Join in world record spooning attempt at Tauranga
Greetings, fellow inhabitants of fair Tauranga and the Western Bay, and welcome to the inaugural 'Raunga Awards, where we celebrate the very best our little sun-kissed piece of paradise has to offer.
That these awards were nominated and judged solely by a panel of one barely initiated Taranaki flea who's only been here for two seconds and shouldn't even be getting a resident's discount at the Mount Hot Pools yet, let alone a regular newspaper column, is beside the point entirely.
So let's instead move on to this year's'Raunga Award recipients. Drum roll please ...
- Best petrol station worker: Lucky (at 10th Avenue Mobil). Lucky fun fact: "Lucky" is actually short for Lushman, his real name.
- Best Lotto man: Balbir (at Central City Lotto).
- Best intersection: Fraser St and 15th Ave.
- Best ice cream: Waffle cone, Copenhagen Cones, Mount Maunganui.
- Best legs: MP Simon Bridges.
- Best shop name: Hot Ginger, Grey St.
- Best Christmas shop display: Limelight, Tauranga CBD.
- Best telephone manner: Mayor Stuart Crosby.
- Best irrelevant Christmas song to whistle while sunbathing in Pilot Bay: Let It Snow
- Best Tauranga lullaby: Boy racers and their cool ooonst-ooonst sounds in Maunganui Rd. Runner Up: Hungry mosquitoes.
- Best summer poison: Sangria, Flying Burrito Brothers
- Best Christmas cause: Waipuna Hospice Remembrance Tree.
- Best wacky book title at B A Reader: Creative and Sexual Science Including Love, Its Laws, and Power, Courtship, Marriage, an 1875 guide to intimacy by Professor O S Fowler. The subcategory award for best chapter in this book goes to Anglo-Saxon Love-Making Errors.
- Runner-up: A New Age Guide for the Thoroughly Confused and Absolutely Certain.
- Best tacky cruise tourist fashion accessory: Blinding white socks. Runner up: Wrap-around sunglasses teamed with USA caps.
- Best pie eater: Hori BOP.
- Best Tauranga boat name: Tu meke.
- Best summer natural fragrance: Sea Lettuce Seduction, available from Main Beach while stocks last.
- Best place to get harassed by Greenpeace recruiters and Bay of Plenty Times reporters: Grey St.
- Best duck at McLaren Falls Park: The cheeky little one with the green neck at Cherry Bay that keeps trying to snatch your food, no matter how many times you chase it away.
- Best Te Puke lunch bar: Jimmy's Joint.
- Best second-hand or antiques store: Choice of Chadwick, Greerton - where you get friendly service and a complementary chocolate mint with purchases.
- Runner Up: Katikati Secondhand Centre.
- Best island to visit this summer: Mayor Island. Runner Up: Fashion Island.
- Best video store: Bethlehem Video Ezy.
- Best holiday movie about overpaid, good-looking people in exotic places they don't deserve to go: The Tourist, coming soon to Bay City Cinemas.
- Best holiday horror movie for Tauranga stingrays: Orca 3D
- Best independent newspaper: CC's Bay of Plenty Community News Letter
- Best busker: Jamie Bingham (busks outside Unichem Pharmacy, Grey St).
- Best burger: Diet Buster (known to me as The Burgerwocky), Hooked On Good Food For You, Matua. Runner Up: Texas Burger, Stars and Stripes, Papamoa.
- Best fish'n' chips order number to get at Fresh Fish Market Tauranga (Dive Crescent): 39.
- Best exhibition at Tauranga Art Gallery: The Making of the Word Witch by Margaret Mahy and David Elliot - catch it before December 12.
- Best World Record attempt: To get the most people "spooning", at Mount Maunganui Beach next Sunday, December 19, from 1pm to 4pm. Apparently, the current record is 432 people and next Sunday's guideline is that the spoon has to be in one location, in one line, and to last longer than five minutes.
For more, join the Tauranga's Just Better Facebook page.
For a definition of spooning, also consult the internet ... or Professor O S Fowler.
- Best public Christmas tree with a cute height inferiority complex: The one in Red Square. It's okay little fella, we don't notice that big box you're on.
- Best T-shirt at Please Tees: The Fresh Prince of Bay-Fair. Runner Up: What's the Matamata with you, bro?
Congratulations to all of our 2010 'Raunga winners. Do you know a deserving 'Raunga recipient? Email me at jamie.morton@bayofplentytimes.co.nz
