The Weekender 22/11/2009

Sport

With the All Whites game a warm fuzzy memory from last week, it was back to rugby again & a big game with the All Blacks taking on England. Everyone down here was hoping they would show some killer instinct & truly run away with the game but that didn't happen with England much improved on their game from last week. The All Blacks did win 19-6 & there were a few records to go with it. Dan Carter finally overtook Andrew Mehrtens' record of 967 points & has 1000 points in his sights. Mils Muliaina drew level with Justin Marshal as second equal on the list of most capped All Blacks (Sean Fitzpatrick still leads the list, Richie McCaw is a couple of games back on Mils). Finally the All Black regained the number one ranking from the IRB last weekend. Not due to their game but due to South Africa losing to France!
But it didn't all go NZ's way for the rugby! Our Women's rugby world champs were beaten 10-3 by England for the first time in eight years. The Black Ferns had warmed up by thumping England A 48-3!
South Africa had their third successive defeat when their midweek team were beaten 24-23 by club side Saracens (but they did beat Italy on the weekend). South Africa isn't the only Southern Hemisphere team to be having problems. Last weekend Australia drew with Ireland 20-20 & this weekend Scotland beat them 9-8.

Well you heard all about the All Whites gaining entry to the "32" (oops) team Football World Cup last week. Well the players themselves spent around $100,000 & came up with the "One Shot For Glory" marketing campaign.
Most of the All Whites players were back for the Phoenix this weekend as they beat the Newcastle Jets 1-0.

The UCI World Cup in cycling has been on in Melbourne & the kiwis have been doing well. Tom Scully & Marc Ryan won the 40km men's Madison & the women's team pursuit turned the tables on Great Britain (from the world champs) to win. Jesse Sergent won the men's individual pursuit & Alison Shanks got silver for the women's event.

In basketball the NZ Breakers finally snapped their away losses beating the Townsville Crocs 85-73. But that was after an away loss to the Cairns Taipans 64-77.

Nick Willis has had his bronze medal from the Beijing 2008 Olympics 1500m upgraded to a silver after the Bahrain winner was done for doping.

Team New Zealand have made the Louis Vuitton Cup final after finally beating the Russian Synergy team. The first two races were very close, ending up one all but the kiwis sailed away to a four minute win today. They will be racing the Italian Azzurra team who beat Britain's TeamOrigin.

NZ News

There have been more protests this week with the "March for Democracy" on in Auckland attracting 5,000 people. It all came about because there have been three referendum's recently (well in the past few years) that the government (National on the last one & Labour on the previous ones) has ignored. The most recent one (& the referendum that most people were marching about) was when 87% of NZers voted for a law change over Labour's anti-smacking law. The government investigated & found no problem with the current law so ignored the referendum.
The motorbike ACC levies issue didn't end with the Auckland protest. There were around 5000 motorcyclists who rode to Parliament to protest (it's been called a "bikoi" - not quite the peaceful "hikoi"). ACC Minister Nick Smith (who fronted up to talk to the crowd) noted that the figures that have been around in the media are a proposal from the ACC - not the government, and said that the Government was unlikely to agree to that scale of increase.
While the current government hasn't done everything right, not everything they say is perfect & often people complain, it seems that they are happy to stand up & talk to people & then alter their views, make some changes & move on. It's amazing to see after the last government who seemed to push through what they wanted regardless of what the people wanted. Hopefully they won't ignore the referendum issue for too much longer!

Taiwanese passport holders will no longer require a visa to get into NZ in a move to bring back tourists & students.

A Hamilton man is a genuine hero after dragging a boy from a burning shipping container. The container had been converted into an outside bedroom and the boy and two friends were smoking when there was an explosion and the boy ended up in flames. The neighbour dragged him out and began pouring water on the boy.

An air force sergeant was killed by an exploding artillery shell at Waiouru Military Camp this week. Flight Sergeant Andrew Forster was a devoted family man and "awesome all-round Kiwi bloke" was an experience armaments specialist who had just returned from Afghanistan.

Labour has abandoned the bipartisan agreement for NZ's monetary policy framework which has given the Reserve Bank the stability it has had over the past 20 years. Phil Goff who was a member of the government who passed the law back then, has said it no longer delivers what the economy needed. Finance Minister Bill English noted that when Labour was in power it initiated several reviews of the monetary policy & they both recommended only minor changes.

The Numbers Game

1: least corrupt place on Earth is New Zealand! according to the 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index
3: rd ugliest building in the world is the Beehive - according to a tourism website, huh?
5.1: richter scale earthquake hit Wellington this week
10: $ "donation"/fee for non-Aucklander visits to the Auckland Museum have doubled from $5 so Aucklanders can continue to get in free
25: year wedding anniversary for John & Bronagh Key - John took the night off from running the country to celebrate
50: people arrested in the lower North Island, face 200 charges following a police operation targeting drug offending
168.9: c/L for 91 Petrol
500: km from NZ is a massive iceberg & it's heading our way. It's 500m wide & 50m high
640: complaints to the banking ombusdman about ANZ for the year to June - second was Westpac with 388
753: complaints to the Race Relations Commissioner about Hone Harawira's comments - the Maori Party is going through the "process" contemplating discipline
5,000: $ for a plane ticket & a bunch of flowers from Lucy Lawless weren't enough to entice PM John Key to go to the climate change meetings in Copenhagen
50,000: $ prestigious arts award prize for Witi Ihimaera - the week after being outed for plagiarism in his new book
200,000: kiwis are now diagnosed with diabetes - a new high

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.4392 (-0.0071)
EUR 0.4877 (-0.0117)
USD 0.7247 (-0.0192)
AUD 0.7924 (-0.0053)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Alexander Aitken
THE HUMAN COMPUTER
New Zealander Alexander Aitken was one of the world's most brilliant mathematical minds, able to multiply two 9-digit numbers together in his head and recite the answer in 30 seconds, or render awkward fractions into decimals to 26 places in under five seconds. His extraordinary abilities were studied by psychologists in Britain during the 1920s.
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/aitken.html

Joke of the Weekender

Gold Watch
A boss to a retiree:
"As a symbol of our gratitude, we have created this special gold watch to serve as a reminder of your many years with the company. It needs a lot of winding up, is always a little late, and every day at quarter to five, it stops working."

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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