The Weekender 01/11/2009
Submitted by weekender on Mon, 02/11/2009 - 11:06
Welcome to summer, well it was today at least - in fact it's been quite good for a week now, I must remember to water the tomatoes!
Sport
Any weekend where the All Blacks win is a good weekend, so this was a good one with the AB's making a clean sweep of the Bledisloe Cup games - and also racking up 7 wins in a row over Australia. Australia led at the break but the final score was 32-19. Now many Australians are worried about their choice of Robbie Deans for coach! (but it's not his fault, whoever is coaching them still has to coach the Aussies!).
In other rugby the AirNZ cup descended into boring normality with Canterbury beating Hawke's Bay 20-3 and Wellington beating Southland 34-21.
In soccer the Young All Whites have advanced at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Nigeria after securing a 1-1 draw against the runaway Group D leaders Turkey. It was their 3rd consecutive draw but they made it through the entire group stage unbeaten.
In local football, the Wellington Phoenix had their first loss of the season, losing 3-1 to Sydney FC.
In the rugby league Four Nations campaign, the Kiwis thrashed France 62-12 and Australia just managed to hold off England 26-16 after being 26-0 ahead at half time.
The NZ Breakers won their basketball ANBL game against Adelaide mid week 99-91.
NZ News
Labour MP Trevor Mallard has been in the news again - well I refuse to call it news, I think opinion piece is a better name. TVNZ had an interview with him & while he was out riding apparently a passenger of a car swung a bag at him on his bike. Despite the occupants of the car having filed a complaint with the police, the reporters hadn't tracked them down for their side of the story, so I'm guessing there is more to it than Trevor "short fuse*" Mallard is saying. (* Trevor got into trouble for punching Tau Henare in Parliament in 2007).
Labour has also promised that it will not stop attacks on Deputy PM & Finance Minister Bill English over his housing allowance - despite him now having paid back everything he claimed since the election & not claiming anything further (despite being entitled) and now have been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Auditor-General. Labour must have nothing to do.
One thing this government seems to be doing is changing quickly if they need to. They recently announced a number of changes to ACC (probably because it was $1b in debt & unsustainable) including possible privatisation, but after a brief period of negative publicity they quickly announced a review of the sensitive claims unit that deals with sexual abuse and rape victims. It's kind of unusual having a government that actually listens!
Labour MP David Parker has claimed that insurance companies which would benefit from the privatisation of ACC "could" have made donations to National's election campaign and no one would ever know. I would like to propose that Daffy Duck "could" have been employed to write David Parker's notes.
Two men were arrested when they tried to divert police with a fake call to police reporting a gang fight, so they could drive home drunk. They were pulled over and the driver failed a breath test while his mate was arrested for making the phone call. That's the second time I've heard of that plan failing!
A burglar turned himself in to Police on the North Shore after a robbery went bad. He broke in and piled items by the door to take, but he couldn't carry them all so just took a digital music player - but left his cell phone at the house. He realised the police would be able to track him so turned himself in.
It is now illegal to hold or use a cell phone while driving (unless it's in a fixed cradle) - don't forget if you visit NZ.
A drunk man (to the point of senselessness), was knocked 15m while walking down the middle of a rural road - and walked away with only minor cuts and bruises.
1: # sports venue in NZ is the Cake Tin - Wellington's Westpac Stadium
5: c/L increase in petrol prices
30: beaches around Bay of Plenty have had smoking banned
57: % support for National one year into their term, 12% more than when they got voted in, Mr Key got 55% preferred prime minister to Phil Goff's 6.2%
80: % of those polled rated the Government's performance in dealing with the global recession as good, very good or excellent
25,163: $ paid by tax payers for Rodney Hide's girlfriend to travel with him on a trip to Britain, Canada & the US. He is being called the "lapsed perkbuster"
45,870: $ in travel expenses for Labour leader Phil Goff for the last 3 mths - who doesn't have a job to do other than being opposition. PM John Key (who does have a job to do) spent $63,663
1,000,000: (at least) broadband subscribers making up nearly three-quarters of all internet users, a further 20% use mobile data cards, cable or satellite to connect
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4368 (-0.0264)
EUR 0.4882 (-0.0150)
USD 0.7181 (-0.0368)
AUD 0.7986 (-0.0205)
The Weekender NZer of the week
Janet Frame
EDGE OF THE ALPHABET
"Mixing and revolving words with the skill of a warrior handling a Taiaha, novelist Janet Frame made an pre-eminent edge of the alphabet contribution to international literature, coming as she did from the peripheries of art and society. In Aotearoa's literature she has taken a Flymo to the dictionary and reconfigured the wor(l)d."....
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/frame.html
Shopping Remote
"Cash, check or charge?" I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase.
As she fumbled for her wallet, I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse.
"So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked.
"No," she replied, "but my husband refused to come shopping with me, and I figured this was the worst thing I could do to him legally."
Here are some photos of the other part of our last-weekend-Labour-Weekend holiday!
Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/CarpetRides
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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