The Weekender 06/09/2009
Submitted by weekender on Mon, 07/09/2009 - 11:42
EUR 0.4815 (+0.0028)
USD 0.6878 (+0.0033)
AUD 0.8088 (-0.0053)
Welcome to the week! While summer seems to be here during the days, the nights still seem to be a bit wintry with some snow and even a frost or two this week - however today was a Waikato day I've never seen before. We had blue sky with no clouds for the entire day (well none that I saw & I kept looking).
Sport
In the provincial Air NZ cup Tasman continued their run of wins over Manawatu beating them 34-15, Auckland just held on to beat Otago 22-18 and Waikato beat Hawke's Bay 30-22. Bay of Plenty went to the top of the table beating Canterbury (in a non-shield match) 19-17, North Harbour missed out again losing 17-13 to Taranaki for their fifth straight loss, Wellington thrashed Counties Manukau 62-19 and Southland drew 15-15 with Northland.
The tri-nations wasn't wrapped up like everyone expected last night. The Springboks could have effectively won the competition with a bonus point but Australia won 21-6 giving NZ a chance - although we still need a couple of bonus point wins!
In rugby league North Queensland spoiled a farewell for Craig Fitzgibbon & the Sydney Roosters by beating them 32-16 giving the Roosters the wooden spoon, and Melbourne Storm spoiled Stacey Jones' farewell when they beat the Warriors 30-0.
The attendance at NRL games hit the 3 million mark this weekend as this season is on track to be the biggest season in history.
After 24 games the table is: Dragons/Bulldogs 38, Titans 36, Storm 33, Sea Eagles/Broncos 32, Knights 30, Eels 29 (that's the top eight), Wests Tigers 28, Rabbitohs/Panthers 27, Cowboys 26, Raiders 22, Warriors 20, Sharks/Roosters 14.
The international netball season kicked off in style this weekend as the Silver Ferns drew first blood against their trans-tasman rivals, beating Australia 53-50 - all those games are close!
While NZ did miserably in the cricket test matches, they've done superbly in the two Twenty20 games against Sri Lanka. In the first game Shane Bond got smashed around in his come back game as Sri Lanka attempted, but failed to reach NZ's measly target of 141/8, but Dan Vettori was even more measly giving away only 11 off his allowed 4 overs, to lead NZ to a 3 run win. Shane Bond struck early helping NZ to a 22-run win in the second game. He was actually the tidiest of the bowlers giving away 18 off 4 overs and getting three wickets.
In cycling, Greg Henderson won a stage in the Tour of Spain this week. The tour is one of the 'big three' and he isn't employed to win races, only help his team mate to win, but in this case his team mate dropped off near the end of the race, so Greg went for it and won! An amazing result and just the third NZer to win a stage in one of the three "Grand tours".
Hayden Roulston has signed a two-year contract with Team Columbia HTC - one of the world's best teams.
US based marathon runner Liza Hunter-Galvan has been banned by the NZ Olympic Committee for two years after testing positive for a banned substance. Hunter-Galvan hit the news before the last Olympics after she wasn't selected despite good results and appealed the non-selection so that she could race for NZ in China. She is the first Olympic athlete in NZ's history to be banned for EPO use.
After the last weekend, NZ rowers won two more gold medals at the world rowing champs in Poland, with lightweight single sculler Duncan Grant and the lightweight double of Storm Uru and Peter Taylor wining their finals.
NZ News
Michael Laws is never far out of the news. The outspoken Wanganui mayor has this time been accused of doing nothing more than abusing children in his response to school kids letters saying they thought Wanganui should be spelt Whanganui. Laws' view was that the teacher was responsible for politicising the children without giving them the other side of the argument. The Geographic Board is going to make it's decision on the issue this month.
An orange traffic cone turned up on the top of the Sky Tower this week. It's not known how it got there but may have been a marketing stunt.
Not quite NZ news but Fiji has been suspended from the Commonwealth after they failed to announce a date for the elections. While most of us would think the Commonwealth is a little old these days, there is quite a bit of aid tied into the deal.
Wanganui became the first city to create a bylaw which bans gang patches and the police are prepared to enforce it. In fact they have already made their first prosecution and it wasn't even related to the protest organised by the gangs. The law was introduced after 67% of votes in a referendum in 2007 requested that gang insignia be banned.
2: nd best long-haul ranking for Air New Zealand according to Conde Nast Traveller magazine, and New Zealand was the 2nd best destination in the world
2: % pay rise for police officers
3: c drop in petrol by Shell & BP as the yo-yo goes down
5: th best placed country ranking for NZ, in terms of coping with the effects of climate change
5: c charge for plastic bags has been dropped in Wellington and now Auckland at New World and Four Square stores, after public pressure
6: Richter scale earthquake off the Bay of Plenty coast
10: hours to get across Cook Straight for two men in their converted Toyota van
155: years since NZ started recording temperatures - and August was the hottest one on record
573: kiwis die annually from accidents in their own home - compared to last years road toll of 366
800: $ tickets for the Rugby World Cup - fans are being offered a six-month interest-free repayment plan
12.5m: $ supercomputer has been bought by the National Institute of Water & Atmosphere Research (Niwa) - an IBM Power 575
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4197 (-0.0011)EUR 0.4815 (+0.0028)
USD 0.6878 (+0.0033)
AUD 0.8088 (-0.0053)
The Weekender NZer of the week
William Pickering
ROCKET MAN
The launch of Sputnik in 1957 forced the United States into the space race. In the Cold War they needed to show the world that they too could launch a rocket into space. Less than three months later Explorer 1 was launched. The man behind it: William Pickering from Wellington, New Zealand.
Landing Request
There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked."
Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.
"Ah," the pilot remarked, "the dreaded seven-engine approach."
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}
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