically attached himself to myself and my colleague and we chatted away for about an hour. I dont think it was anything to do with us being particularly interesting, but rather we were the youngest people by about 30 years.

It turns out he's a wine buff (who would have thought??) and he amazed us by picking it was an Australian Pinot that was on offer... show off. I voiced my outrage at Jamie How's non-selection and let him know that it was me that taught Jamie how to play that cover drive and solid forward defense when he was in my team at Intermediate. I'm not sure he bought it though as he turned down my offer of a personal batting clinic on Saturday morning with chuckle and a mock-offended "what, are you saying my forward defense is rubbish??" - but who's laughing now? There are a couple of days before the players leave for the IPL competition so the offer is still there.

It is big time actually

My tickets to Steve Coogan's live show arrived today - YUS! I really hope they are selling his tie and blazer combo sets or his awesome black Castrol GTX that he wore to the funeral.

For anyone that doesn't remember Coogan - he was Alan Partridge the host of a military style quiz show on UK conquest, the host of Radio Norwich's 2am-6am slot and a failed BBC chat show host in the TV shows Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge. Coogan's Alan shows are totally in my top 5 and were groundbreaking for their time - he was doing awkward fly on the wall comedy way before Gervais.

There were so many classic Alan lines and I still pull some of them out every now and then - Cashback! Jurrasic Park! Kiss my face! Smell my cheese you mother! Wings - they're only the band the Beatles could have been.

Anyway, here is some classic Alan - when he realises his new best friend, kitchen designer Dan and his wife are 'sex people' (dont worry its safe for work).

What has Bill been reading??

It turns out that the 20 or so readers a day that I get on here might be of a higher calibre... or at least ranking than I had thought.

Earlier this week the Mayor's office tried to correct my outrageous disapproval of the location of the council's Indoor Sports Centre. (turns out that hell hath no fury like a... property developer scorned!?!). I'm totally getting blacklisted after that outburst huh?

But tonight NZPA have reported that Minister of 1950s Haircuts and Finance, Bull Unglush, has confirmed that the Government is looking at allowing struggling businesses to move to a four day week, with workers doing government funded training on the fifth... sound familiar??

So Kerry, Bill, uh Anand, Helen, Tana, Barack and Kevin, welcome. (btw my consultancy invoice is in the mail)

Ten thousand reasons to get off my arse

Our team at work have just started doing the 10,000 steps a day challenge - I was warned in advance that "ohhh it's so much harder than you think." But uh I'm kind of making light work of it at the moment oddly enough.

In the first 24 hours (12pm Monday-11.59am Tuesday) I did 17,054 steps and since midday today I've done 11,833. Mind you I am making an effort, so I'm not that surprised - but still... this challenge is getting pwned!

On top of this of course we have our regular humiliation all scheduled to go tomorrow... I'm reliably informed our Mayor won't be showing up again... ah nevermind.

Wellington thinking

Why?
We had our second session of humiliation yesterday, the positive this time though was that since it had been raining there were less people to stare at us while they pie-munched and we contorted ourselves. The negative involved the instruments of satanic worship that are dynabands combined with the obligatory 'pulse' action. Ugh pain. The Mayor and the Phoenix players who had been participating didn't show this week - but as Mish said, "we don't need them anyway - they never win!"

Sevens
Despite going along last year for the first time, the whole sevens thing did seem a little tired this year and I think Tom over at the Wellingtonista summed it up nicely with his article "Thank God that's over". Mind you, I do wonder if the Cuba Street Carnival is really that much different? Isn't it just another case of a certain group of Wellingtonians letting their proverbial hair down - and shouldn't we just embrace all these events? Meh, maybe? But they do all get a tad boring after 10 years.

Courting controversy
Was it just me that let out an audible sigh of relief at the announcement that the Council's proposed 12 basketball court sized indoor sports stadium has been held up for another 18 months? I don't get why we need to rush to build this mammoth thing other than to give the dopey Mayor her swansong? For those who don't know, Wellington City Council is trying to build a huge indoor sports centre to attract national tournaments etc etc, which is all very good. But after originally looking at building it on top of the stadium concourse, and then on the waterfront, the Council decided building it over Cobham Park out in Kilbirnie (on the way to the airport) is better (images over at EOTF). In theory thats fine, but as anyone who has tried getting over/through Mt Vic when something is on out the other side, Kilbirnie is a nightmare to get to in peak traffic - so how would this location work if we had say 30 teams in town for a tournament?? So anyway, I'm happy its stalled again, even if it was a little dodgy how it happened, and I hope the 18 months now available will see sense prevail and other options considered. Btw, what about that pun for a headline eh? eh?

Public humiliation

As part of the Council's Summer in the City series, our psychotic work personal trainer, Mish, is organising "Putting the Well in Wellington" fitness sessions at Frank Kitts Park - and through immense peer pressure we are basically forced into participating.

It started this week and its fair to say after spending 40 or so minutes doing all sorts of daft sit ups, leg lifts, press ups etc etc with 150 other mugs (and infront 200 others) I feel suitably humiliated and well... fucked.

The best bit had to be while doing the leg lifts when after counting down to 2 to go, she then paused and said "3 and 2 and.... pulse". Who comes up with this stuff?? Mind you, Mish is NZ personal trainer of the year so she must know what she's doing... although as I said to her, if she was really that good - I wouldn't look like this. lol

Oh and in other stupid exercise news, the other morning while buying a coffee down at Legato I entered a competition to win a 6 month membership for Exodus Health Club and cutting a long story short - I won!

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals at the Opera House

Well Ryan Adams and the Cardinals hit Wellington this week and rocked out at the Opera House last night.

Over at the Cardinal Cave Blog you can see pics of the band hanging out in "Chillington" and there is video below of Ryan at the Waitangi Park skate bowl. By his own (somewhat melodramatic) account this is Adams' last tour due to his hearing and subsequent balance issues, so I was totally amped for the gig. (Although the infamous blog post has disappeared so maybe this isnt the end?)

They opened with an awesome version of Let it Ride and played some great tracks including Cold Roses, Fix It, Mockingbird Sing and Born into a Light. Adams was also in fine form with some crazy ass banter like having a discussion with gutarist Neal Casal on why he doesnt agree with Come Pick Me Up anymore, but plays it because everyone loves it, and talking about how awesome Laser Tag at the place down Courtenay Place - "That's your funhouse dot net!" A friend of mine was also lucky enough to meet him after the show, and by all accounts he's a really easy going cool guy - "clearly kicking the speedball-a-day habit is treating him well."

On the downside, he didn't play any of the tracks I was dying to hear - there was no La Cienega, Magnolia Mountain, Sweet Illusion, The End, If I'm a Stranger, Cherry Lane, 29 or Blue Sky Blues. I could have also done without Magick, but hey he did play Wonderwall - which I'm sure on some level was a nod to me and their version of Easy Plateau was much better than the album version. As you can probably imagine from the set list below, for me the highlights were definitely Let it Ride and Cold Roses.

Full set list:
Let it Ride, Two, I See Monsters, When the Stars Go Blue, Crossed Out Name, Cold Roses, Grand Island, Fix It, Everybody Knows, Come Pick Me Up, Wonderwall, Oh My Sweet Carolina, Freeway to the Canyon, Oh My God Whatever Etc, Rescue Blues, Mockingbird Sing, Born Into A Light, Easy Plateau, Encore: Goodnight Rose, Magick.

Also I should make mention of the really really odd opening act - it was two young Maori dudes singing what was basically a kiwiana mega mix - Pokarekareana. Tutira mai nga iwi, and so on. It kind of felt like the Cardinals had found them busking down Courtenay Place and invited them to play... very weird.


"...so fast" RA-SK8 Wellington from Wilson Wolf on Vimeo.

Walk the Line... the Johnsonville Line

Ahhh infrastructure investment...mmmmmm. You will remember that two years ago Labour invested a carriage load of cash into rail which included upgrading the crappy Johnsonville Line in Wellington.

Well now its almost done and OnTrack are having an open day (well open afternoon) this Wednesday (4 Feb) from 3pm to 7pm allowing Wellingtonians to literally walk-the-line between the Crofton Downs Station and the Wadestown crossing loop.

Should be a good opportunity to walk through rail tunnels like a madman and avoid the hefty fines and being mashed into tracks all at the same time!

Check out all the details on the OnTrack site.

Long weekends

I ended up spending the long weekend over in the Wairarapa - checked out Castle Point and the Wings over Wairarapa show which featured some very cool Red-Bull-esqe air racing... and some very ordinary commentary from Jim Hickey. Honestly he was an unwelcome blast from the past.

But anyway check it out - the old Cannon camera is still rocking it.

Cactus in the Gardens

It is big time actually. Following in the footsteps of the likes of the Uke orchestra, Holly Smith, Little Bushman etc etc, Adam and Sam's band - The Family Cactus played the Botanic Gardens tonight as part of the Summer City series. They have stepped up a notch since I last saw them at Mighty Mighty a month or two back - he's clearly been working on his Thom Yorke wail too! lol

Anyway it was a pretty cool gig and check me out - below is a short video I took - apologies for quality etc etc

No way

I cannot believe that this is actually on the table - but the City Council is actually proposing to build a flyover at the Basin Reserve - ala the Victoria Park fly over in Auckland. The fact that it will still be bookended by the two old single lane tunnels make it hopeless from the outset - but how on earth could Kerry and the gang seriously propose building such a hideous monument at one of the worlds best cricket grounds.

Eye of the Fish have a good run down on how hopeless and costly the Victoria Park and Newmarket fly overs have been in Auckland here and you can read the full Ngauranga - Airport corridor report here. What really annoyed me though was how they tucked details of the fly over into the part about creating a 'grand pedestrian entrance' to the Basin with a new public transport hub - it was like oh and we could incorporate a motorway fly over.... you know, as you do. This is a stupid 1950s response to the congestion in this area and creates the real risk that we are going to have a shocking blot on the Wellington landscape.

The other shocking part for me is that the Council seems to have dismissed the idea of light rail in the short to medium term and also the idea of extending rail into the city. This whole plan is a shocker and its good to see Green Councillor, Iona Pannett holding public meeting this Tuesday on it. I'd love to see our new MP take a lead on this.

Below is a map of the plan that the Greens came up with for Wellington during the recent election campaign (click on it for a bigger version) - and I have to say - how cool would that be??

The plan Replaces the Johnsonville line with light rail, which then connects through to Courtenay Place, the Airport and the Hospital. Also they are suggesting a light rail line out to Queensgate from Wellington - just like a ahhh.... city! Longer term I'd love to see fast electrified rail of some description right through to Palmerston North, connecting the other centres along the way which would create a situation where people could live up the coast and commute to the City in good time.

Going Gig Crazy

Well Feb and March are now shaping up as exciting months with a stack of international acts actually coming to New Zealand!

We have the Top Gear Live Show in Auckland - with the full cast of Jeremy Clarkson, Hampster, Captain slow, and the Stig as well as an array of super cars and football-playing-Suzuki-swifts. On top of that The Who are playing the North Shore with Counting Crows, Neil Young and the Arctics are headlining the Big Day Out and just announced yesterday - Ryan Adams is coming to Wellington... EEEEEEEEE!

Here he is performing Magnolia Mountain from Cold Roses in Sydney a few years back


Rounding out the beginning of 2009, rumour has it that the Ringleader of the Tormentors himself, Morrissey is heading down our way... again EEEEEEEE!


Which reminds me of a funny conversation I had about Morrissey a year or so back - I was asked "is he still alive??" I was like no he's still touring to which they said "Oh well he's all shit then - moans on about it, but never actually tops himself." LOL classic.