The Weekender 07/06/2009

Well how are you all going? Winter may have hit NZ and the week was full of heavy frosts but the days were beautiful & sunny - and my cousin's kids were still swimming at the beach!

Sport

The Twenty20 World Cup has begun with the home country, England being beaten by minnows the Netherlands, and then NZ only just managed to beat Scotland in a rain-shortened 7 over coin-toss-of-a-game. But stand in captain Brendon McCullum led the team well and we won with an over to spare. Australia were thrashed by the West Indies, beaten with 25 balls to spare.

The international rugby season kicked off with Australia taking on the Barbarians which included a large number of NZers including league possible convert Sonny Bill Williams. The thrown together Barbarian teams rarely have a chance against quality national teams, and so Australia won 55-7 (has Robbie Deans managed to get a good team out of Australia?).

The Transtasman netball series had moved back into transtasman mode (after a time of all national games), and the Northern Mystics were beaten 34-58 by the Adelaide Thunderbirds. The Central Pulse continue to struggle with a 45-59 loss to the Canterbury Tactix.

The Warriors had a weekend to forget losing 10-18 to the bottom placed Cronulla Sharks. Coach Ivan Cleary has had his contract extended another two years.
It's not NZ news but the Aussie State of Origin is still big news. The Queensland's Maroons have currently equaled the most series wins are are looking for another after beating the NSW Blues 28-18 in the first of three Origin games this week.

Andrea Hewitt won race two of the world triathlon circuit in Madrid.

Last weekend Scott Dixon won the Milwaukee Mile to jump to the lead of the championship, however this weekend he finished third and has slipped to second in the championship.

NZ News

David Bain will be enjoying this winter a little more than most after probably the biggest trial NZ will ever have came to close and he was declared not guilty. The police have stated that is the end of the matter, so it's all over - except for the 1000's of "water cooler conversations" around the country! Apparently a high percentage of Dunedin people are overwhelmingly disappointed (that was translated into printable words!) but most of the people I've talked to are happy with the outcome - although they are still undecided! I can't under state how huge this has been in NZ - there is a very real fear amongst journalists that they will all be out of a job this week, now that it's over.
The case has cost an estimated $4m and it is likely that David Bain's legal team will be applying for compensation for the 13 years he was in jail, although the compensation is far from definite.

National MP Richard Worth has been in the news quite a bit this week and none of the news has been good. A Korean woman has accused him of a number of things (of a sexual nature), prompting John Key to demand he step down from his cabinet positions and prompting the police to start a case against him. However news has also come to light that the woman has previously wrongly accused a prominent member of the Korean community of inappropriate behaviour.

Air New Zealand's first Boeing 747-400 was sent to the scrap heap this week, ZK-NBS has been sent to the US (Roswell!) to be dismantled for parts. The 19 year old plane has flown more than 11,400 flights in 88,300 hours and travelled more than 80 million kilometres.

"NZers not happy with Super City plan" said the NZ Herald headline. What it should have read is "Paper takes cheap shot by using vague statistics". Leading the story were negative comments from the opposition (don't forget - that's their job!) Buried in the story were the statistics that the story was based on, 31% opposed, 27% in favour with the rest either neutral or don't know. Right, so 58% just don't care.

Hamilton's International airport is international again. You may remember that Air NZ pulled out of Hamilton leaving the title a little in the air since there were no longer any regular international flights. However this week Pacific Blue has started daily transtasman flights. That will be a relief to everyone who paid for the new terminal!

An American scientist has said he was misquoted as news quickly travelled around the world that he said swine flu had originated in either NZ or China. Obviously because all of our cases of swine flu are from people who have recently been in either Mexico, USA or Australia!

Last week I wrongly said that the zoo keeper killed in Northland was from South Africa. He was in fact from Zimbabwe and an appeal has raised enough money to return his body to his home, which will allow his parents to pay their respects.

NZ is to fly a rare species of bumble bee back to Britain (where they originally came from) because they have died out there.

Sir John Walker has been awarded the Knight Companion of the Order in the Queens Birthday honours list this year. Others to receive various honours include Murray Deaker, Carl Doy, Stephen Kearney, Che Fu, Peter Harris, Irene van Dyk, Ian Grant, and I can't quite figure out who but a lady two houses down from my rental property got an honour - We had to stop chain sawing for a few minutes during her TV interview!

The Numbers Game

1: # most peaceful nation in the world title for NZ!
2: weeks early opening for Whakapapa after a lot of early snow
4: motorists got silver medals for heroically pulling four severely injured people from a van after a fiery crash
6: years jail for a man who used a toy pistol to hold up a bank & steal $70,000
9: road deaths over Queens Birthday Weekend was the worst road toll for the weekend in 13 years, the weekend's bad weather has been blamed
13: % jump in car sales according to official registration figures from NZTA
14: swine flu cases in NZ now after two people caught it overseas & returned to NZ (Aussie has over 1000 cases!)
20: % of kiwis are at maximum risk of developing potentially deadly melanoma
99: % of statistics are at maximum risk of maybe, mostly, not really meaning what they are trying to prove
106: injuries to posties last year has dropped to 50 this year after the introduction of high-vis vests, helmets & panniers for cycling posties
6,518: $ out of pocket after a man claimed he was unjustifiably dismissed to the Employment Relations Authority, he won $1000, but had to repay $7518 for goods he cheated his employer out of
100,000: $ GST fraud resulted in an Auckland man being sentenced to 12 months' home detention
250,000: $ donation to Victoria Uni's Antarctic Research Centre by Economist & philanthropist Gareth Morgan (best known as the father of the guy who started TradeMe!)
20m: $ error by the Ministry of Education who after approving a 4% pay rise, started to pay early childhood teachers 8% more

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3923 (-0.0035)
EUR 0.4488 (-0.0041)
USD 0.6267 (-0.0138)
AUD 0.7901 (-0.0099)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Colin McCahon
THE LUMINARY
Colin McCahon is the region's most revered artist. He reconceived Aotearoa, to paraphrase Australian author Murray Bail, as the land of the long black shadow. Squinting into the hard sun, McCahon saw, "something logical, orderly and beautiful belonging to the land and not yet its people. Not yet understood or communicated, not even really yet invented. My work has largely been to communicate this vision and to invent the way to see it."
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/mccahon.html

Joke of the Weekender

Garage Wow
There was a knock at the door. It was a small boy, about six years old. Something of his had found its way into my garage, he said, and he wanted it back.
Upon opening the garage door, I noticed two additions: a baseball and a broken window sporting a baseball-sized hole. "How do you suppose this ball got in here?" I asked the boy.
Taking one look at the ball, one look at the window, and one look at me, the boy exclaimed, "Wow! I must have thrown it right through that hole!"

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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