December (and January) #08đ
Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas, and happy holidays darling readers.
We come to you with a slimmed down December-January edition of the Draft, because the offerings are light, and weâre taking January off. Go to the beach, have a picnic, and watch out for us again in February.
What we lack listings for the next couple of months we make up with in Scuttebutt. And boy, we did put even more than usual in our mouths this month.
We also spent quite some time on this monthâs local Kirikiriroa gift guide - which we decided on well before gift guides became entirely ubiquitous, particularly on TikTok. I donât know about you, but itâs made Christmas feel more truly capitalist than ever before. But given your bucks are getting harder and harder to come by, and we hear time and time again that people want to support local businesses - we stuck to our guns with the intention of giving readers an entirely local offering of thoughtful gifts.
Mostly, weâve stuck to that - I say mostly, because to pull off something like that, you really have to define what is local, anyway? We have, at times, snuck in a Melbourne designer stocked in Hamilton East, or a Hamilton business who produces in China. But everything is available in town and contributes to Kirikiriroa businesses for entrepreneurs.
Lastly, Laree Payne shares with us her art buying tips. And we stole some tips on how to support the local hospo scene from Aucklandâs Lazy Susan facebook page.
Take care out there Hamiltonians - thank you for your support this year, and weâll see you in 2024.
Scuttlebutt
The jetty on Wellington Street Beach, curiously on Jellico Drive, is pÄwhati. Massive recent fluctuations in the river levels this year have taken its toll, and the jetty has been condemned. The council is planning $1.7 million upgrade.
Did you know you can walk through a life-sized partial replica of the Rangiriri Pa, which is now open for public tours?
We have a perennial joke in our two-desk office about starting a section in this newsletter called On the Cutting Room Floor - essentially joke stories that didnât make it. Many of them are centred around Hamiltonâs vague local obsession with roundabouts, for example: Hamiltonâs best roundabouts. Hamiltonâs worst roundabouts. Five traffic light intersections we wish were roundabouts. Whatâs growing on Hamiltonâs roundabouts? A listicle, the gardens of Hamiltonâs roundabouts - ranked. So you can imagine unfettered delight when our first-equal favourite Hamilton or has-vague-ties-with-Hamilton writer Robyn Gallagher (she ties with Aimee Cronin) tweeted this:
(Itâs the Hillcrest intersection between Cambridge, Hillcrest and Morrinsville Roads, and itâs still awful. The carpark to the bottom right of the photo presumably belongs to the New World.)
We are playing another little game amongst ourselves: spot the ChatGPT-written copy in restaurant or Uber Eats descriptions - and this monthâs winner is newcomer Lyonaise Fern on Grey Street, whose website copy is a bewildering deluge of adjectives that manages⊠not to say very much. Runner up is Submarine of Ward Street, whose Uber Eats menu similarly offers paragraph-long treatises on sandwich contents.
An Angelsea Street bus stop (the one next to the sex shop) is to be moved at the cost of $700,000. Your uptight uncle wonât know which part of that heâs going to rant about at Christmas lunch, but heâs got a couple of weeks to settle on a narrative.
Former Hamilton West MP Tim Macindoe is running for the Hamilton East Council seat left by local fluoride sceptic boy genius Ryan Hamilton, and the smart money is on him running for Mayor in 2025.
Then there are, of course, the rates. The cost of living crisis hits councils as well. There is a chronicity to this problem - in the last 20 years, the books have been balanced only twice. Also important context - our rates are $1000 cheaper than comparable cities according to our sources. Councillors on the whole (excepting two - Southgate and OâLeary) voted for ripping the band aid off with a 25.5% rates hike next year, followed by rises of 12.9 and 8.7% over the following two years - which will be put to the public. This will balance the books over three years and save about $3m in debt-related costs. But, it still makes for grim reading and is likely to trickle down to renters. Financial crunches are hitting local government all over the place, and this podcast episode from The Guardian (although it is more UK-centric, itâs pretty broadly applicable here) is a great primer on why.
Feature: Holiday Gift Guide
What do get the busy eight year old who already has a legally listed company? Steal inspiration from the slightly-more-corporate-than-they-care-to-admit Hamilton East boho, who annoyingly has pretty good taste, and who will think nothing of dropping $200 on a really mint picnic. We give you plenty of options for your gallery hooping big sis type. who loves a dirty martini every night at six. And lastly gifts for your brewing enthusiast relative who you know wants beer or something beer-adjacent, but would rather die than receive anything from a certain, now ubiquitous local brewery.
Everyone on the page is from a Hamilton business, and a lot of it is made locally too. Our first annual holiday gift guide is available here.
Feature: Artistic Licence
We talk to Laree Payne about how to start building an art collection thatâs personal and specific to you, so that you continue to love the pieces on your walls for years, and possibly decades, to come.
Whatâs On
Music
By Adam Fulton
The Cavemen, Bloodbags, Cthulus December 9. The Yot Club, Raglan.
An evening of Garage, Rock and Roll and Surf tunes.
A Last Place Christmas with Eddie and the Dreamers, Swizel Jager, Offal Pit Stiletto, Martial Law. December 16. Last Place.
Last Place variety show, spanning the musical spectrum from jangly pop to Hardcore Punk.
Off! (USA). January 7. The Yot Club, Raglan.
Hardcore punk supergroup Off! grace our rural shores with a plethora of local supports.
Hamtown Smakdown. January 19-20. Bill Gallagher Centre, Wintec.
Annual all ages punk and hardcore festival returns to the Gallagher Centre over two nights. Lineup TBA.
DUUN. January 26. Last Place.
Debut Kirikiriroa show for the TÄmaki Makaurau stoner group DUUN.
Film
By Jason Marshall
Next year marks the 70th anniversary of the first Godzilla film with the eponymous radioactive lizard, often an allegorical embodiment of existential fears about nuclear war and nuclear energy, having appeared in 37 movies since the original. Godzilla Minus One takes the series back to its roots in the devastation and turmoil of post-war Japan. âAs much a lavish period drama about a country rediscovering a sense of national worth as it is an epic kaiju spectacle,â writes James Marsh in the South China Morning Post. Releases 1 December. Trailer.
A riveting political thriller that has been lighting up the Korean box office, 12.12: The Day depicts the chaos of the days following the assassination of President Park Chung Hee, as factions of the Korean military vie to seize power. Expect a prodigious amount of cigarette smoking and backroom conspiring. Releases 7 December. Trailer.
A24 have been killing it with their releases over the last few years, with films that have been heart warming, heart breaking, existentially terrifying, and heart warming, heart breaking and existentially terrifying. Next cab off the rank is Dicks: The Musical, a gloriously profane musical helmed by Larry Charles (director of Borat, and the best Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes) and featuring Broadway stalwarts Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally and a bunch of songs about (you guessed it) dicks. Releases 7 December. Trailer.
Like many other terminally online movie buffs, I was extremely sceptical about Wonka given its premise (Another character origin story reboot? Boo!) and what I thought was an odd looking trailer, and predicted it would cause the Timothée Chalamet market to crash in an unrecoverable tailspin, at least the release of Dune 2. But the first reviews are out, and critics seem to love it. Releases 14 December. Trailer.
Welcome to the party pal! If youâre one of those people who think Die Hard is a Christmas movie, then the Regent Theatre have got a special screening for you. December 20 at 7:00 pm. Tickets.
Gen Z, according to a recent study, have a strong dislike of romance and sex scenes in movies and TV shows, and entertainment industry pundits have long pronounced the death of the romcom - can the combined starpower and sex appeal of Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney beat the odds and take us back to the 90s in Anyone But You? Find out in cinemas on Boxing Day. Releases 26 December. Trailer.
What we put in our mouths this month
Absolutely everything that sommelier and owner Kieran recommended at Amphora. Not sure what to order? He knows what you want, even if you donât.
Things we tried (and loved) this month on his behest: the âchilly redâ - the Marathon Downs Little Red 2022, served cold at $15 a glass. We also tried the A Thousand Gods Giara 2021, which he pitched as a âskunky little sauvignon blancâ. And at the top end, try the Gaia Thalassitis, a Santorini Assyrtiko normally sold by the bottle but if youâre nice to the staff, $25 a glass, which is divine.
We wrote of our excitement about Crack Chicken ahead of Made opening and finally got to try it - it seriously delivers.
What can you be doing to help local hospo operators?
Those who have lived in recent-Auckland may know or subscribe to foodie Facebook page Lazy Susan, run by experienced food writer Anna King Shahab. It boasts 35,000 devoted readers, and is popular amongst restaurateurs and patrons alike.
Recently, after the closure of award winning restaurant Inca, one poster asked - what more can I be doing to support hospo, when more than just natural selection is at play? What followed were a number of tips and suggestions, mainly from the restauranteurs in the group.
Some are obvious - such as death to Uber Eats, obviously, and gifting vouchers to your favourite spots. If you make a booking, especially if it is a large group, chrissakes - show up. (The kitchen will have prepped for it.)
Others less so, for those that donât know the biz. It doesnât always have to be a full meal, replied on commenter - if youâre working from home, go for that drink out at the end of a week day, which is counter intuitive for those of us who feel the pressure to order a full meal if youâre taking up a spot.
Restaurants are often busy Friday and Saturday night, and when money is tight, people often reserve going out on these nights intuitively. Donât forget week nights, some offered, especially if youâre ordering small (one half of our editorial team spent a long time living in Copenhagen, where they have the concept of the âLittle Fridayâ, aka, Thursday, which our household has taken to heart.) Restaurants often have specials on these nights too, because one extra busy night a week for a place can be the difference between breaking even and insolvency.
Lastly, spread the word when you have a good experience. Follow your favourite bars and restaurants on social, and when you have a good meal there, post. Conversely, if somethingâs disappointing, get in touch with the restaurant personally to discuss what was below par before heading to social media - a good establishment likes the opportunity to put things right.
You can read the full thread, here.
