The Weekender 23/11/2008

What an awesome weekend! So let's find out what happened during the week.
You might find that a bit strange, but I really do find out what happened as I'm filling in the details for this weekly email. Sure I do mark interesting stories during the week, but I mainly try to pass on details of things that are truly 'making noise' around the country - and I don't really have that 'overview' until a lazy Sunday afternoon sitting in front of the computer. I've talked to a couple of you over the past week - it's good to know you enjoy it ;-)

Sport

Without a doubt the biggest story of the week should be what happened late last night. The Kiwis (NZ's rugby league team) beat the Kangaroos/Aussies in the Rugby League World Cup final 34-20. Now just to put that in perspective, until yesterday the Aussies had won all the league world cups since 1972 - not too surprising since they have (by far) the strongest league competition in the world - the NRL. Not only that but even during the game the commentators mentioned how this team, was the strongest Australian team ever. Right through the competition, Australia thrashed everyone they played (including NZ early on). There had been calls that the cup should have been written on (with Australia as the winners of course) a month ago - that is how sure everyone was they would win. It was never that we couldn't beat Australia - it was just very very unlikely. The Kiwis played out of their skins, and the Australians made lots of mistakes. What an awesome game. The magic moment for me was seeing Lance Hohaia score after stepping through Darren Lockyer (man of the match) and Billy Slater (man of the tournament) - both won awards for being awesome in the international league awards ceremony this week.
One reason I don't like watching league so much here in NZ, is because of the one sided biased commentators. Pretty much everything they say, if it's about an Aussie (whether international or NRL) then it's awesome and they did well, but if it's not an Australian then they did terrible. I was very glad I stuck around for this game to hear how much the commentators rubbished everything the Kiwis did, how awesome Australia were playing, and then for the Kiwis to win - priceless. Two more things: Why was the player of the match from the losing team? and I hope all you Kiwis in Australia are making the most of this!
(Correction from last weekend, after Aussie beat PNG, they beat Fiji 52-0 in the semi, to reach the final).

The league wasn't the only game over night. The All Blacks continued their grand slam march with a match against Wales and a 29-9 win. It wasn't all pretty, and the All Blacks were never likely to run away with the game, but the All Black continued their end of year tour run of holding their opponents scoreless in the second half. The Warren Gatland coached Wales team found the going more & more difficult the longer the game went on.
During the week the All Blacks (well the second team!) played a mid week game against Munster to commemorate the 1978 match where Munster became the only Irish side to beat the All Blacks. The All Blacks won 18-16 with a near end of time try to Joe Rokocoko.

Not all the trans tasman games went our way though. The Black Caps have just started a tour in Australia and their first game was on a very green Gabba ground. Australia were put in to bat first reaching 214 which gave us all hope - until NZ made 156 in their first innings. Australia should have been bowled out earlier in the second but made 268, leaving NZ chasing 327 - rather unlikely. Keeping in mind this was all after only 2 1/2 days! Near the end of the day NZ was doing well at 133-4, but slumped to 143-6 at stumps, after which the end result today was fairly obvious, reaching 177 all out. At least it wasn't a thrashing.

The All Whites aren't doing well in their World Cup qualifying in the Oceania Zone after a 2-0 loss to Fiji this week.

The NZ Breakers are doing spectacularly well. Their Friday night home game was a top of the table clash against the South Melbourne Dragons and they won 112-98 and jump to the top of the table.

NZ News

This is another one of those items that maybe should be sports news - nahhhh. You may have heard this one, but the Otago cricket board was promoting an international game for when the West Indies are touring here soon. The promotion text was "It's all white here". This has been quite big, not just here in NZ but it seems the West Indies are all upset about it and commentators around the world (& in NZ) are condemming the comments as racist. If it's racist then they should be shot (or whatever the modern equivalent of swift justice is). But I don't think it was at all. I think I've figure out the problem. Obviously I see the point of view that NZ is predominantly white & West Indies ... aren't. And they might think they were being racially attacked. I can see that the Otago cricket board, thought to themselves, well for test matches, everyone wears white, so white is the colour associated with cricket, and it's a great play on "It's all right here" (and our team are the "Black Caps"!). But I'd hazard a guess that while we might get isolated rasicm in NZ, it's so far removed from typical life that an "It's all white here" promotion, shouldn't be a problem. It's to easy to accuse something of being racist - but we should be past that in NZ.

This week was a big week politically. On Wednesday our new Prime Minister was sworn in, that afternoon he had his first cabinet meeting (to warn everyone how bad the economic down turn actually is!), and then he flew out to the Apec meetings. Next Tuesday he will be passing by England and will be meeting the Queen. John Key proved he is willing to seek help as he accepted an offer from Helen Clark to talk about what to expect at the Apec meetings. They talked for 45 minutes on the phone before John left the country. At the meetings John has given a strong message to the world's business leaders that they need to deliver trade liberalisation to help recover from the world financial crisis.
Later on in the week, the final special votes were counted. The final result (which really doesn't affect anything) was that the Greens got an extra seat, and National lost a seat.

The Numbers Game

1: # scrabble player! NZ's professional scrabble player Nigel Richard's, won the world championship in Dallas
5: th worst country for emmissions in a UN Climate Change Secretariat report - oh it's only the UN, I was thinking it was something important
4.8: % pay rise (up to) for MPs and ministers was confirmed this week - John Key reiterated that he will be giving away most of his political salary to charities
7: year low in NZ's net annual migration gain
8: days for John Key to form the new government, compared to 32 days taken by Helen Clark in 2005
28: windscreens smashed overnight in Whangarei
37: % win rate for Northern Hemisphere teams over Southern. That drops to 15% if Argentina and the Pacific Islands are discounted
50: % of kiwis plan to scale back spending over Christmas due to the financial crises - 20% said the economy will have no impact on them
54: defence force personnel will return home from the Solomon Islands today
113: fires around the country last weekend due to the warm weather and strong winds
148.9: c/L for 91 octane petrol, I can keep up with the price drops!
200: jobs to be cut by Air NZ to save $20m/year. Most will be through voluntary redundancies
303: road deaths this year to date, 39 less than 2006, 53 less than last year
1,000: kiwis have been released into the wild under the national conservation programme (NZers have a unique ability to automatically differentiate between the person, bird and fruit - anyone else may be confused by this stat)
8,977: seconds for Liza Hunter-Galvan to do the San Antonio Rock'n'Roll Marathon (that's 2h 29min 37s) a personal best for the 39 year old, originally overlooked for NZ's Olympic team
50,000: $ defrauded from the IRD by a Whakatane tax agent, claiming multiple rebates under a false name

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3593 (-0.0158)
EUR 0.4260 (-0.0127)
USD 0.5363 (-0.0172)
AUD 0.8466 (-0.0052)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Thomas Brydone and William Davidson
CHILLY BIN BILLIONAIRES
New Zealand has long been heralded as a country that 'rode to fortune on the sheep's back'. The next time you carve into a fillet of tender Kiwi lamb sirloin, now exported to more than 190 countries around the world, you might like to pause to chew on the fascinating story of how the frozen meat export industry began: a story of technology, determination, vision and pioneering colonialism.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/brydonedavidson.html

Joke of the Weekender

Dangerous Dog
Upon entering a little country store, a stranger noticed a sign reading, "Danger! Beware of Dog" posted on the glass door. Inside, he noticed a harmless old hound dog asleep on the floor besides the cash register. He asked the store manager, "Is that the dog folks are supposed to beware of?"
"Yep, that's him," he replied.
The stranger couldn't help but be amused. "That certainly doesn't look like a dangerous dog to me. Why in the world would you post that sign?"
"Because," the owner replied, "before I posted that sign, people kept tripping over him."

Weekender Photos

This week I have photos of a moonrise over Lake Arapuni where we went camping last weekend - more photos next week!
Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/LakeArapuniMoonrise#

Darren Harrison: darren@harrison.gen.nz
The Weekender: mailed weekly (Sunday nightish)
Website: www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
{If these just fill up your junk mail, then send me an email & I'll take you off the list | The Weekender is not a verified news source, sometimes it's even just an opinion}