Fans of the daily documentary about life in the Auckland suburb of Ferndale have no doubt been frantically trying to get a booking at Prospero, the hottest restaurant in town. Well, its number is unlisted, of course, but if you’re truly desperate, you might want to try having dinner at Partington’s at the Langham Hotel instead. It looks identical to Prospero, and its prices really are very reasonable. Although they don’t have the crispy duck that both Chris and Brooke rave about, they do offer a seasonal menu featuring crayfish for $95 or vegetarian pasta for a measly $46. And if you think that’s ridiculous, perhaps you’re probably not the kind of person who can turn their head far enough around to read the menu PDF, and they won’t want your type there anyway because you might steal their crystal stemware.

let’s stop for a cone

Originally uploaded by solidstate_

Hello, Auckland. You seem nice, but you can take your bloody hand off my leg. Let’s talk instead - I mean, really talk, not just you nod and grunt over top of your boner (is he finished yet? should I go get my pants?). A word about you.

See, I’ve been giving this some thought, and this is what I came up with. It isn’t me. It’s you. Don’t take this the wrong way - I mean, I don’t want you to think that I’m claiming some sort of inherent perfection, just because I’m taller, smarter, more handsome and have better social skills. I’m just trying to clear the air.

And, I also don’t want you to think that just because I’m another economic migrant from the 0-4 who’s had it up to here (see where I’m gesturing?) with Wellington and it’s pomposity, that this is another compare and contrast where we realise that your city council hasn’t plunged fifty percent of its revenues into statues and paving stones, and that Peter Jackson bypassed your ass, and you suck. No, not at all. Au contraire! Not at all, really.

I have five questions. Riddle me these, and then we can all go home. Slowly.

one: how come, having spent ten bajillion dollars on a central city makeover, it still only looks like your designers had a spare eighty bucks and spent half an hour in Bunnings?

two: how come you hate pedestrians so much? Can’t cross the road without waiting for a long while, in a blitzkreig of rain, with nothing to cower under. If lucky, will skidd A-over-kite on one of those yellow things by the cross lights.

three: where are all your street signs?

four: what’s so nice about Parnell? It looks to me like Parnell is going out of its way not to have a personality.

five: a lot of animal statues. Are you primitive heathen spellcaster fetishists? That’s only incidentally sexy.

Look, don’t feel free to answer all at once. Because, I want you to know that there are things I love about Auckland. One, it doesn’t seem to give a fuck about the rest of the country, it just does its own thing. Two, people put road cones on horse statues, and, for that matter, road cones where ever they fucking please - I don’t know what makes all that so nice, but I don’t think it matters. Three, the food is great, and four…

Four is my favourite. Four is, inside an ugly duckling of a town, inside the Auckland that is “competing with Sydney and Brisbane and New York” according to the mayor, but isn’t actually in their league (”well, the shortlist is New York or Auckland…hmmm…”) is a beautiful town just waiting for a golden age. hey, Auckland, you’re pretty cute at the right angles. Sign me up.

This is my first post for the lovely Aucklandista. One thing you should know about me is that I’m a reluctant Aucklander – the South Island still calls in my dreams even after five years here. I have an instrumental relationship with this city. Ours has always been a marriage of convenience – or perhaps an arranged affair. I came here to go to film school and never left. Apart from that what can I say? I have my own blog www.greylynnsinglesclub.blogspot.com, an ancient boyfriend (but, y’know, new to me, kind of like my most recent car purchase), improbably I produce extremely independent documentary, teach multimedia production, write poems and stories, and have a couple of website projects kicking around.

To further introduce myself I’ve been instructed to comment on what I love and hate about the city.

I’m an unoriginal hater – here’s a sample

The traffic. Still.

Ponsonby at night. A place where far too many people go clubbing without irony. It’s not that I have a technical objection to the suburb itself, or even the idea of rubbing up against moist strangers while paying for an overpriced hangover, and indeed I’ve indulged before – but let’s face it - the practice is patently hilarious, particularly for those of us over 30 who do, in fact know better, even if we pretend sometimes that we don’t.

Insipid dress sense. All other places in New Zealand have their own looks – messy, a little frayed around the edges, possibly a bit over-wrapped but at least distinctive. Auckland – you are a paean to label rip-offs, terrifyingly tight pants and shoes that regularly cause podiatrists and chiropractors to wake screaming in the night

I guess that brings me to the part where I have to dish up the love. In many ways a harder task

The weather - the tropics are sweatier and the South is colder. Auckland - go the happy medium.

The harbour – filled with pleasure craft, islands of imaginable size and serviced regularly by ferries, an escape from the traffic under what are likely to be fairly pleasant climatic conditions is only a 25 bucks and a cracker away.

That waft of something cosmopolitan. Despite the generally dull sartorial decisions made by its population, Auckland does exhibit an outward-lookingness - a sense of the infinitely possible and a break from what is parochial. This is most probably because such a large chunk of inhabitants aren’t from Auckland. However, I believe it may be the only place in New Zealand to lay genuine claim to this quality and I, for one, do appreciate it. Mwa.

There are lots of other things I have a casual affection for: Crummer Road – the quietest street in Grey Lynn, Ponsonby Video Ezy, Chocolate Boutique Café in Parnell, Cafe Cezanne, Albert Street’s Food Alley, The Big Day Out, an impressive selection of pub gigs, the Academy and Lido Cinemas, Borders, City Libraries, having four universities to choose from….I could go on. And maybe I will – but, next time.

There is no serious dissent to the opinion that Dominion Road is a seriously fine place. None at all. What there is, you can easily write off using the latest in vicious anti-opinionationary technology, and be done with it. Dominion Road is a seriously fine place. You can eat good food, do your groceries (by which I mean, buy them, but you know, it’s a free country), and go rock climbing! How cool is that?

So, imagine how they could devibe this. Imagine how a person could take the wonderment of Dominion Road and make it suck. How? Taggers? Come on! Being against taggers was so a fortnight ago. Think! Epic amounts of dogshit! Yes. That would be true, if it was true. But the dogs of the Eden Valley seem well restrained, so move on. How about…death…on a grad scale?

Yeah, that would be pretty much a universal bummer. But that’s filed under “dog shit” as not true, yeah? Yeah. And here, by “yeah”, I mean “no”.

At the top end of Dominion Road, right after you pass the Chinese supermarkets, just before you get to the crossing to go down Valley Road or View Road, one or the other, because you get the two mixed up, you walk past Target. Furniture, you think. Not today. Not enough room in my backpack. And then, there’s a reason alluded to above, a reason why you decide not today, not any day. Death. On an epic scale.

Because, Target is the House of A Thousand Corpses. Sprinkled across the carpet of their display window: an invertebrate graveyard. A zombie zoo established proudly across the floor, for all the public to roll up, roll up and have a look at. Cockroaches as big as a matchbox! See many flies as their death throes are recorded for your amusement and pleasure!

See our staff as they vigourously and rigourously don’t vaccum the floor! Entrance is free! Strike that: viewing is free! Who’s going inside now?

I previously wrote about the excitement of having a gossip column online, in a sort of sarcastic way knowing that I would be reading it in a car-crashy kinda way. And then there came this sentence today:

Getting the bash has never been so topical.

That is insanely offensive, even coming from a pile of flake like Rachel Glucina, and pisses me off so much that I have nothing further to say about Tony Veitch except for this: I have a code of conduct where I work, and I imagine that you do, and I know that TVNZ does. Ugh.