The Weekender 30/11/2008

Welcome back, it's great to see you again* I hope you've had a great week. We have had a good spring - maybe not quite enough rain for the farmers but everyone is enjoying the sun. In fact it's almost been too hot this week - and we're still in November!
(* well not actually "see" you)

Sport

Following up from last weekend, the Wellington Phoenix had a rare back to back win beating the Newcastle Jets 2-0 at home. And if back to back wins are rare, how about three in a row? This week the Phoenix upsent the Melbourne Victory winning 2-1 with a great strike by the departing Shane Smeltz.

Also last weekend, Earl Bamber had a solid drive in Black Beauty for the A1GP grand prix in Malaysia finishing the feature race third after avoid a couple of big crashes, and pulling NZ to third equal with France. Ireland and Portugal are first & second.

Australia are again in trouble for bowling too slowly after the first test against NZ. Although none of that helps NZ as we were well beaten in the first test and seem to be heading the same way again in the second. NZ were all out for 270 and Australia are currently 363/5.
The search has finally ended for a replacement for the current Black Caps coach John Bracewell. This week it was announced that former Warwickshire batsman and current Northern Districts coach Andy Moles has been appointed the new coach. Everyone is hoping that he might be able to find someone who can bat!

After last weekends awesome/shock win for the Kiwis in the Rugby League World Cup, it seems the term 'sore losers' has surfaced again. Kangaroos coach Ricky Stuart launched a verbal attack on the British match officials the next morning, as well as on the whole league organisation. It seems as though the Australians thought the only way NZ could have won, is if the entire event was orchestrated by the officials to make future events "more interesting". Keep in mind Australia have won it for decades and everyone was losing interest. You might (logically) immediately dismiss Stuart's comments simply because he's an Australian, but perhaps he's right. After reviewing the Kiwis' tries it was clear the Kangaroo's were in on the conspiracy as well (ahem Billy Slater ahem). (Here's a fun thing to try at home, see if you can detect the sarcasm in this paragraph!).

On to rugby. Well one win and one loss against England in rugby over night. But first, in the lead up to the game against England, the All Blacks (and Prime Minister John Key) met with Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh met and chatted with the boys for 20 minutes in the giant inflatable rugby ball that NZ has put up to promote the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
So the actual game against England. Well it was a 6-32 win for the All Blacks, but it wasn't a 'great' game for them - the big score came near the end. But the win was enough for NZ to secure the inaugural Hillary Shield and their third ever grand slam tour. That is the end of a record equalling 15 game season (with 13 wins), adding the new Hillary Shield to the Bledisloe Cup and Tri nations.
The Rugby Seven's has started again, the first round being in Dubai. NZ started well with a 28-7 win over Wales. Then NZ only just managed a 21-17 win over Kenya. But after reaching the semis, the young NZ team were beaten 21-19 by England to be knocked out.
Former Wellington coach John Plumtree was named South African coach of the year after guiding the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks to victory in the Currie Cup.
Finally, as NZ celebrate the grand slam, Australia face ignomy as they became the only southern hemisphere team to be beaten on the northern hemisphere tours with a 21-18 loss to Wales.

The NZ women continue to do well - but they don't quite make it in the various women's world cups. The Under 20 team were beating England with about 30seconds to play when England equalised to knock NZ out.

The Breakers continue their awesome form (& results!). On Thursday they beat the in form Perth Wildcats 108-94 in a difficult game, only really pulling away in the last few minutes - the game was tied with six minutes to go. Then last night the Breakers stretched their winning run to six after a 110-88 over the Gold Coast Blaze.

The NZ men's softball team - the Black Sox maintained their perfect record with an 18-0 win over the All Stars Buenos Aires team and a 5-4 win over the local side. The Black Sox are at the Parana International tournament in Argentina.

Dean Barker has stretched his unbeaten run to 17 races at the national match racing champs in Auckland. Update: Dean Barker has once again won the NZ Match Racing Champs.

NZ News

The story of the week was the terrible news of the plane crash off the coast of France early Friday morning. The plane was an Air New Zealand Airbus A320 that had been leased to German company XL for two years. The flight with only seven people on board had been a final check flight before the plane returned to NZ & AirNZ. Of the seven people on board, there were two XL German pilots and the passengers were four Air NZ staff (two pilots and two mechanics) and someone from NZ's Civil Aviation Authority. There were no survivors. The crash came exactly 29 years after Air NZ's worst accident, the Mt Erebus disaster at Antarctica. A witness believes that the crew were heroes after managing to avoid a small French town by crashing into the sea.

A story that made it around the world was about a man in Auckland who stole a bunch of billboard transformers worth $5000 each. Well a member of the public took photos of him and passed them on to the billboard company, who made billboards with the man's photo, asking if anyone knew the thief. The man has been identified and has gone 'to ground' with the police searching for him.

The NZ Herald has been running a bunch of stories from people who have moved from NZ to Australia (or returned). They have been interesting reads, but for every story about someone who likes it better there is a story from someone who doesn't like it, or was very glad to return to NZ.

I read a rant from a NZ motoring writer during the week ... and it made sense. The police in NZ seem very keen to lay the blame of accidents down to speed. They certainly did when they commented on one accident, that "speed may have been a factor". That brief comment ignores the fact that the driver was a 14 year old, driving his family's Odyssey people-mover. These sorts of stories should really be about what on earth parents are thinking. How about the parents of a 13 year old whose alcohol reading was double that allowed for a driver under 20, who took his mothers car (without her permission - huh?) and lost control attempting a handbrake turn and smashed into a phone wiring box. Or the father of an 11 year old boy who was driving an eight-tonne loader down a public road with his father driving the vehicle in front. What are they thinking?

It sounds like all NZers have been accounted for and/or freed after the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. There was a couple in the Oberoi Trident Hotel who were rescued late last night.

The Numbers Game

3: Rhodes Scholars for 2009 are heading to Oxford University to study: Peter Cox, Laura Fraser and Nina Hall
17: years non-parole 'life' imprisonment for a babysitter who pled guilty to murdering a 10-month-old baby
25: % drop in long haul fuel surcharges by Cathay Pacific
143.9: c/L as petrol again drops this week
200: $ departure fee for Kiwi's leaving UK has been announced in Britain, John Key was 'discussing' it while he was there
40,000: $ raised for Starship foundation from an auction of famous portraits - Lucy Lawless was the record, going for $11,000
1,402,000: ski passes were sold this year in NZ to Ski Areas Association members, a new record
6m: $ savings in IT spending (from $7.996m to $1.876m) for Otago District Health Board after sacking its chief information officer - fraud is suspected!

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3566 (-0.0027)
EUR 0.4319 (+0.0059)
USD 0.5484 (+0.0121)
AUD 0.8361 (-0.0105)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Henry James Nicholas
I have been a fan of the story of the battle of Passchendaele since I first heard about it. This week bricks from where Canterbury soldier Henry James Nicholas won a Victoria Cross have been donated to his old school. The bricks are going to be incorporated into a new library being built at the school next year. A VC winner is more than special enough to be our NZers of the week.

Joke of the Weekender

Diary Secrets
A little boy asked his mother, "What's that you're reading?"
A diary.
What's in it?
I can't tell you that. A diary is a highly personal and confidential affair; It has important secret dreams and secret yearnings. It's private. It's not meant to be shared with other people. And besides, this diary belongs to your sister.

Weekender Photos

As promised here are some photos from our Family weekend at Lake Arapuni.
Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/LakeArapuni#

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