The Weekender 12/10/2008

Afternoon all, sorry if I seem a little distracted, this afternoon is the Bathurst 1000 so I'll see how much I get done in the ads.

Sport

Well from last weekend, the game of the week was definitely the NRL final where the Manly Sea Eagles lived up to their recent performances and thrashed the Melbourne Storm 40-0 in the biggest beating ever for an NRL final. Melbourne coach said "I didn't see that coming".

The Wellington Phoenix managed a draw against the Newcastle Jets last weekend.

The twins have retired. Double olympic champs Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell announced their retirement from rowing this week, they have done amazingly and we are all very proud of them!

The summer is starting and so is cricket. The plan for the Black Caps was to have a nice gentle warm up series against Bangladesh before hitting Australia next. Unfortunately that doesn't work when NZ is so unpredictable and in the first one dayer Bangladesh took a 1-0 lead in the series with a 7 wicket win - ouch. NZ recovered for the second ODI but were still unpredictable going from 31-0 to 45-4 and 115-7 before Jacob Oram and Jeetan Patel put on a 45 run 10th wicket stand to finish with 212 for nine. Luckily Bangladesh were knocked over for 137.

The AirNZ Cup semis continued this weekend. Canterbury thrashed their Super 14 partner Tasman 48-10, Wellington beat their Super 14 partner Taranaki with a flattering scoreline of 50-30. The surprise of the weekend was that Southland played well and Bay of Plenty didn't, being beaten 45-11, so Southland is through. Unfortunately Hawkes Bay continues to be Waikato's bogey team winning 31-28. So next weekend Canterbury host Hawkes Bay and Wellington host Southland.

Cameron Brown has finished sixth in the gruelling Hawaii Ironman.

As for Bathurst, during qualifing the Team Kiwi car t-boned a car that had crashed around a blind corner. They did get the car back for the race but it didn't last very long. Paul Radisch crashed yesterday and fractured his foot so he was out. Shane Van Gisbergen was doing well for Stone Brothers Racing, but his team mate crashed their car after a yellow car period. The remaining NZ hopes are Fabian Couthard who is running third, Craig Baird is sixth and Greg Murphy and Jason Richards are seventh.
Update: Bathurst has just finished and for the third year in a row Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup have won the race for Ford, Jason Richards and Greg Murphy came second for Holden. An interesting result because Lowndes knocked into Murphy on the first lap, causing steering and tyre problems for Murphy and dropping their car way down the field!

NZ News

We can only hope that the elections come quickly, but in the meantime.... Most parties have now launched their election campaigns with Winston Peters getting John Rowles to sing "My Way". Winston did have some things go his way this week with the Serious Fraud Office clearing NZ first of any fraud, but they have handed documents over to the police for other issues.
National has vowed to end parole for repeat violent offenders which sounds like an 'about time' idea.
Helen was grounded at Wellington airport with high wind this week, so she commandeered an Air Force plane to take her to a Grey Power meeting in Invercargill. She had a few people claim an abuse of power but she claimed it wasn't an election event and was organised before Labour started it's election campaign hmmmm.
National has pointed out that the number of government communications staff (i.e. spin doctors) has ballooned by 114% in the past six years. They earn on average $77,000 up 29% on last year. National wants to put a cap on bureaucracy. The article wasn't clear if it's a 114% increase or a 14% increase (i.e. 114% of what it was).

NZers did well all round in the World Shearing and Woolhandling Champs in Norway this week taking four of the six titles.

The weather has been predictibly unpredictable spring weather this week. Search and rescue teams found the body of a 56 year old woman who was swept away while tramping at Mt Taranaki.

Gary Paykel has been honoured with a Distinguished Citizens Award - the highest award available from the Auckland City Council.

Australia has announced that they may start sending NZ-born criminals 'home'. NZ government has responded by saying they may consider following England's lead and send all criminals to Australia (ok they didn't really).

The Numbers Game

1: # golf course in the world is Cape Kidnappers according to England's Daily Telegraph - it costs $400 a round
2: years of postcodes in NZ has seen their use become fairly common
4: % decrease in motels & campground use for August compared to last year
34: jobs will be lost as a top wool mill in Timaru closes - a result of a continuing global downturn in the wool market
54: th place for NZ in the world football rankings, up 57 places
559: houses sold in September, up from 502 in August for Barfoot & Thompson residential properties
225,000: people are still not enrolled for the election - any NZers should head to http://www.everyvotecounts.co.nz/ for info
1m: $ raised by Steve Williams for the Starship childrens hospital cancer ward - Steve is one of NZ's highest paid sportsman as Tiger Woods' caddy
3.7m: $ aid from NZ for hunger & flood victims in Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Africa, India and Nepal
40m: $ paid by the Government for St James Station in the Sth Island to guarantee public use - I think it's a great buy but many are unhappy with a farming group calling it irresponsible

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3478 (-0.0253)
EUR 0.4424 (-0.0374)
USD 0.5932 (-0.0680)
AUD 0.9211 (+0.0674)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Charles Upham
VICTORIA CROSS AND BAR
Acknowledged widely as the outstanding solider of the Second World War, New Zealander Charles Upham is the only combatant solider to receive the Victoria Cross and Bar for his exceptional bravery in Crete and in the Western Desert.
[The film about Charles is under threat after the film company has gone bust.]
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/upham.html

Joke of the Weekender

Haircut Request
When a customer slid into the barber chair, the barber asked him how he wanted his hair cut.
"Make it short," the customer replied, "with a bare patch above my left ear, but longer on the right side so that it covers my right ear. I also want my left sideburn above my left ear and the right sideburn below my right ear."
The barber looked puzzled and said, "I don't think I can do that."
The customer replied, "I don't know why not--that's the way you cut it the last time I was here!"

Weekender Photos

This week I have photos from a walk along the beach at Raglan last night.
Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/Raglan03

Darren Harrison: darren@harrison.gen.nz
The Weekender: mailed weekly (Sunday nightish)
Website: www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
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