Hamiltonians love their bridges - if you have local family members who are into the dreaded ‘route talk’, everything is explained in relation to the bridges.

What’s on, but more importantly what’s good, at the Kirikiriroa Art’s Festival

Payne possibly has the most knowledgeable, immaculate taste in Kirikiriroa - and the inexperienced art buyer would do well to trust her curation. But strike up a conversation, and you’ll find she is full of advice on building a collection that’s personal and specific to you; so that you continue to love the pieces on your walls for years, and possibly decades, to come. Especially for those of us with a little less experience.

What do get the school kid that already owns their own company? What

Habits aside, there are a million cocktails for a million situations. There are early evening cocktails, and there are one more for the road cocktails and there are elegantly simple cocktails that flirt with being a single straight liquor (like the old joke about Winston Churchill whispering the word vermouth into his martini), and there are ridiculous cocktails with paper umbrellas in. And so you can also cultivate an air of sophistication by at least pretending to think about it before your order you drink. 

From 1984 to 1999 (officially) – a decent run for any political party  – the McGillicudy Serious Party took the business of light relief at least semi-seriously. The original founders met at the University of Waikato in the late 1970s, during Muldoon’s Prime Ministership, where they founded Clan McGillicudy - by the time the group entered politics, when party leader and Laird Graeme Cairns stood for Hamilton’s mayoralty in 1983, the “party elders” had spent a number of years stewing in their own political and philosophical ferment

Sharing your hidden gems is always slightly dangerous (and probably no more so than in a medium-sized city) - if the masses swamp your favourite shoe-repair guy, while you can be happy for all involved, on a purely practical level is can just leave you waiting longer for a resole. So it is with genuine gratitude we thank everyone for giving up their treasured Kirikiriroa secrets for our Best of Kirikiriroa Spesh - particularly friend-of-the pod Anita who gave up her facebook-based authentic Malaysian home cook, which is very good of her.

Part of living well and being a Totally-Together-Grown Up is knowing where to get things altered, or take your dry cleaning, or having a good insurance broker. And we have the best of those too.

We all know the Wonderhorses, the Ernests, and the Duck Islands - all of which are reliable date-night fodder. But one of our single readers asked us for date ideas that weren’t a certain ice cream store (as much as we love it). And so we have a date night special - not just for singles, but all sorts of different interludes. We reckon we’ve got at least six weeks’ worth here, and after that you’re on your own; at least until you meet someone new and then you can roll the dice all over again.

Google any aughties Hamilton music trivia and you’re bound to come across the h-town wiki. An incredible rabbit warren and chronicle to the Hamilton music scene, from the heady days of the “artists’ dole” (ahem, I’m sorry, the Pathway to Arts and Cultural Employment (PACE), which ran from 2001 to 2012), and when radio stations had a voluntary quota of 20% local music content.