Lots of old buildings have stood up to the quake and as I walk around the city it fills me full of hope that the city’s heritage fabric is still intact. Yes, lots of lovely old buildings will be lost forever, but the opportunity exists to fill the empty lots with stunning buildings that will [...]

I headed up and checked out Poplar Lanes today. I am pleased to report it is fairly intact. Goodbye Blue Monday is fine and our building is sweet. Tim reports several cases of Weka and a bottle of Pyrat rum missing. We hope to open on Friday niught for the Transistors EP Release Party. The [...]

From the ashes of disaster, faint flames of hope and human goodness arise. The horrible earthquake on Friday night has changed my opinion on human nature. I now believe people are essentially good and it sometimes takes a horrible situation to discover this. Sure, there are the sloped-brow fuckwits who saw the situation as a [...]

The twitchier amongst us are now confident the worst of the earthquake is over… Normally on Wednesday, Hancock’s deliver all your cask wine and Weka Cider. Now look at their van parked next door to my house. The old Para Rubber building is like an ad for earthquake strengthening. Thank God nobody was inside. JB’s [...]

Saturday morning’s earthquake struck as Rosie, Aine and I sat around eating halloumi after a hard night’s work. We can confirm that our reaction was one of hysterical panic. While the newspapers are saying the quake measured 7.1, we believe it was more like a 7.4. Here’s a photo of the building beside where we [...]

You will notice the cleanliness of the bar gets worse moving forward. This is because we have new cleaners who are very young and very cheap. Here is wee Tom, about to mop the floors in his flamboyant pants. I do wonder if there is any hope for your son to grow up straight if [...]

Here’s a funny story I’ve been meaning to tell you all… A 50ish dandy of a homosexual walks into a bar (this bar) and after ordering his drinks says to Tim: “What type of customer do you get here?” To which Tim replies: “Mainly art fags…” To which there is a stony silence and Tim [...]

Rosie is my kid sister and in my eyes she’s cute-as-fuck and can do no wrong. I was visiting mum and dad’s the other day and discovered this photo of her as a baby. It seems funny to me that you can have such a bad photo of a baby who was universally regarded as [...]

A girl was in last weekend – a friend of Lady Kate’s she reckoned – who said she knew the whereabouts of the previously stolen pheasant. Tim was too busy to get any information off her but when she comes back in she is going to tell us where it’s located. Then we will get  [...]

The Liquor Licensing Authority has a number of requirements any bar must satisfy if it is going to sell booze. Food needs to be available, a manager has to be on site… One of these is that beside the main entrance, you need to display a “Host Responsibility Policy”. This is a statement of intent [...]