So, if you’re wondering what to do this Saturday Night (July 23), come down and check out Von Klap, Undercurrents and DJ Big Gay Tony. I believe Von Klap are among the top seven bands performing in Christchurch this weekend, so make sure you pop down and check out what the lack of fuss is about.

Rosie has been my sister since I was eight. She came into the world early one morning on my parents’ bed. She was an en-caul birth, which meant she was born in a mucusy wee sac. In the old days, sailors used to believe carrying one of these sacs would save you from drowning at sea.

She was pretty cool as a baby and Pam appreciated having children old enough to babysit. As a small kid, she was very cute (even with terrible eczema), and while the rest of us all hated one another until we were old enough to bond over booze in our twenties, we all loved Rosie to bits.

She’s grown up into a lovely young woman with a wicked sense of humour and since starting work at Addington Coffee Co-Op seems to have developed a work ethic she never had when she worked for me. She’s moved out of home, got a new boyfriend and started the process of growing up. This is hard, because to me she will always be about nine years old; that scratchy wee kid that I used to read bedtime stories to. I miss the way she used to look up to me and think everything I did was awesome (even when I was a horrible white-trash bogan). Isn’t it funny how the early relationships you have with people affect the way you interact throughout your lives?

When dad was in politics there used to be a rumour around town that Anna and I had a different mother than Tim and Rosie. I think if you look at Pam, Rosie and me, you can see three people swimming in a shared gene pool.

So, that’s my kid sister. I thought I’d better introduce you to her. People have been hassling me to write something, and I thought I’d introduce you all to the cast of characters that populate my life.

Hey Rosie. Get you nose out of Facebook you little skank and give me a call. It would be cool to hang sometime…

My nephew Tom is one of the most awesome blokes I know. His main interests are phoning Jock and motorcycles. Over the past few months I have been spending heaps of time with the little man.

At two years old he can already ride a push bike with trainer wheels and competently balance on the front of a motorbike at pace. In CYF related news, he has a scar on his head from where he split it open on the motorbike. In our defence, we did buy him a wee helmet after the accident and besides, he’s smashed his head open doing all sorts of much safer activities.

Today Tom and I hung out. We went to the cafe for a fluffy and a flat white, to the bike shop for a browse, dropped off a few things about town, looked up motorbikes on the Internet, went and looked at a building to see if we could make it into a bar and ate gingerbread men (actually Tom ate the lollies and icing off the thing, then pretended it was a cell phone and talked to Jock until his ear and hair were covered in the remaining chocolate).

The best game we came up with was driving at pace along earthquake damaged roads. Where you normally avoid pot-holes and Madras Street, in this game you head toward the hazards at full noise and shout “bump” as the old ute bounces about the place. Look at how stoked he is in his little jersey. Don’t you think he’s choice?

For the record I am the better table tennis player.

Now we live in seperate houses in different parts of town and are doing our own things. Tim is going to be working at the new Cassels and Sons brewpub and I’m going to become a painter like Tony de Lautour/Mark Gore.

For those of you that miss him too and want to come to a nice, family friendly event and see Tim in his daytime guise, I will see you down at New Brighton library on Sunday evening.

Tim will be playing with Handsome Marlon and Lawrence Arabia for the launch of New Zealand Music Month in Christchurch. The event runs from 5.30-7.30.

And so, I think of the things that I loved most about the place. The bands and all the amazing music that was performed on that little stage, the back wall and the relentless labour of changing it every month, the monthly posters as they came in from different artists, Motorbike Night, Monday Debates, life drawing in a bar, table tennis, the pie-cart finally running, the Buzzcocks playing pissed at our piano after we locked the doors one night…

We created something that didn’t exist before we made it and now its over. We have started talking about Goodbye Blue Monday in the past tense.

It’s hard to pin down what it was that I loved the most? But the one thing that really made that place my favourite bar in the world was the people. It was the staff and my family working together on this madcap bar that liked to think it was different from anything else around.

When we opened, sometimes on a Monday Tim and I would be the only people in the place. Then slowly, over time, people began to visit. Then more regularly. Until the place was steadily popular. Sometimes, I looked about the crowd on a packed Saturday night and would know almost everybody in the place. And this was something I loved. We created a place that people chose to visit time and time again. And it was those people who showed up and sat on the couches and talked shit with Tim and I that made it special.

So, thank you to all of you that supported us. You know who you are. We like to think there were good times had at that pub. I hope you all had fun. We did.

I don’t know what we are all doing next. I will keep you all up-to-date.

The Moore family can be a bit overbearing for some boyfriends/girlfriends with all their scat-talk and  insistence on playing the “rate the order you would have a bath with the members of your/our family” game. But we couldn’t phase Greg or gross him out one bit. In fact, he reckoned he realised he truly loved Anna one night when he rolled her over in her sleep to check she hadn’t shit herself. Pleasingly it was only a fart and Greg had a great story to tell us at the dinner table.

Greg has spent a lot of time working with older men and uses old-fashioned similes like “Steep as a hen’s face,” and “he’s all cock and ribs like a cocky’s sheepdog”. His time with old men has, however, given him excellent mechanical training. With his short, sausage-like fingers he can turn his hand to anything mechanical.

It is his mechanical skill that I am most in awe of; his ability to think through a mechanical problem that he has not necessarily encountered before.

Greg works fucking hard. He drives to Ashburton every day so that he can feed and house my sister and the kids. In my eyes, he’s a bit of a saint. But I suppose there’s still plenty of time for him to start hitting Anna and the kids.

On Thursday nights he comes into the bar on his own time and fixes motorbikes. He’s worked so hard on the Matchless that if I die he gets to own it (so long as he stays married to Anna).

He’ll be down tonight after he’s had dinner at Warrington St. Make sure to wish him “happy birthday” and buy him a beer. I reckon he deserves one for being such a bloody good bloke.

We all went over to Lake Brunner for five days which was a nice break. It rained non-stop, which is what you should expect when holidaying on the West Coast. Sometimes I wonder if the Coast climate is better suited to trees than humans, but you’d never know that from the amount of Commodores zooming about Moana with jet-skis on trailers.

We ate too much and drank far too much and fired more than 2000 rounds from the pellet gun, which logically turned into a game involving petrol and a fire. Aoife was the surprise convert to small firearms, getting up each morning and heading to the deck to get her fix before breakfast. When Josh arrived with his .270 and offered her a go at firing a real gun, she jumped at the opportunity. She reckons she’s going to take Riley on a date to the firing range, which I think sounds very romantic.

We had a small awards ceremony and Tim was the winner of manager of the Year due in a large part to his promise that a vote for him would mean more liberal drinking on the job. Alex was voted customer of the year and as his prize got to come on the trip.

Michael Fordham put in some real effort on the drinking front and it seems to have gotten in the way of his reading.

Goodbye Blue Monday won the coveted Employer of the Year award in the face of some stiff competition.

We had a Beta trial bike which we rode until the neighbours must surely have been sick of us. It was a bit daunting for people to learn to ride a motorbike on a 350cc monster that  would throw you off at the slightest hint of throttle. Mark ended up as the most competent learner. Eventually he developed the cockiness of a guy that can ride a motorbike but has never come off one.

We all wanted to stay longer, but had to get back to Christchurch to open the bar back up so that you all have somewhere to drink and complain about the wind/heat/earthquake.

I have been promising Aoife I will put it on the blog and now I have. Doesn’t her look cute?

Andy’s interests include the Kinks, Ray Davies, sixties pop, the Kinks and the Kinks. He says he comes to the bar because he has never come across a venue that plays so much Kinks. When Andy grows up he wants to be Ray Davies.

Andy works a grown up job which means we don’t see him during the week. On Friday and Saturday, he can be found in the outside area drinking bourbon and talking music obsessively with other obsessive music nerds.

There is a strange relationship between Andy and Big Ben the Bouncer. I think they went to school together and seem to see each other as their 15 year old foreselves.

So ladies, if you like man with a stable job, a massive Kinks collections and lots of cowboiy shirts, leave ytour sexual CV at the bar and I will pass it on to Andy when he comes in next weekend.

Here is a photo of Andy with former Steve of the Month and one of him and Will Daymond (thanks for letting us tease your hair William).