The Weekender 28/06/2009

Welcome to this week. The rain (and warmer temperatures) have returned to the Waikato weather this week. The frosty sunny days have been lovely but the slightly warmer weather is welcome for a few days!

Sport

In netball's ANZ champs the Northern Mystics gave the Queensland Firebirds a run for their money but couldn't quite get the win, eventually losing 57-59. The Waikato/BOP Magic however had a fantastic result beating the West Coast Fever 49-38 to become the first NZ team to win in Australia. And in a surprise of all surprises the formerly winless Central Pulse (that's since the competition began last year) beat the defending champions NSW Swifts (who have been rubbish this year) 53-52. Last weekend the Queensland Firebirds beat the Southern Steel 52-50, and the Magic beat the Canterbury Tactix 50-46. The current standings are (12 games except for *): Magic 22, Vixens* 20, Thunderbirds* 18, Firebirds 14, Steel* 12, Fever 10, Tactix* 8, Mystics 6, Swifts 4, Pulse 2.

Well the international rugby season continues and the Italians arrived from Australia. While the final score was a comfortable 27-6 to the All Blacks, the general public is getting more nervous ahead of the tri-nations and the "serious" rugby competitors. The game was mostly described as stuttering and unconvincing! There are still a number of top players like Richie McCaw who are injured & expected back.
Following the game against France last week, the news his the papers (& around the world) that French player Mathieu Bastareaud had been attacked & beaten up by five men as he was walking back to his hotel. Immediately the police, government & P.R. people stepped into over drive to solve the case & prove security wouldn't be a problem during the Rugby World Cup 2011, and eventually it was discovered that the Frenchman was drunk, made it back to his hotel fine, and fell over hitting his head on a table.

The Warriors continued their bad run of away games with a 28-12 loss to the Gold Coast Titans.
Queensland have claimed the longest winning streak in the State of Origin series' since the competition began (30 years ago), when they beat NSW 24-14 on Wednesday. Queensland had five players struck down with a stomach virus and had four players injured during the game.

The Waikato Pistons won the National Basketball League title with a 94-84 win over the Nelson Giants in game two of the finals series.

I mentioned this on Facebook but it's worth repeating. If you don't follow Australian cricket you probably don't know about bad boy Andrew Symonds. He's had far too many run ins with alcohol and was finally dropped from the Australian team. This week he was back in the news, talking about his interest in taking part in a league game last weekend. He said "I swore myself off alcohol for about four days. I was pretty keen for this game." I'm sorry? "about four days"? The NZ news sources didn't even need to make a joke out of him - unbelievable.
To complete the Twenty20 world cup news, Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the final. The NZ women's team were beaten by England by six wickets in the womens Twenty20 final.

Julian Dean has been confirmed to start in next month's Tour de France for the Garmin-Slipstream team.

Mahe Drysdale started his world champ single sculls campaign with a decent win collecting one of five golds that the NZ squad picked up. Mahe beat Briton Alan Campbell and long time rival Olaf Tufte from Norway. Other wins included the women's coxless pair of Emma Feathery and Rebecca Scown, men's coxless pair of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, lightweight double scullers Storm Uru and Peter Taylor and lightweight single sculler Duncan Grant.

Scott Dixon didn't have such a great weekend last weekend finishing fifth but this week at the Richmond International Speedway in Virginia he held off his team mate to win the 300 lap race. The win was Scott's 19th, matching the all-time record, and lifts him to second in the driver standings - one point behind his team mate Dario Franchitti.

NZ News

I've mentioned before that Peter Jackson has been asked to give a review of the Film Commission, and the news that he's fired a couple more broadsides at the organisation (before he really even starts on his review), isn't really the news (although he said the past 10 years has been "the most disappointing in our 30-year-old modern film industry"). The interesting part is what he's working on! He is currently enjoying having plenty of time to complete "The Lovely Bones" and is writing the script for "The Hobbit" which Guillermo del Toro will direct, but next it sounds like he will be doing a remake of the British war classic "The Dam Busters" - that would be great.

The latest low cost airline to try out NZ's skies has been Qantas subsidary Jetstar - and they've made one public relations blunder after another. Last weekend news hit the fan about how they closed down their check in counter with a few people waiting in the queue, trying to get to the All Black game, then Air NZ stepped up and now offer $50 flights to all disgruntled Jetstar customers who are bumped off their flights. Now the latest story is that for their super cheap flights to Australia, passengers have NO checked in baggage allowance. One couple (who paid about $400 for the tickets) then had to pay $240 to check in their luggage for their flights.

While the police continue their hunt for the couple who Westpac mistakenly gave $10m to (they're hiding in Hong Kong or China somewhere!), the bank has again made a mistake putting $4.3m into the bank acount of Hamilton computer company Elite Business Systems when they were owed $43,000. The admin manager said "We were hopeful, almost had our tickets booked to fly out to Hong Kong".

The King and Queen of Spain were welcomed to NZ in Wellington this week. King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia were given an official state welcome and opened a Spanish embassy in Wellington.

The Numbers Game

5: richter scale earthquake on the West Coast this morning
52: % support for National is unchanged despite a bleak budget & bad press with Richard Worth and the Mt Albert by-election
64: % of kiwis are following the swine flu stories in the news but only 28% are concerned about catching it
92: people have whooping cough in Auckland this year - compared to 57 for the whole of last year, 145 in Canterbury, 15 last year
200: people in Auckland gathered to watch a pod of orca chasing stingrays about 5-10m from the shore
810: people declared insolvent in the 2009 financial year including 20 aged 16-18
2,000: jobs to be created by the government's home insulation scheme
2,700: more people arriving in NZ than leaving in May (adjusted, permanent and long term migration) put net migration gain at a six year high
7,000: jobs to be provided by McDonald's after they made a deal with Work & Income
10,000: $ fine for Farmers for selling a returned & repaired TV as new
27,500: $ paid in reparation by a businessman who "stole" a bach from a camping ground
28,000: $ fine for Redpaths furniture store for providing misleading information about saving on sale goodss
13m: $ going to Bay of Plenty towns to reduce flood risk after serious flooding in 2004
35m: $ jackpot for NZ Lotteries' Big Wednesday - the biggest Big Wednesday prize ever

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3911 (+0.0011)
EUR 0.4597 (-0.0019)
USD 0.6460 (+0.0030)
AUD 0.8006 (+0.0025)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Kate Sheppard
SUFFRAGIST
The leader and main figurehead of the suffragist movement in New Zealand, the first country in the world to grant universal adult suffrage to men and women equally. Kate was a source of inspiration to suffragists, both in New Zealand and throughout the world.
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/sheppard.html

Joke of the Weekender

Yard Sale Anger
A lady was taking her time browsing through everything at a yard sale and said to the homeowner, "My husband is going to be very angry when he finds out I stopped at a yard sale."
"I'm sure he'll understand when you tell him about all the bargains," the homeowner replied.
"Normally, yes," the lady said. "But he just broke his leg, and he's waiting for me to take him to the hospital to have it set."

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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