Tonight (Friday) at 1.00am, we will be holding auditions for members of our dance troupe Psychedelic Arse Birth. Rosie, Aine, Aoife and I have been practicing for about a month now and have created a number of awesome moves including the Aggressive Sunshine and the Finger Fling.

The group will be along the lines of the Praise Me video clip but with more of a “freestyle” element. To get into the group you will need to have your own signature move and be shorter than Rosie.

CVs to the bar please.

In exciting news, we now have new gates and roller-doors for the outside area. This means no more lugging furniture in and out every day. While this may sound particularly unexciting to you, to Tim and I it means getting to bed an hour earlier every day.

The gates were installed in true bodgie fashion by brother-in-law Greg, who told me that looking away when grinding is as safe as safety glasses and closing your eyes when welding is safer than a welding mask. He also wanted me to state for the record that he purposely did rough welds to fit in with the “rustic theme”.

Here he is grinding while looking away.

It fills me full of hope that Christchurch is becoming a cosmopolitan city when shops like Emporium are opening. If you haven’t already checked them out, they have recently opened in High Street between Cheepskates and Cosmic Corner. These guys are good people and you should all support them. They sell a whole bunch of vintage shit from bicycles to sunglasses and have been helpfully collecting poisoned pigeons for Tim to stuff.

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 very cute. Before digital cameras you were stuck with the image you got and this was their photo of their (horrible) new baby.

Don’t you think it looks like she’s had a stroke or is downs or something? I like the thought of someone entering “ugly baby” into Google images and ending up with this image of Rosie for their PowerPoint presentation on the effects of alcohol and drugs on babies in utero.

Rosie works Friday nights and sorry fellas, she’s got a hunky boyfriend…

All you hipsters and quiff-sporting types. Don’t forget our Smiths night tomorrow (Saturday) night. The last one was so full that some people had to stand out in the rain looking (appropriately) sad. So make sure you get in early to get a seat.

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  that thief good.

Tim has decided to gather a posse of Pretty Will, the Menergy Boys, Model Ross, Vincent and some fixed wheel bicycle types and head over to knock on his door, hands on hips.

“Give uth our fucking pheathant…”

This posting is to serve as a warning to the thief. We have not forgotten and you have a leak in your ranks. Best you get your affairs in order.

Busy Tuesday night…

Marlon phoned in sick again which meant Nadia Reid filled in with her perfect voice and lovely rendition of Billy Jean.

I’m worried that Marlon has been phoning in sick fro the past month since the horrible night when his pay equalled less than minimum wage and I pointed out that ten percent of nothing is nothing. Tim says there’s no way a person can have that many flus in a month.

Whatever the case, the munters showed up demanding triple Red Bull and vodkas and culminating with us cutting off a revolting old man who then communicated to his group that it was time to leave by tipping their table over and smashing all the glasses. It must be terribly embarrassing having a father who behaves like an obnoxious teenager when out on the piss.

Anyway – come down some Tuesday night and (hopefully) see Marlon play.

A massive weekend in the Christchurch party calendar with Lesbo Mould on Friday and the Eastern on Saturday.

Friday’s metal crowd clocked in a solid night of bourbon, BO and long, brown hair. These dudes must have to keep their hair tied up all week, because they let loose when they bring it out, flicking sweat all over one another and seriously getting into the music. Bouncer Ben and I stood watching the mosh-pit and we couldn’t tell if they were fighting or having fun. Metal fans are my new favourite customers.

Saturday night saw Christchurch behaving surprisingly well on an international rugby night. Maybe Steve of the Month’s pearl of wisdom rings true in that “If you set your expectations of people very low Johnny, you will find you’re hardly ever disappointed in them…”

But behave they did. We had a really nice night, with a bunch of great people coming in to see an excellent band who jammed for over three hours. Highlight of the evening came when Eastern frontman Adam Mcgrath said “Anybody here watch the rugby tonight?”and a stony silence was only interrupted by a solitary dude shouting “yeah”.

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 by the bar that it will not sell piss to kids, will not serve wankered wankers, will call you a taxi etc.

Since we opened last year, our hilariously worded policy has sat beside the front door and been enjoyed by non-intoxicated patrons. Then, when I came back from my holiday on Monday I noticed some prick has ripped it off the wall and taken it home.

It never fails to amaze me what people want to pinch from bars…

The Pixies played Christchurch last night and the atmosphere in the city was electric. It filled me full of hope that good people will support good things and interesting bands will decide to play here.

We were fucking packed for Sleepy Age and Rackets. Sorry to everyone that had to wait to get a drink and thanks to Josh and Aoife who showed up out on the drink and ended up working their drunken arses off. A lot of strangers from Timaru etc. around enjoying what Christchurch has to offer. I can pick small-town types as they order “medium white wine”.

I see a lot of bands in this job and it takes something special for a band to really stand out. Sleepy Age are one such band. Pay attention to these guys as they’ve got talent. And I’m not the only one that thinks so as they were the winners of last year’s RDU Roundup Competition.

Anyway, here’s a blurry photo of the crowd.