Boring

What a dull week I have had. The weather is miserable, and activity on the social front-lines is minimal. Thus, I have little of substance to report (if, indeed, I ever do).

Who says Auckland has a man-drought? I passed SPQR last Wednesday, and there were two well-heeled gentlemen, sitting pensively at separate tables, drinking glasses of red wine. Went to Galbraith's Alehouse on the weekend (wet and sodden Sundays call for beer), and lo! No less than three gentlemen, drinking alone, reading books.

Get your best knickers on, Singletons, there are men ripe for the picking.

Sweat-shop labour and cheap, mass-produced goods - Ponsonby is becoming our own 'Little China.' All that is lacking is some dog-meat (no jokes about the All Blacks WAGs, please).

Far from being a stalwart stronghold of food and fashion, it is being infiltrated by nasty rubbish (I’m referring to the retail version of such, not the human kind, without which Auckland would be as dull as Wellington).

The hardware shop has gone, and has been replaced with some kind of 'two-dollar' shop monstrosity, a depressing accessories business down the Three Lamps end is openly flogging fake handbags (if Prada ever made anything as awful as what is in the window, Miuccia would be put in an institution), and the Goldmine warehouse has been happily pedalling its shonky cack for at least a year now.

Also, have discovered the secret to how local models keep their svelte figures – they can't afford to buy food! One young lady confessed that Karen Walker pays her models with a hundred-dollar clothing voucher to her own (sweat) shop. One hundred dollars! Goodness. That wouldn't even get one a t-shirt.


No wonder they are crying in her latest ad campaign.