Known Unknown

 

 

We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.

-          Donald Rumsfeld

What has that got to do with anything? Known Unknown are a New Plymouth winery that specialise in aperitifs as well as wines. They were holding a special event at Amuse Snack Bar in Willis Street, to try some of their products, paired with tapas from Amuse. This allowed us to kill two birds with one stone – try a new place, and get some New Zealand aperitifs to taste.

The menu is shown below. The tapas is a bit wrong as we had something different for the second one: Jules, who was running the show and is Mr. Known Unknown, apologised for his lack of skill at copying and pasting. 

The first drink to taste is what he calls Vin Jeanne (Jeanne was his grandmother), a play on words of vin jaune, a wine style from Jura in France, similar to a dry sherry. It tasted quite citrusy on first go, but mellowed a bit as we swirled it around. Very dry, but tasty. It’s made under a film of natural yeast, and is one of the few wines that KUW use fining on to remove impurities and cloudiness, otherwise it would be dominated by yeasty flavours. 

Next up was kōwhai, which is their white vermouth style drink – think Martini Bianco rather than Dry -  mixed with tonic. This was served with a skewer of white anchovy (pickled rather than brined), olive, chili and cheese. The idea is to try and eat it all in one go but I couldn’t quite make it. Delicious, though. 

The third drink was a martini: gin and 144 Islands Vermouth, which is a Dry style vermouth, and a drink I have been trying to find for some time, so that I can make a true New Zealand Martini with local ingredients instead of imported. We have a thriving gin industry here, but the accompaniments have had a harder time getting off the ground. The tapa with this one was a crostini-style toast with cream cheese and charred fennel, not as advertised.

 

Now time for the reds…Bloody Vermouth, a Rosso-style aperitif, mixed with triple-sec and Cappelletti – an Italian wine-based aperitif. This is apparently the Basque country’s answer to a Negroni. Quite rich and orange-forward. The tapas was a sliced pork pincho. 

Our final drink was a Reserve Vermouth with orange foam, served with a whipped cheesecake dessert which was worth the price of admission alone! 

That was a fun early evening out. We’d had enough that we didn’t need dinner afterwards, and I’ve ordered some of their products so that I can experiment at home.

 

Flight Of The Conchords

Flight of the what? Yes, way back in the early noughties, Kiwi comedy band FOTC were struggling to make their way after showing initial promise – best-newcomer type awards which quickly fade away. They hit the big time when their comedy radio show was picked up by HBO in the US and made into a tv show – a mockumentary about the struggles of trying to find fame in a foreign country. It ran for two series and was wildly popular (check this – Ed).

Since then, they’ve had an on-again off-again career, as both Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement have gone on to different projects in film, tv and music, picking up the odd Oscar and other awards here and there. They’ve not performed together for eight years, as they were at pains to tell us throughout the show. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, dinner! I’d recently complained on a Wellington foodies forum that we ended up going to the same old places all the time for pre-theatre dinner, and asked for suggestions of new places to go. They flooded in (many of them not reading the brief, suggesting places way too far away, or that didn’t take bookings, but that’s the internet for ya!), and we decided to try one of the suggestions, Lucky 8. This is a modern Chinese style restaurant on Courtenay Place, where you order shared dishes – much like Mr. Go’s in fact – but with a distinctly Chinese accent rather than pan-Asian. The reason I’d picked it was because they had crispy duck pancakes, which is something we’ve not had for simply a-a-a-g-e-s, darling! You know, where you build your own roll with plum sauce, cucumber, spring onion and duck. And very nice it was too. I didn’t fancy any of their cocktails – Nicola had one – so I stuck to beer.

Flight Of The Conchords are playing at the Michael Fowler Centre. Such is their popularity that the first night sold out, and they’ve arranged three additional nights this weekend…and that’s just in Wellington! They’ve also sold three nights in Auckland, as well as the rest of their New Zealand tour.

The show started promptly at 8pm, with someone dressed as a tree playing the saxophone for three tunes. No explanation, just a taster of some of the weirdness that was to come. Then Jemaine and Bret took the stage, and started talking. The show is as much about the banter as the songs, much like the tv show, the radio show etc. At the beginning they mentioned the venue, saying of all the places around the world that they’d played, this was the most…convenient. Sometimes one's not ready when the other one is, so they start talking whilst the other one gets ready, then he’s not ready, and so it goes. They did manage to play some tunes in between, and Tree returned to the stage a few more times. Later in the show they were joined by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, or Nigel as he’s better known. This is a joke that works well in America and Europe, but in The Michael Fowler Centre, home of the NZSO, they ended up apologising profusely to the real NZSO, who they alleged were actually living underneath the stage (fact-check pls – Ed). Another guest, King Homeboy, came on to do some beatboxing for a few songs as well. At one point Jemaine almost stood up (gasp!) for a bit of guitar, but they play most of their songs sitting down. They played their well-known tracks, and also some deep cuts; introducing one such by saying “this one won’t be well-known by you…or by us”. Their lack of practice, and the gap between their warm-up gigs (in May) and their 8-year hiatus, were frequently referred to. 

Tree

A great night’s entertainment, with some songs that you know…what more can you ask for? That set list in full can be found here.

 

Election 2026

We’re coming up on re-election day

Nicola and I have once again been working at the coalface of democracy, working for the Electoral Commission to deliver New Zealand’s General Election. These come around every three years, and employ a lot of casual labour to make it work, both in the run-up to Election Day and afterwards. As always, the character who is the symbol of the election is a weird, orange man. Unlike America, we don't make him leader.

We were both called to interview, and spouted the usual nonsense to make them believe that we are normal, functioning adults capable of following a procedure. This was followed by the training, where our trainers asserted that there were more than fifty changes in procedures from the last time, so PAY ATTENTION AT THE BACK THERE! These changes are, however, infinitesimal, apart from the one biggie: you can no longer register to vote, and cast your vote, on Election Day. This is a change brought in by the governing coalition to help streamline the election process. Some people have cried “Foul!” over this, saying that people are being denied their democratic right to vote. It is pointed out to such people that (a) everyone has had three years (count ‘em!) to register to vote, and (b) no other country in the world has this lax attitude to voter enrolment, so get with the programme!

Nicola has been put on the Care Homes team, as she has experience dealing with people in such homes from her Driving Miss Daisy employment. She has worked at a different location each day. I, however, have been rostered into a Voting Place (which is the dumbed-down name they now give to what I know as a Polling Station), this time a bit closer to home at Ākau Tangi Sports Centre in Kilbirnie, a short 5-minute drive away. This is a popular place for sports, and many people take advantage of their presence there to cast their votes at the same time. Unlike most Voting Places, we were open in the evening (most close at 4pm) – to 6pm at the weekend, and then until 9pm on weekdays, albeit with a later opening time of 1pm. I have been issuing Ordinary and Special Votes to a background of sports noises, including the National Taekwondo Championship, as well as the more usual schools PE, netball, basketball, floorball, futsal, and football games going on well in to the evening.

On the big day, 7^th November, we arrived at 8:30am for a full days’ voting until 7pm. There were five of us issuing votes, with one doing Specials only, two of us doing Ordinary Votes only, and two doing both types. I was on the Ordinary team and issued nearly 150 votes during the day.

At the end of the day we reorganised the room for the count. We were covering three electorates, with candidate and party votes for each, so we had to do six counts. We also had to sort the Special Votes into their electorates so that they could be counted more efficiently at headquarters. The whole process is governed by the instructions in the manager’s manual. So we sat around the table and awaited instruction. We finished the count, and the manager called the results in to HQ. Finally we packed up, restored the room to its status quo ante, and went home to watch the rest of the results come in on’t telly.

 

Black Caps vs. India

India are touring New Zealand this spring, playing the full range of formats and visiting Wellington for a match in all three. The first is T20, played at night with an 8pm start – presumably because there’s more money in Indian TV rights than there is in New Zealand ticket sales. This is the third in a five-match series, and so far New Zealand are 2-0 down, so this is a must-win to keep the series alive. Despite having lost two matches, though, it must be said that India won them with only a ball to spare on each occasion, and a held catch or two would have swung the matches completely the other way, so we’re down to very fine margins here.

The day dawned windy and rainy, but the forecast sunshine emerged in the afternoon and the wind abated to a mere zephyr. We arrived in good time to stake a place by the window in the Cricket Wellington box at Hnry Stadium, as we’ve renewed our gold membership for a second year, to take advantage of these games. Unfortunately, the next one in Wellington, an ODI, is on Election Day (7^th November), so we’ll miss it as we’ll both be working at voting places on the day.

After the usual hurrahs and anthems at the beginning of the match, we got down to it. India had won the toss for the third time in succession, and  again put New Zealand in to bat. The Blackcaps made a slow start and lost Seifert early in the second over, at 4/1. Darryl Mitchell and Finn Allen then started rebuilding, and they reached 90 before losing another wicket. Phillips gave a short cameo for 17 runs before chipping one straight back to the bowler, and Mitchell carried on to the end, finally reaching 89, nearly half of his side's total of 198.

Against most teams, and on most grounds, that would be a competitive target. Not tonight, though. The Indian batters seemed to have the measure of the bowling attack, which was, for the most part, bowled too short. New Zealand stuck at it despite the fact that they were being launched into the stands, so it seemed, every other ball. They managed to take a wicket in the eighth over, but by then India were at 133, scoring at around 20 an over. They slowed from a gallop to a canter after that, and eventually down to a walk, as they took their sweet time polishing off the remaining runs. Whilst they dropped three more wickets the result was never in doubt, as the worm shows.

 So that’s the series won for India. There are two more matches, in Auckland and Hamilton, both on grounds with short boundaries, so they may choose to bat first on those grounds just to see what kind of total they can achieve. After that comes the 5-match ODI series – we’ll be missing the Wellington fixture – followed by two test matches: again, one in Wellington at the Basin, which we’ll try to catch as much of as we can. Hopefully with better results.

 

Midge Ure

Way back in the autumn of 2025 (that’s around March to you northern hemisphere types) I bought tickets to see Midge Ure later in that year, in spring. I was looking forward to it.

In the winter, I received an email from Ticketek, telling me that Midge had suffered an unspecified medical condition, and that the tour was being postponed for a year. A year!!! I was offered a refund or to accept the rescheduled date. Well, I still wanted to see him, so I wished him a speedy recovery and changed the date in the calendar.

OK, it’s a year later now. And Midge is better! The venue is Meow Nui, and again we wondered whether in deference to his likely audience he’d be providing seats. Nothing of the sort! This is another, proper, stand-up gig. 

First up, we went to Cuba St Tavern, which is becoming a fast favourite for us for pre-theatre and gig dinners. The last couple of times we’ve been there I’ve been disappointed by the lack of oysters, despite them being on the menu: they’d already been scoffed by greedy, unthinking other diners before we got there. Anyway, this  time I reserved half a dozen on the “any other information:” box on the reservation form, and lo! Behold! Six juicy, plump oysters were mine! We also ate some other stuff.

When we got to Meow Nui the queue was down the street, round the block, and up a side street. People must’ve been wondering what all the olds were queueing for on a Friday night (we were about the median age of those in the queue). We’d engaged in some chat with our servers at CST, neither of whom had a clue who or what an Ultravox was, or had heard of Midge Ure. Young people today!

Inside, we established a spot near to the stage, and bumped into Emma, one of my fellow Toastmasters, so we chatted a bit about forthcoming gigs – there’s a veritable summer of Eighties music coming up!

The support act came on and introduced himself as Cole Stacey. He said “you're expecting to see synthpop and guitar hero Midge Ure, and instead you’ve got a hairy guy from Devon playing the mandolin”, which is what he did, for the obligatory half-dozen songs, some of which were completely unaccompanied. As he finished his set he left us with the words “right, I’m off to change my shirt and learn some Ultravox songs”. Ha ha, I thought. Very funny.

 Half an hour later, and Midge takes the stage with his band, Electronica. Boom! It was no joke! There’s Cole again, bass guitar in hand! Yes, he’s in the band as well!

Midge kicked off with Dear God, then followed with a mix of songs from Ultravox, Visage, and solo works including No Regrets and If I Was. In between there was the usual banter, starting with an apology for turning up so late. There was a good mixture, including quite a lot from the Long Ago – five (count’em!) from seminal album Vienna, including the title track, which of course means nothing to me. He got us involved in the obligatory sing-a-long on The Voice, and we generally had a good time. I knew pretty much all the songs, and reminded myself how good some of those album tracks had been…including the notorious Astradyne, a six-minute electronic instrumental from Vienna, which he was once asked to play when he was touring solo with just a guitar.

The show wrapped up after a very short encore (one song – Hymn), possibly due to curfew rules on the venue? It was, after all, past eleven o’clock! On the other hand, it may just be that it was past Midge’s bedtime, because, would you believe, he’s 73! 

I’d say “catch him if you can” but other than tonight’s show in Auckland, that about wraps up his Australasian tour. He is touring the UK towards the end of the year as well. That full setlist is here (or will be when the site updates).

 

After God

Nicola was on ushering duty again at Circa Theatre, this time for After God. What’s that about? Sounds a bit God-y to me…

We had dinner at ChouChou again. They do seem to be improving after the initial hiccups and less-than-perfect experiences we’ve had with them. I had fish & chips, Nicola had the burger…both competent enough, but it’s still pub grub. Lowering expectations seems to be the way to go.

After God is described by the author as a “verbatim play”. This means that the dialogue is exactly as spoken by the characters, most of whom are real people (spoiler alert: God makes an appearance, and he’s not real). It’s mainly about the author’s (Stuart McKenzie – an “everyman” played by different actors for different parts of the play) conversations about god, God, religion, theology and related subjects. Some of his conversers are ordinary people, others are highbrow theologists, professors, and religious types.

The beauty of taking real dialogue as the premise for your play is that it allows you to shape it, give it a narrative, split the scenes up so it doesn’t follow necessarily how or when it was originally said, and to juxtapose it with others from different times and places. Now, call, me old-fashioned, but I’d’ve liked it if he actually did that. Instead, it’s a mishmash of incoherent ideas, some ramblings, cute aphorisms that fall apart on a moment’s thought, and general mumbo-jumbo. Much like religion, in other words. I don’t know if that’s the author’s intent, or not. The most significant moment towards the end comes when there is a death, but I can’t help but get the feeling that it’s thrown in for dramatic effect. It added nothing to the rest of the play, but he wants you to feel dramatised and traumatised.

So yeah, a bit of a mixed bag. I give it 2/5.

 

Razorlight

The summer* of gigs has started, with Suzanne Vega a couple of weeks ago, and now Noughties almost-legends, indie rockers Razorlight. Remember them? They had a string of hits around 20 or so years ago, culminating in the No. 1 smash, America. They released three albums in that time before splitting up. Artistic differences? I think it was mainly that the singer, Johnny Borrell, was a bit of an arsehole. And by a bit, I mean a lot.

Anyway, that’s all in the past, they’ve reconciled their differences and are now doing America: 20^th Anniversary Tour. And they’re coming to New Zealand!

But first, of course, dinner. I booked Kisa as it’s handily placed, just up the road on Ghuznee Street, not far from the venue, Meow Nui. For once we dispensed with bread and dips, as these tend to fill you up with bread and dips, and dived straight into a selection of mixed mezze – kebabs, turşu, böreks, and cured fish. Yum! Once again, the Mosaic Group (of which they are part) are doing their passport promotion, so we’ll probably visit some of their other locations over the next few months.

Then on to Meow Nui. We’ve been there before, most recently to see Bret McKenzie. But what’s this? No seats? Yes, this is a proper, old-fashioned gig where you have to stand around waiting for the band to come on. Fortunately, there’s a bar. There was also a merch stand, but I didn’t fancy the design of any of the t-shirts so I skipped that one.

First up was local band Dropper, who came on for the traditional half-hour warm-up set. They’ve released an album on CD (yes, actual physical medium!) so I’ve ordered that.

Then on came Razorlight. They played a mix of songs, old and new, as they reformed in 2018 and have since released two albums, bringing their total to…five. Way to go, fellas! All the hits (they didn’t have enough to afford the luxury of leaving any out) interspersed with other songs, old and new material. Borrell isn’t much one for the bants between songs, they just got down and did it. He does have a lot of front-man energy, though, and loves showing of his ripped abs.

After an hour they left the stage before returning for a five-song encore, finishing up, inevitably, with America. A jolly good night out with proper rock’n’roll music. From here they’re going to Australia, then onwards to Europe and the UK. Catch them if you can!