The Weekender 19/07/2009

Welcome to another winter week! The weather hasn't been particularly terrible for me, but Northland had to survive some bad weather this weekend, and we had one of NZ's biggest earthquakes ever, to boot!

Sport

I'm not sure which type of rugby should lead with this week since both results were surprising, but the league is shorter - so the Warriors won! They beat the Roosters 30-24 with a 90m Wade McKinnon try.

And now the rugby. If you listened to any of the reports leading up to the opening tri-nations game, you would have been certain that the All Blacks were utter rubbish. You would know for a fact that the Robbie Deans coached Australia were amazing, had such a great team they didn't need to make any changes, and that they always beat the All Blacks.
Of course, because you are lucky enough to read the Weekender you know this isn't the case (and also you don't have to put up with fickle NZ reporters!). After the first 10mins of the game we all had that sinking feeling as Australia scored at a point a minute. But then the world righted itself, and Australia lived up to their historical win rate of only 29.3% (against NZ for all tests). They did win the first 20mins, and were even still ahead at half time, but the All Blacks won 22-16. In all fairness, the general opinion is that the ref had a shocker and the AB's got some penalties they shouldn't have. But then it's often the other way around, so we'll just take the win, thank you.
Some more stats just in case you're interested. The average difference in points is just 5.77, NZ's biggest winning margin is 37, Australia's just 21. NZ's highest score 50, Australia's 35. As for the Bledisloe Cup, NZ have won 38 times, Australia 12.

The Black Sox took just four innings to beat the United States 15-0 in the opening game of the world men's softball champs in Canada. I can never understand how U.S. has the world series and are great at baseball but that NZ are historically by far the best in softball!

Julian Dean was shot at on the Tour de France this week. Apparently some kids with an air rifle took pot shots at the riders and hit Julian and another rider. Neither was seriously injured and I think they both continued to the end of the stage.

Lisa Tamati has competed in her second Death Valley ultra-marathon this week finishing the 217km run in 37 hrs 14mins, over an hour faster than last year. The "Bad Water" race hit temperatures of 57degC, and goes over three mountain ranges, starting at -85m and rising to 2500m above sea level.

Sam Meech won a gold medal in the boys' Laser Radial class at the youth sailing world champs in Brazil this week.

Shearer David Fagan won the Great Yorkshire Open yesterday for the ninth time. Napier shearer John Kirkpatrick came second and David's newphew James Fagan came third. David stunned everyone with his 16th Golden Shears win in March, he has had 592 open wins since 1983.

Even though the ANZ champs aren't over yet, there had been talk that coach Noeline Taurua was heading overseas, however the coach who has taken the Waikato/BOP Magic to the playoffs for the first two years of the tournament, has announced that she has re-signed with the team for another season.
Update: The Magic's season is now over. The Magic lost the other weekend in the first game. Then teams placed 3 & 4 played, and the Adelaide Thunderbirds beat the Southern Steel 51-45. Tonight's game was the Magic's second chance against the Thunderbirds, but they couldn't make their second final, beaten 37-51 in Hamilton.

NZ News

The bomb blast in Jakarta on Friday killed New Zealander Tim Mackay, he was one of the eight people killed. He was president director of the Holcim Indonesia cement company. According to the man's son (who had recently visited) the workers thought of him as a father and he had set up charities to help struggling Indonesians.

New Zealand escaped relatively unscathed after we had one of our top three earthquakes ever. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake was centred in Dusky Sound and broke a few windows and cracked a few ceilings but considering it was equivalent to 500 million tonnes of TNT and 25,000 times bigger than the Nagasaki A-bomb, there was no major damage. All the bridges in the area (which admittedly are few & far between) checked out ok, and despite shaking everyone from Bluff to Bay of Plenty - and Australia! - there were no injuries. The quake was the same size as the 1931 Napier earthquake, so our equal second biggest ever recorded.

The head of Te Papa, Seddon Bennington, died this week, out tramping in the Tararua Range north of Wellington. The chief executive and a family friend, Marcella Jackson, had been missing for four days and the subject of an extensive search, until their bodies were found about 1km short of the hut they were heading to. They were experienced and well-equiped but the weather had been terrible with waist deep snow around.

An ongoing news story for the week has been the folic acid plan. The previous government signed NZ up to an agreement with the Australian's to force bakers to add folic acid to our bread. Folic acid has been shown to reduce the risk of defects for babies being born. There are always two sides to every story, with the "pros" saying there is no risk to anyone else and the potential to save many babies from spina bifida, and the "cons" saying that high levels can be dangerous and that it should be voluntary. The National government has always been keener to have a voluntary plan, but had claimed they couldn't back out of the deal they made with Australia since they've already started. But this morning PM John Key announced they've ditched the folic acid plan after Food Minister Kate Wilkinson reached an agreement with the Australian secretary for health.

The Numbers Game

1,500: people watched the "running of the balls" in Dunedin - thirty thousand Giant Jaffas rolling down the world's steepest street
50,000: people on the dole - three times the number at the same time last year, and almost half are from Auckland
645m: $ owed in taxes by BNZ after they lost NZ's biggest tax avoidance case, the other big banks owe similar amounts

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.3951 (0.0091)
EUR 0.4577 (0.0067)
USD 0.6452 (0.0149)
AUD 0.8049 (0.0133)

The Weekender NZer of the week

John Britten
MAVERICK MOTORCYCLE DESIGNER
John Britten was a revolutionary motorcycle designer whose home-brewed machine won international ovations with its stunning design, engineering and performance. The 300+ km/h blur of speed, the smell of burning rubber and the medieval roar of the Britten V1000 motorcycle lingers over the tarmac of Kiwi myth.
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/britten.html
Watch all about John here!
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/britten-backyard-visionary-1993

Joke of the Weekender

Swahili Gasp
A company was producing an English-language movie. In one scene, an exhausted messenger was supposed to dash in, collapse, and gasp out a vital message in Swahili. The company even found someone who knew the language. The scene worked beautifully in the movie -- until it played in an African town where Swahili was well known. A moment of high drama nose-dived into comedy as the panting messenger gasped out:
"I don't think I am being paid enough for this part!"

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/
{If these just fill up your junk mail, then send me an email & I'll take you off the list | The Weekender is not a verified news source, sometimes it's even just an opinion}