The Weekender 11/10/2009

Hi, it's good to see you again. This weekend I drove down to Wellington & back so there is a link to some photos below. There was some snow around the higher places this week but it was quickly disappearing from the Desert Road today - an amazing day that was hot & sunny all the way from Wellington to Hamilton!

Sport

Waikato celebrated a bonus try win over Otago winning 29-35, Southland beat Tasman 0-41, Auckland beat Taranaki 10-0 and Canterbury beat Manawatu 50-26. North Harbour surprised everyone beating Bay of Plenty 28-7, Wellington thrashed Northland 41-7 and Hawkes Bay thrashed Counties Manukau 54-8. The top eight are Canterbury 42, Hawke's Bay 35, Southland 32, Waikato 31, Auckland 30, Wellington 29, Tasman 28, Bay of Plenty 26.
In other rugby news, Rugby Sevens has been included for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.

The Black Caps did great to get to the final of the Champions Trophy but they needed everything to go right for them if they were to have a chance of beating Australia and everything went wrong instead. Match winner & captain Daniel Vettori was ruled out with injury & NZ reached only 200-9 in their 50 overs. Australia won the trophy by six wickets.
In other cricket news Kyle Mills has been ranked the No 1 ODI bowler in the world. He isn't flashy but he is very consistent - great work.

In netball the Silver Ferns have been involved in the FastNet world netball series in Manchester. They had a first up 27-22 win over Malawi, then a 24-21 loss to England, but they bounced back with a 37-28 win over Jamaica. England beat Australia to take the lead and the Silver Ferns play Australia next.

The NZ Breakers had a 79-74 come-from-behind win over the Melbourne Tigers & they did it without their star Kirk Penney.

Australia's great race, the Bathurst 1000 was on today and Holden has ended a three year run by Ford's Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup. Garth Tander & Will Davison won the race with Holden also 2nd & 3rd with Kiwi Jason Richards and Cameron McConville 2nd, & Lee Holdsworth & Michael Caruso third. Greg Murphy & Mark Skaife were looking good toward the end but a pace car pushed them back to finish fourth.

Scott Dixon was pipped at the finish line of the final race for the IndyCar season with his team mate Dario Franchitti winning the race & the championship in the final race of the season. Scott finished second, for the second time in a very close season.

The All Whites played the away leg of their World Cup soccer playoff against Bahrain and finished with a 0-0 draw. The return game is in Wellington next month. So it all comes down to that. If they can win the next game they will be in the World Cup final series - equalling the always talked about 1982 All Whites!

NZ News

Police have been searching for a missing Auckland toddler Aisling Symes who disappeared a week ago. It was originally thought she had wandered off, but now it is strongly suspected that she was abducted. Police now have 60 officers working on the case but no trace of her has yet been found.

The union representing 900 Auckland bus drivers was ordered into facilitation by the Employment Relations Authority on Friday on the second day that NZ Bus had locked it's drivers out after wage talks weren't resolved. The lockout has forced 80,000 passengers to find alternatives to get to work & looks to get worse tomorrow with the end of the school holidays. I do find it interesting that people are pushing so hard for higher wages when we are still basically in a recession.

A robber abandoned his attempted crime at a Christchurch fish & chip shop when he became frustrated at the owner's poor English! He handed over a threatening note but the woman behind the counter didn't understand it. The robber fled empty handed.

National & Labour are working together for a trade deal with the US with Trade Minister Tim Groser and Labour's Phil Goff having a joint visit with an Obama Administration trade official.

A Hawkes Bay man was happy to find out this week that he was the inspiration for the the British comic book character "Dennis the Menace". He emigrated from Scotland 40 years ago but as a child he visited family friend (& cartoonist) David Law with his parents.

The Numbers Game

4.8: richter scale earth quake - not a biggie but it was the first earth quake I've ever felt! I had to be in Wellington for it though ;-)
12: container loads of goods have left for Samoa for tsunami relief aboard a Royal NZ Navy ship
14: hours trapped under his Harley Davidson for a Greymouth man but he managed to survive
61: st University in the world ranking for Auckland Uni
650: people were rescued from their snow-trapped cars on the Taupo-Napier road this week, they got back two days later!
20,000: more people on unemployment benefit in the six months to June (2.7% of wage & salary earners) after 48,400 people were "laid off, dismissed or made redundant"
2m: $ donated by Kiwis for the Samoan & Togan tsunami relief efforts, the government has pledged $6.1m

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.4640 (+0.0147)
EUR 0.4991 (+0.0075)
USD 0.7349 (+0.0186)
AUD 0.8142 (-0.0147)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Arthur Lydiard
RUNNING MAN
Arthur Lydiard invented jogging. The method of building up physical fitness by gradually increasing stamina is a simple one, used by millions of men and women worldwide as part of their everyday health and fitness regime. Lydiard's methods trained New Zealand's greatest track athletes, and helped propel New Zealand to the top of world middle-distance running.
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/lydiard-arthur.html

Joke of the Weekender

Applause
A famous football coach was on vacation with his family in Maine. When they walked into a movie theater and sat down, the handful of people there applauded. He thought to himself, "I can't believe it. People recognize me all the way up here."
Then a man came over to him and said, "Thanks for coming. They won't start the movie unless we have ten paying people or more."

Weekender Photos

This weekend we went to Wellington a fun wet drive down on Friday with some stops at Taupo & a fun sunny roof-less drive home today.
Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/WellingtonTrip#

Darren Harrison: darren@harrison.gen.nz
The Weekender: mailed weekly (Sunday nightish)
Website: www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
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