The Weekender 17/05/2009

Welcome to another week. This weekend (despite the doom & gloom forecast) I went to Bethels Beach for the first time ever - and it was a great sunny day at the beach! It's certainly getting closer to winter around here (a hail storm in BOP looked like snow), but there are still nice days to be had. So I didn't really hear all the sports results for the weekend - let's find out what happened!

Sport

The Warriors didn't do so well having an error-ridden game and were thrashed 34-12 by the North Queensland Cowboys. The NRL table after mostly 10 games (except *) is:
Knights/Broncos/Dragons 14, Bulldogs*/Titans 12, Storm* 11, Cowboys/Panthers*/Wests Tigers* 10, Rabbitohs*/Sea Eagles 8, Warriors* 7, Roosters/Eels* 6, Raiders* 4, Sharks* 2

On to the Super 14. After the Chiefs won on Friday night, the big game for us was the Bulls vs Sharks with every Chiefs fan hoping for a Sharks win so that the Chiefs would remain at the top of the table. It didn't happen with the Bulls relying on two drop goals to win 27-26 this morning. The Stormers finished on a high with a 28-22 win over the Cheetahs and the Highlanders ended on a low with a close 33-28 loss to the Western Force. The Crusaders booked their spot in the semis with a 13-15 win over the Blues, and the Hurricanes booked their spot with a 28-37 win over the Reds. Yes you read that right, there are three NZ teams in the semis. At the start of the weekend the Waratahs kept themselves in the hunt with a 38-33 win over the Lions but were relying on either the Crusaders or the Hurricanes to lose. The Chiefs booked their spot with a 10-7 win over the Brumbies in shocking wet conditions in Hamilton on Friday night.
So at the end of the regular games the table looks like this: Bulls 46, Chiefs 45, Hurricanes 44, Crusaders/Waratahs 41, Sharks/Brumbies 38, Force 36, Blues 32, Stormers 27, Highlanders 26, Lions 25, Reds 19, Cheetahs 12. So NZ end with places 2, 3 & 4 (yay) but also 9 & 11.

In the trans-tasman netball champs the Southern Steel beat the Canterbury Tactix by one, and last weekend the Southern Steel beat the Northern Mystics by 61-52.

Josh Coppins has moved to fourth overall in the motocross MX1 champs.

NZ News

Aren't the rescue helicopter pilots legends? This week one of them made a five-hour 1000km mercy flight to Raoul Island. If you don't know where Raoul Island is, follow the link because I would think it's a very long way to be flying in a helicopter with no where to land on the way. A GNS science technician Andrew Cowie smashed his ribs falling out of a boat on Friday and on Saturday the Phillips rescue helicopter picked him up. He is now stable and fears of internal injuries were unfounded.

The government has finally passed the first parts of the law to make Auckland a 'super city' with a single council to run the entire city. They had been sitting under urgency since Wednesday and Labour were throwing everything they could in to block the process or at least delay it until next week, including introducing thousands of ludicrous amendments, each of which needed to be voted on. But the government found a way to wipe the amendments out & got the bill passed through. Firstly keep in mind that Labour agrees with the single council for Auckland, and as an example part two of the first bill was 149 words long and Labour put up 825 amendments.

Most of the political news this week has been regarding National's decision to build a road rather than a tunnel in Auckland to complete the Western ring road. I don't understand firstly why people are complaining that in this financial climate, the government aren't going to spend $2.5b on a tunnel. Secondly I don't understand why people are so upset that they'll get going market rates for their houses. Sure it would be unfortunate to have to move out of your house, but they will be paid out and it will probably be more than the current market would give, and they would have always known their houses were in the possible route. And then things got worse when National's candidate for the vacant Mt Albert by election (after Helen Clark left) tried to defend the motorway by saying that criminals from South Auckland would be forced to bypass the suburb & go elsewhere. That obviously didn't go down well in the politically correct arena!

The funeral for slain policeman Len Snee was this week. The prime minister has been quizzed a number of times on whether police will now be armed but instead John Key is looking at speeding up the taser stun gun roll out.

The Numbers Game

2: more swine flu cases confirmed in NZ - that's up to 8 now, but don't forget influenza kills 500,000 people each year
50: suspected swine flu cases in NZ, a drop of 18
52: caught in a police drink-driving blitz, out of 9268 tested at 16 check points on Friday & Saturday nights
79: % of employed people felt their jobs were secure (in a Research NZ survey), up from 76% in Feb and 73% in Nov 08
109: year old Ruby Billings died this week, she was believed to be NZ's oldest woman
130: speed camera tickets were waived after new digital speed cameras were set up incorrectly & recorded wrong numbers
140: km/h wind gusts were predicted for the lower North Island
300: % increase in parking fees in Parnell up from $56 to $236/month - hang on. $56 a month? I've paid $36 for a day in Auckland!
2,560: $ paid for Brian Lochore's 1967 All Blacks captains jersey in an auction in London, by TVNZ European correspondent Mark Crysell
60,000: $ increase in annual Auckland house prices according to Harcourts
208m: $ expansion of Middlemore Hospital has been approved by the government
240m: $ being spent by Auckland University for an overhaul of it's health campus

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3850 (-0.0109)
EUR 0.4330 (-0.0092)
USD 0.5846 (-0.0185)
AUD 0.7801 (-0.0041)

The Weekender NZer of the week

We have two heros for NZer of the week.
The first is Phillip Devery, who stopped his car in Invercargill to fight off two large dogs who were viciously attacking an elderly man. (link)
The second is Damon Newrick who fought off three men who were strangling a woman and stealing her jewellery in London. (link)

Joke of the Weekender

Not Likely
In my sociology class, we were instructed to write down answers to some questions the teacher was asking.
"Next question," announced the instructor. "How would you like to be seen by the opposite sex?"
I was thinking about my answer when the young woman next to me turned and asked, "How do you spell 'intellectual?'"

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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