November #18
It’s one of those Friday evening Drafts, breezing into your mail box, carried on a spring breeze.
This month: a Hamilton East Historical Cemetery tour. Round the Bridges. The Triumphant return of Ancient Tapes. 7 Days Live comes to town. And a Japanese Drama filmed in Raglan hits Netflix.
Enjoy x
Scuttlebutt
Self-appointed man about town Richard Swainson felt bad about rough sleepers for half a second, then came home to find somebody had taken a shit on his doorstep, and he tried to make it all sound Dickensian in the Times.
For the second year in a row, Hamilton is the fastest growing city in Aotearoa, its population rising 3.1% since 2023, which equates to about 192,000 people (welcome - sign up for our newsletter!). The Waikato is the second-fastest growing region (second to Auckland).
If you go onto the Reggie’s website, and try to make a booking, it says walk-ins from November 9 and bookings from November 11 (which it won’t let you make). A regular groupie of theirs, who's seen the space taking shape, says this can’t be right. But soon.
The new and improved - and safer - bus depot has a proud new erection: and they couldn’t have done it without your help! (You may remember Louise Hutt and her boosted campaign for Paul Darragh's Progress Pillar - a sculpture which depicts LGBTQI+ history, originally shown as part of the Boon Street Art Festival, to purchase the artwork for the city. Longtime readers may remember we’re made this erection joke previously.)
We love multimodal logistics hubs, they’re our favourite type of logistics hub. A proposal to build one adjacent to Hamilton Airport has been unveiled, along with plans to extend the runway to accommodate large cargo aircraft. Tamahere NIMBYs are going to be really calm and reasonable about that, we’re sure.
The Heaphy Terrace/Boundary Road roundabout is one hectic roundabout, even when you’re in a car. And it’s right across from both the Jamia Mosque, which is a place of worship for more than 40,000 Hamiltonians and next to an early childhood centre, and not that far away from Claudelands and the accessible payground - and crossing the road there is a nightmare. It was the proposed site of raised pedestrian crossings, 90% of which is being funded by central government CERF scheme, so long as it’s completed by June 2025. But the plan was challenged in council last week - despite having been floated at prior briefings to council (that were poorly attended by councillors.) But in a council meeting late last month, where it was the only item on the agenda, there was a last-minute majority vote to redesign it.
The Hamilton City Council has put an additional $6.5 million into the regional theatre.
Music
By Adam Fulton
Family Band, Broadcast State, Ancient Tapes. Last Place, $15, November 9.
Family Band's show at Last Place back in May was subjectively the best show that occurred in Kirikiriroa in 2024. By some divine grace we can all relive the experience this coming Saturday. The Tāmaki trio (for fans of Shellac, Codeine, Unwound) will be joined by local post-punk outfit Broadcast State, and the triumphant return of Ancient Tapes.
Pocket Money, Last Place. November 16th. Tickets.
Tāmaki power-pop trio brutally mashing elements of Morrissey and 2010's indie rock on stage right here at Last Place.
Serpette (Aus), Katorga (Aus), Paroxys (Aus), Hoon. Mesoverse $15, November 22.
What a lineup! Three bands from Naarm crossing the musical boundaries of freak punk to crust and thrash. Joined by relative local newcomers Hoon. Early show (guaranteed to be finished by 10pm)
Spotlights (USA), Last Place, November 23, tickets. Place.
New York's doomy-shoegazers Spotlights play Last Place, joined by our own Landlords and Tauranga outfit Threat Meet Protocol.
Movies
By Jason Marshall
Your dad’s favourite DVD finally got a sequel, with Gladiator 2 arriving on November 14. Handsome lads Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal star. Trailer.
You’re trapped in a house. It’s Hugh Grant’s house. What would’ve been a 1990s dream, turns into a 2024 nightmare. Heretic releases November 28. Trailer.
The Misty Flicks Film Festival kicks off once again on November 22nd hosted by the Regent Theatre in Te Awamutu. The festival encompasses a showcase of work from local filmmakers, workshops, and networking opportunities for those in the film industry. A full programme is available here. Last year we met with Paige Larianova to talk about the Regent Theatre and the Misty Flicks Festival.
Theatre
Our theatre editor Louise Drummond is still on maternity with her gorgeous new baba, but Waikato University is doing a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. If, like one half of your WD editorial team, you came to unironically love Gilbert and Sullivan thanks to Sideshow Bob, this one’s for you.
Around Town
Get a group together so you can solve the queueing time/food consumed coefficient, Gourmet in the Gardens returns this month.
Stay tuned for the real opening date of Reggies.
Feeling stressed and need to break some plates about it? Hamilton has a new rage room in Te Rapa - for $40 you smash up 20 glasses, one television or microwave, or additional large items to buy separately. Our printer/scanner unit may end up here someday, if it doesn’t start behaving.
Teddy Bears Picnic at the Gardens November 9.
Round the Bridges is November 17 with kids’ distances, 6 km and 12 km courses. Participant entries are sold out, so head along and check out the race - the route spans both sides of the river, between Fairfield and Cobham bridges.
Local historian Lyn Williams is doing a tour of the Hamilton East Heritage Cemetry November 9 at 2pm, where you can learn about the graveyards “architects, artists and artisans”, including a quite few historical Hamilton figures. Hopefully a bad boy or two in there. The Times also ran a piece here.
These tamariki are already better at kapa haka than I’ve ever been at anything. Go along to tautoko at the Te Whare Haka o Tainui brings the Tainui Waka Primary Schools Kapa Haka Festival 2024 to GLOBOX Arena, Claudelands on Friday 8 November and Saturday 9 November. Koha entry.
Seven Days is filming one of their live events Get Ready to Laugh - 7 Days Live, also at Globox arena, Thursday 28 November. Tickets.
And on November 14, Japanese drama Beyond Goodbye hits Netflix, and much of it was filmed in Raglan. We can’t vouch for the show, but we do sure look beautiful in the trailer. Tip of the hat to the folks at Waikato Screen for making it happen.
What we put in our mouths this month
Rawhiti Village, in the rapidly changing Frankton, is now home to Du Pain & Du Pain, by Belgain owner and baker Daniel. You can get the usual fresh bread selection (sourdough, a very good rye and raisin), and yesterday’s bread is 25% off if. Their croissants are also very fine [see above for the cross section], and the raisins of their pain au raisin have been soaked in rum overnight.
We embarked upon a home-grown tomato situation this month in continual disappointment of supermarket tomatoes - and bought our seedlings from Pop Up Seedling, run by 9 year old Kirikiriroa resident and gardening prodigy Aaliyah. Well keep you posted.
We had a recent dinner-ish party and the standouts were an apple tarte tatin, an Ottolenghi butter bean salad (which I bill as “a high end version of the old KFC bean salad”).
We’re obsessed with Vietnamese coriander chili sauce, or Nuoc Mam Ngo, introduced to us during a recent visit to Rice Rice Baby - we found a good recipe here. We haven’t written about RRB very much, but we’ve always found them to be a good time.
