The Weekender 31/05/2009

Welcome to a winter long weekend. It's Queen's Birthday Weekend and an icy front is heading up the country. This morning was blue sky & sunshine but the weather deteriorated during the day & the wind is freezing. The weekend forecast even predicted possible snow in the Coromandel.

Sport

The Warriors finally had some good news with a 14-0 win over the Wests Tigers in Auckland. Twenty year old Kevin Locke had a dream debut with the win.

South African rugby is looking good after a dominant weekend. SA won their first sevens rugby world series. The Edinburgh Sevens continues but South Africa have progressed enough to secure the series win. Last weekend NZ lost the London Sevens final to England 31-26 in sudden-death extra time.
In the Super 14 final the Bulls had a great game to thrash the Chiefs 61-17. It's rather unfortunate (for us Chiefs fans) but at least the Chiefs made the finals and I'm glad this isn't a Rugby World Cup year!

Scott Dixon has been inducted into the NZ motorsport Wall of Fame. Previous inductees include Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Chris Amon, Possum Bourne, and Morrie Chandler (current vice-president of the FIA). The award will add to the Sportsman of the Year award that he got earlier.
Last Monday morning Scott Dixon missed out on winning back to back Indy 500 races after his pit crew had a problem with a tyre change near the end of the race. He led for about 1/3 of the race and finished sixth.

Kiwi triathletes Kate McIlroy and Callum Millward had victories at the Pan American Cup event in the US this week.

Danny Lee has finished a respectable 13th in the Byron Nelson Championship on the PGA tour.

Andrew Nicholson won an equestrian event after leading from start to finish in France.

Kimberley Smith won the prestigious London 10,000m road race finishing over two minutes ahead of the second place getter.

The Waikato/BOP Magic beat the Southern Steel 48-39 in the ANZ championship. The current table is: Melbourne Vixens/Waikato/BOP Magic 14, Adelaide Thunderbirds 10, Queensland Firebirds/Southern Steel 8, West Coast Fever 6, NSW Swifts/Canterbury Tactix/Northern Mystics 4, Central Pulse 0.

NZ News

The Zion Wildlife Gardens has been in the news quite a bit recently. It was mostly surrounding the popular TV star & former employee "The Lion Man" Craig Busch, who has had a long running dispute with his mother regarding running the park. He was fired and then went to court to get his job back. Then this week keeper Dalu Mncube from South Africa was mauled to death by a white tiger (which was put down). And now MAF has temporarily closed the park to ensure "the welfare of the animals is not compromised and the park is being well managed."

A Scottish tourist had his passport swiped by a brazen thief this week, from a bus heading to Milford Sound. At a stop, the bus driver was in a compartment beneath the bus and a cheeky kea flew off with the tourists bag.

The Green Party has announced a new co-leader to replace the retiring Jeanette Fitzsimons this week, and it will be Metiria Turei. She beat Sue Bradford to the job. This was obviously a way for the Greens to really show how serious the party is, selecting someone who started their political career standing for the McGillicuddy Serious and Aotearoa Leaglise Cannabis Parties (yeah right).

This week was budget week with the new government announcing the final details of their budget (most news is leaked earlier these days). Most people (Labour supporters included) have agreed with National's plan to axe the proposed/promised tax cuts for now and increase the health & education spending. While some commentators have stated the budget was boring & moderate, it seems that is what is needed in these days of global financial problems and the plan looks like a good one. Some points: GPs will be paid $6.5m to do more minor surgery, and $13m/yr to shift some hospital services out to the community setting. Contributions to the Super Fund have been mothballed for 10 years.
In a NZ Herald online poll 7% though Mr English's budget was generous, 69% just right and 24% thought it was mean.

The David Bain trial reached a milestone last week with the end of the evidence.

A couple of Wellington writer/directors have had success at the Cannes Film Festival being awarded a special distinction for the second time in three years, this time with "The Six Dollar Fifty Man".

The Numbers Game

3: months of freedom has ended for escaped fugitive William Stewart who has been on the run in the South Island
25: year old Austrian had to be rescued after going for a walk completely unprepared for NZ conditions at 3pm, just out of Dunedin
50: years of painting the Auckland harbour job and the job still isn't finished - a continuous job for some of the 160 bridge maintenance crew
70: jobs to go at ACC as part of a restructuring at the head office
100: year anniversary for the Farmers department store

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3958 (0.0070)
EUR 0.4529 (0.0105)
USD 0.6405 (0.0210)
AUD 0.8000 (0.0091)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Frances Alda
INTERNATIONAL DIVA
Born Christchurch in 1879, grew up in Melbourne, to Europe in 1902. Sang at La Scala, and triumphed at the New York Metropolitan Opera. A proud New Zealander, recorder of traditional Maori songs. Famous across America as an opera star, showered with widespread tributes on her death in 1952.
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/alda.html

Joke of the Weekender

Car Privileges
David and Bernice had just given their teenage daughter family-car privileges. On Saturday night she returned home very late from a party.
The next morning her father went out to the driveway to get the newspaper and came back into the house frowning. At 11:30am the girl sleepily walked into the kitchen, and her father asked her, "Sweetheart, what time did you get in last night?"
"Not too late, Dad." she replied nervously.
Dead-panned, her father said, "Then, my precious one, I'll have to talk with the paperboy about putting my paper under the front tire of the car."

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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