Check out this brilliant new song for homesick kiwis by the very clever writer, Justin Brown. He’s quickly weaving his way into our local folklore.

Audience participation was required partway through this number in Auckland’s Vector Arena last Saturday as the sound system failed Art and Paul.  I was lucky to be there for their first venue in their final world tour and must admit to having a tear in my eye as the whole arena picked up the tune where Simon & Garfunkel left off.  It was a truely special moment for everyone there.  Shame about the individual singing on this clip.

What to do in Wellington when the Southerly hits

• Visit Animates - either Ngauranga Gorge or Melling Bridge
• Don’t miss the 1pm cultural flick at the Lighthouse Cinema
• Don your parka and buy garden plants from Moores Valley Nursery past Wainuiomata.
• On your way, drop into Hutt Hunting & Fishing - possibly my favourite store on planet earth!
• Tour the Seaview and Evans Bay marinas looking for stray yachts to rescue
• Surf Trade Me for a new dehumidifier
• Stock up on hardware at Petone’s crazily big Mega Mitre 10 (don’t miss their charity sausage sizzle at the main door)
• Drive to the South Coast and knock a few years off the life of your automobile.
• Join Twitter and discover the favourite nightwear being worn by local celebrity journalists

My past enthusiasm for Elements is waning after an extraordinarily long wait for latte + bubble ‘n squeak this morning. It’s been discovered, monopolised and isn’t the better for the experience. My favourite restaurant rediscovery is local winebar, Vivo (closed on Mondays). Putting aside some forgettably poor table service, the kitchen team have won me over again.

Polarising commentary on the use of Twitter is starting to tire me. I’m reminded of a friend who bought a mountain bike, used it once and left it propped against a garden shed wall, vowing that biking isn’t fun. You’ve got to use Twitter to get the most out of it. Just following people is voyeurism. From the outside, looking in, I can see how people might think it’s a little weird but I guess I’m the same about new age churches. Different strokes. For those converts, try twittersheep for something different.

[I fear my version of WordPress is slowly decaying. I've lost my wysiwyg option which, I guess, is great for learning html. It might be time to download a new FTP client, dump it all into quarantine and treat it to an autumnal spruce up. A good time to move over to www.michaelgregg.co.nz perhaps. Oh, lamenting the loss of link love.]

I went to an auction at the Wellington Zoo last evening. John Campbell and Carol Hirschfeld from TV3 did a brilliantly awful job of auctioning five experiences that money can’t buy. It was so hilariously funny, The Improvisers were outstanding. The Zoo has refreshed itself. Denise Church, Trust Chair, was a delight to wander with. Her passion for the revitalisation of this community asset and the value of the massive capital programme was clearly evident. I joined the Big Bite Club, and am booking in for a close encounter. I strongly encourage you to do the same. It’s so easy to give-a-little.

Tamati Ellison should be given the permanent full-back role for the Hurricanes, despite a bungle on his defensive goal line which gifted a try to the Sharks in the overnight Super14 match in Durban. Jane’s simply not up to it.

If you’re bored and have nothing to fill in the extra hour Helen generously gave us today, try starting a chat at http://omegle.com/. Just say hi. But remember to sign off with ‘Peace’. Well, that’s my spare sixty minutes used up. Enjoy the first week of not saving daylight and remember to turn off the lights when you’re not using them. There was a point to Earth Hour!

What’s Hot
St Johns Restaurant - don’t go past the crayfish ravioli entre; bursting with flavour, you’ve just got to try this dish!
Gourmet Family Food Parcels from Baby Angel, Wellington’s hottest site from which to shower proud new mums and dads with treats (when you’ve exhausted the supplies at Martha’s Babylicious, of course).
Aangel reminder services - a very clever idea for anyone on Vodafone - sign up, then dial 808 to get appointments, tasks and contacts into Outlook.
Doubleclique - brilliant local web company behind both the Baby Angel and the Aangel sites, although they do need to update their portfolio.
The South African Springboks. See you in the finals, dammit.

Ins & Outs
It appears that the recent catastrophic fires in Greece which killed 64 people could be linked to developers seeking title on bare land which cannot be claimed if forested. Whether the fires impact Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis’ re-election hopes will be known overnight as the country heads to the polls today.

TVNZ 6 launches on 30th September. Highly targeted to kids and families during the day and adults at night, it’s advertising-free and only on Freeview. You have to wait until March ‘08 for their other (Freeview too) news & doco’ channel, the equally cleverly named TVNZ 7.

Spring is looking to deliver more than daffodils and lambs to many of us - with a thawing of mortgages rates - designed to kick-start a frozen housing market. Here’s an Island Bay beauty.

For your entertainment
I wish I could get a copy of the speeches from Run the Red Founder Ben Northrop’s wedding on Saturday - absolutely priceless. Someone post them to YouTube! All the best to the beautiful Kirstie and the irrepressible Ben.

Completely unrelated, and for all my single friends, this comic (below) is worthy of study. Ironically, I’m sitting at home on a Sunday evening … doing graphs!

And finally the place to find your next inspiring brainy quote on the ‘net.

What’s hot
The Pumas have demonstrated huge progress since the last World Cup, earning a huge win in the first game of the 2007 Rugby World Cup meaning the French need to beat Ireland on Sept 21st to advance to the quarterfinals. Interestingly, the darker French uniform means we’ll be playing our away strip when (if) we meet them, leading to one local rugby commentator badging them ‘… killer whales’. Image courtesy of Hadyn from The Dropkicks.

Trade Me’s soon-to-be-launched Travel Bug gets some early notice from Lance, Mauricio, and Lawrence.

Ins & outs
Daniel Vettori will shortly be anointed Black Caps Test Captain, replacing the long-serving Stephen Fleming who has been approached by the rebel Indian Cricket League to captain a team.

Popular weatherman Jim Hickey is coming back to One News.

For your entertainment
When next in Palmerston North, make sure you visit the Rugby Museum of New Zealand. Two exhibits currently ‘on tour’, are a whistle and a coin, both used to start this weekend’s 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. The whistle was originally used by Welsh referee Gil Evans in games involving the All Blacks Invincibles (1905), Springboks (1906) and Wallabies (1908) when those teams made their first tours of Great Britain.

Didn’t the Wellington Phoenix FC have a sensational debut yesterday? Catch some Yellow Fever and let’s break more stadium records.

However I’m struggling to agree with Mayor Kerry Prendergast that the Wellington City Council’s $500,000-odd investment to bring David Beckham’s Galaxy team here is needed for this “… stunning opportunity for our city“. It surely stacks up as a private sector-only initiative, given that the Cake Tin’s 34,500 seats will be more than filled. If the maths is as simple as every dollar spent on events bringing in $20, bring on our Olympics bid. Winning this should ensure the ill-conceived congestion tax can be binned!

The warmer weekend prompted thoughts of the Extended Daylight Saving starting a week earlier on Sunday September 30 and ending two weeks later on Sunday April 6, 2008. Make sure your company and home computers are sorted. I suggest double checking your recurring appointments after reading this from Microsoft’s Outlook Update posting:

Microsoft Outlook obtains daylight saving information from the host Windows operating system to determine the correct start time for future appointments. Consequently, it is important that Windows is updated to reflect any changes in daylight saving, including the introduction of daylight savings to a particular timezone for the first time.

However, when updates are applied, appointments which were created in the daylight saving period prior to application of the update will appear one hour later than originally scheduled. Consequently all-day events will span a 24 hour period across two consecutive days.

The rising thermometer sure perks everyone up - even Stephen’s raving about the place.

Although I don’t know much about these things, I’ve been pondering on picking up a new Canon to post better photos of Wellington, but this short review has me rethinking things. Any views? I like the idea of Canon’s new Wireless File Transmitter function (the WFT-E3 enables rapid wireless image transfer to remote FTP servers, along with two-way communication through PTP and HTTP. In HTTP mode, remote users can trigger the shutter button or download images from the camera via an internet browser window. PTP mode is used for wireless remote shooting with the EOS 40D and supplied EOS Utility software), although I would probably never use it! Appreciate feedback on the lenses too.

There’s more evidence that the RMA needs rethinking after 30 year veteran Marlborough mussel farmers, Terry & Jill Schwass, have finally thrown in the towel and are heading off to Port Lincoln, Australia stating that “Aquaculture knockers should visit Port Lincoln and soak up the atmosphere…. it’s roughly three times the size of Picton and has more multimillionaires than anywhere in Australia.” Prospective tuna farmers might like to browse this Forbes article.  I loved these quotes: “If I could be 30 again, I reckon I’d give Bill Gates a shake,” says Hagen Stehr, the 62-year-old chairman of Clean Seas Tuna, whose family is worth at least $60 million. “The future is not the Internet, it’s aquaculture.“

Still in Port Douglas. It’s overcast today so I’ve taken the opportunity to catch up on my webwork.

Rising mortgage interest costs are worrying Australians after the Reserve Bank of Australia hiked rates 0.25% to 6.5 percent last week. And there’s concern that rates will rise further to 6.75% next year. A glance of yesterday’s real estate pages shows two bedroom apartments with pool and courtyards, only two minutes from four Mile beach for between A$179,000 - A$195,000. It’s easy to see why so many Kiwi’s are flocking to the Lucky Country.

On the flipside, the Great Barrier Reef is dying, the crocs smile fiercely and the food is not a patch on Wellington’s fine dining. But it is 26 degrees today and the sun’s emerging - I think I’ll update this with photos later …

What’s Hot
I’m off for a few dives and some winter relief in Port Douglas next week; been scanning the online scuba trip reports, avoiding the shark attack articles and Open Water reviews. If Sunday People 13 (oh dear) doesn’t appear next week, blame the groper =>

It was a shock to see television footage of the fresh Foot & Mouth disease outbreak in the UK this week. I was in Cumbria during the last outbreak in 2001, filming burning pyres of carcasses and interviewing distressed farmers for a MAF advertising campaign. The impact of an incident here was calculated at between NZ$6 - $10B over two years. Our distance to market is a benefit in reducing transfer of the disease from the UK, but we need to remain vigilant of meat arriving in containers from Asia where contamination is rife.

Ins & Outs
Elton John’s call for the Internet to be shut down for five years is as likely to succeed as a candle burning in the Wellington wind. Apparently the ‘net has “stopped people from going out and being with each other …” according to Elton. More likely, he’s hurting from declining sales and digital downloads. Perhaps we could just ban his songs from the Internet.

Ad agencies searching to bolster revenues are eyeing up the emergent mobile advertising space but Publicis Mojo have gone one step further, forming a joint venture media company, Myne, with Telstra to sell mobile advertising. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, “the online publisher hopes to attract 20 per cent of its 8.3 million unique internet users in the next two years to “snackable” mobile phone content services including Ralph and Cleo magazines. All the free content is supported by ads.” Bold plans indeed.

For your Entertainment
Check out the New Zealand designer Spring/Summer collections at Runway Reporter ahead of Air New Zealand Fashion Week, 16-22 September.

For the thousands of overseas viewers who enjoyed The Gingerbread Haka, here’s a (lame) 9 minute video on travelling to and around Wellington - a mini-San Francisco, according to the narrator.

What’s Hot
Hustle for Autism is happening on Monday, 6 August at SFBH (San Francisco Bathhouse), 171 Cuba Street, Wellington from 6pm thanks to the relentless efforts of blogger Russell Brown and author David Cohen. Tickets are $10 each and available from Working Style Wellington or the Millwood Gallery in Tinakori Road. Here’s a recent Listener excerpt from David’s new book, A Perfect World, lifting the profile of autism in New Zealand.

Down in Marlborough where seasonal vineyard contracting is pivotal to the local economy, the backpackers are preparing for a flood of Pacific Island workers after the introduction of the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) work policy. This scheme allows for the temporary entry of overseas workers to meet labour shortages but locals are fretting. With the seasonal work permit scheme ending on September 30, over 1000 seasonal work permits, many issued to backpackers, will be replaced by the RSE. Many believe this will impact the local economy, change the shape of this tourist centre and encourage illegal workers.

Ins & Outs
Burgerfuel Worldwide (BFW) listed on the NZAX on Friday after raising a paltry NZ$5.25M from some 2830 shareholders with an additional NZ$2.75 million from founders Chris Mason and Josef Roberts, securing the necessary NZ$8M equity to list. But I predict an immediate share price drop. Nice burgers though. Update: someone bailed on day 2, ditching their $1000 of shares for $810.

Recent NZX lister, accounting software firm, Xero Live (XRO) could be a good long term buy after recently dropping below NZ$0.88 on very light volumes.

The five cent drop in the kiwi dollar against the greenback has followed a spectacular week in the financial markets with the NZ$0.81 high reached last Tuesday, a 22 year record. And discussion of a capital gains tax on housing profits should be the final straw in any housing market growth this year.

Surely none of my fellow blogging mates would stoop so low as to enter this lame Blog Idol competition. And in TV land, Kay Gregory is off from One’s Breakfast Show. Yawn.

For entertainment
The Warriors game on Friday night was spectacular. I’m enjoying the League much more than the NPC at present.

Check out the locally made and very clever rugby podcasts from The Dropkicks as the Rugby World Cup looms. Get the feed from here.

Finally, if you’re chasing Blue Cod in the Marlborough Sounds, try the chartreuse Berkley Gulp! soft bait. It works so well it should be banned. Remember the maximum number per day is 3. We reached our boat limit easily at a self-imposed minimum length of 32cms on Saturday.