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STELLA ARTOIS TAPPING THE PULSE
High living and low life in the hospitality capital
Brought to you by Stella Artois, "serving rogues and knaves since 1366"
3 April 2000
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Huge Fridays
by Mark Cubey
I keep meaning to do some statistical survey about how many Fridays of the year in Wellington are blessed by
sunshine,blue skies, good times, boogie. There seem to be an unnaturally high quotient of them, those marvellously still
days when everyone is wandering round in a great mood coz it's the end of the working week and the weather has everyone
out looking FINE, all ready to turn that day of sun into a night of fun, 'cause it's the bona fide, party down start to
the weekend.
Fridays in the capital. Huge. Almost guaranteed.
A week ago, the LOOP crew enjoyed the awesome new bar at Logan-Brown, then checked out the Vertical Bungee on the
taranaki/Manners corne. Watch the website for viedo footage of both!
This weekend marked the end of a financial year, with the Blues up against the Hurricanes at the Stadium. And you know
that's going to be serious when you see four guys in blue-streaked white boiler suits, blue glitter wigs, sunnies and
stubbies wandering past the bus stop. Good on ya, mate. I am not attending the game, as my hunch is that the Aucklanders
will do the business on our lads, and so it proved: 25-14, cue music: "This is the story of the Hurricanes; they started
badly and they finished lame..")
But anticipation was high from the rugby heads packed on to the route 12 bus, #156, headed anywhere close to the
stadium, just before 7pm. Like all crosstown buses, the 12 slices through all quarters, and goes all the way down
Lambton Quay taking a hard left at the end round into Bowen, up between two seats of power: the Reserve Bank at No. 1
The Terrace and The Beehive, seat of government. Most people should reallly have waited for a Railway Station bus, or
even one of the spceial shuttles, but most people hate to wait.
So, the bus driver is asking me as I squeak on to the bus - Karori, or Railway Station? And I'm the former, but I can
tell that she's aware that there are all too few spaces left for her regular commuters. So she says, " I need to take a
detour," and suddenly we're swinging right off the Quay into Stout Street, straight through to the Railway terminus
where half the passengers alight, heads back south up Featherston Street, then back on to the Quay to pick up the Karori
passengers from her last stops who would otherwise have missed out.
Bus driver of the month. No contest.
Four hours later: carnage on the streets. The lunks, the punks, the drunk as skunks. Business as usual, in other words.
Saturday went off too. I had an early one, at LOOP contributor Carolyn Enting's birthday drinks at Liquid, but my spies
tell me the city went off: around 450 paying customers went through Roots Foundation; nearly 400 danced the night away
to Nick Spice at Fun Poson 5 at StudioNine, with around 800 packing out Phoenix for Fevah.
The city is settling back to normal - well, as much as it can be after a week of earthquakes and aftershocks. The
Festival is over - second biggest in the world, wow! - and that fabulous Dans Paleis has gone back home to Belgium,
leaving the waterfront the poorer, but getting the locals back into their usual haunts... which is really what we like.
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STELLA ARTOIS TAPPING THE PULSE
appears every MONDAY through LOOP in SCOOP.
"I would rather die of thirst than drink from the cup of mediocrity"
Visit the Stella website at http://www.stella-artois.be/ - you'll need Netscape, Shockwave, Flash and a good command of the French or Dutch language.
Alternatively, check out http://www.stella-artois.com - part of http://www.beeer.com, the international site for beer.
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