The Weekender 22/03/2009

Welcome to the week. I was sure that winter had started early but it's been lovely the past week. Still hot enough for water hole swimming!

Sport

The cricket test match between India & NZ was on this week. NZ survived a collapse batting first, with Ryder and Vettori scoring centuries but only managed 279 - but at least it wasn't embarrassing. India replied with 520 and NZ repeated their 279 which wasn't nearly enough by that stage and India had a 10 wicket win inside four days.
In Women's cricket the White Ferns booked themselves a finals spot (against England) when Suzie Bates smashed 168 off 105 balls to lead the White Ferns to a 223 run win over Pakistan. NZ got to 373 for seven and then dismissed Pakistan for 150.

As I predicted earlier on, the NZ teams have started to come right in the Super 14 with some better results this weekend (but I won't be holding my breath for next weekend!). The Highlanders beat the Cheetahs 32-8 and the Chiefs had an epic 63-32 win over the Blues with Sitiveni Sivivatu scoring a record 4 tries for the Chiefs. The Crusaders game against the Waratahs was billed as the Bored vs the Flawed, but the Crusaders came out the victors by 13-17. The Sharks dealt a blow to the Western Force play-off hopes with a 10-22 win and the Lions had a 25-17 win over the ACT Brumbies. The Hurricanes didn't have any luck in their 14-19 loss to the unbeaten Bulls as they were on the wrong end of a 13-3 penalty count.
Tables: Bulls 22, Sharks 21, Waratahs 19, Chiefs/Blues 17, Hurricanes 15, Crusaders 14, Highlanders/Brumbies 13, Stormers/Force 12, Reds 11, Lions 10, Cheetahs 2.
That's quite interesting, South Africa are pushing for more teams, sure they have the top two spots but also the bottom two! And all NZ teams are in a row in the top eight.

In boxing 'Fight of the Century' between Shane Cameron & David Tua has been postponed due to a hand injury Shane picked up in his last fight.

Adam Hall has got a career-best finish getting the silver medal at the disabled World Cup finals at Whistler this week. He is also now ranked No 2 in the world.

NZ News

No matter how badly off we think we are, most NZ'ers are far more fortunate/wealthy than many others around the place, and John Key knows it. As someone who donates his entire Prime Ministerial income to charity, it's not surprising that he is pushing NZers towards a 'culture of giving'. He was a speaker at Philanthropy New Zealand's annual conference and made the call for NZers to consider giving their tax breaks to charity.
The biggest political news of the week was the government announcing that the regional fuel taxes (which weren't in yet) are to be axed but that fuel taxes will go up for everyone and that $1b will be spent on highways over the next three years.

Veteran sports broadcaster Brendan Telfer is now out of the coma, but will have a long recovery after his sudden collapse and aneurysm as he was heading through Wellington airport.

Obviously when there is a shooting by police there are lots of reports & checking to make sure they did the right thing. The shooting by police of Stephen Wallace back in April 2000 was no different. An independent report that came out this week has indicated the police should have done more to care for Wallace after he had been shot and was under control, but no individual police were in trouble for doing their job.

The Numbers Game

5: top ANBL players included Kirk Penney and CJ Bruton
10: c charge for plastic bags at the Warehouse from April 20 in a bid to reduce the use of plastic bags
5.7: richter scale earthquake felt across the North Island this morning - centred near Whakatane
90: jobs from TVNZ will be cut as they try to meet the Government's new profit demands (90 jobs that were apparently going anyway!)
750: $ expected average cost for a seat at the Rugby World Cup final 2011 in NZ
1,400: of Shell's NZ customers had their customer details stolen by online hackers, but it was only company names & addresses nothing particularly serious
3,600: net inflow of long term migration into NZ, up from 1200 in Jan & 100 in Dec. 1000 fewer people leaving for Aust compared to Feb!
70,000: people ran & walked the 'Round the Bays' fun run last weekend
500,000: $ meth haul for the police after they targeted Asian crime syndicates

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3858 (+0.0113)
EUR 0.4109 (+0.0054)
USD 0.5582 (+0.0337)
AUD 0.8124 (+0.0156)

The Weekender NZer of the week

William Hudson
SNOWY MOUNTAIN ENGINEER
New Zealand Engineer Sir William Hudson was the man and motivator behind the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. It is acclaimed as one of the great engineering achievements of the 20th Century, that not only irrigated the Australian interior and generated hydro-electricity, but changed the nature of Australian culture.
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/hudson.html

Joke of the Weekender

Restaurant Service
The restaurant where I took my two sons for a meal was crowded with fans watching a sporting event on television.
The harried waitress took our order, but more than half an hour passed with no sign of her return.
I was trying to keep my kids from becoming restless when suddenly shouts of victory came from the bar.
"Hey," commented my 11-year-old, "it sounds as if someone just got his food."

Weekender Photos

Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42

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