The Weekender 17/01/2010
Submitted by weekender on Mon, 18/01/2010 - 07:41
Welcome back! I hope you've had a great Christmas & New Year. I've just got back from an amazing week holidaying at Waihi Beach, swimming in the sea every day, enjoying the blue sky & trying not to get sun burnt! (Photos below).
Sport
The Wellington Phoenix have been doing well with new signing Dadi, securing the biggest win of the 22nd round and their first successive win, after beating the Brisbane Roar 3-1. The home game was also the second biggest crowd of the round with 8,925 people turning up at Wellington's Westpac Stadium. The win moved them temporarily to fourth on the table and into play-off contention. In the recent past Phoenix beat North Queensland 3-0 & Central Coast Mariners 2-0.
Men's and women's tennis has been on in Auckland and for the first time in eight years a kiwi made it into the second round of the Heineken Open. That was due to NZ's top two kiwi men being matched up against each other. Rubin Statham upset Dan King-Turner but was beaten 7-6, 6-2 by Spain's Albert Montanes in the second round. In women's tennis, Belgian Yanina Wickmayer upset top-seeded Flavia Pennetta in the final. Kiwi star Marina Erakovic was knocked out in the first round by second seed, China's Li Na.
The last time I mentioned Jack Bauer & his cycling exploits in the Tour of Southland, it was more because of his name than the result, but this time it's not! He has beaten our star cyclists Hayden Roulston and Julian Dean in the national road champs in Christchurch. It turns out he has been riding in Belgium & won nine races there, before coming home. BikeNZ has big hopes for Jack.
Christian Huriwai is the newly crowned Street Unicycle World Champion. He was a surprise winner against a more experienced field at the champs in Wellington. He is the first kiwi world champ of 2010.
The Kiwi maxi Alfa Romeo won the Sydney to Hobart race beating four-time defending champ Wild Oats XI.
NZ News
New Zealand has been caught up in the earthquake in Haiti with a kiwi family there when it happened. The mother was working at the United Nations office when the earthquake hit & survived, one of her daughters also survived when their hotel was destroyed but her two other kiwi born daughters and their father were killed.
The US is set to lift it's ban on military exercises with NZ, which has been in place since 1985 due to the anti-nuclear policy. It was probably going to be announced when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited, but she cancelled to visit Haiti instead.
The world record breaking boat formerly known as Earthrace was sunk after it's new owners Sea Shepherd Conservation Society seemed to park it in front of a Japanese whaling vessel. They were surprised that the large moving ship didn't stop for them. The newly named Ady Gil was damaged in the incident & the crew of it's sister ship the Bob Barker tried to salvage it but it sunk while being towed. The crew (all undamaged except for a couple of broken ribs) alternately blamed the Australian & New Zealand governments for not helping - perhaps the AA should step in & give them parking lessons? One of the protesters admitted sinking eight whaling ships but insists that no one had been injured.
The New Years honours list took one recipient by surprise, Helen Clark received the Order of New Zealand. Other recipients include Peter Jackson & Arthur Douglas Myers (Knights Companion), Judy Bailey, & Kevin Barry.
1: # most popular names for 2009 were Jack & Sophie
3: day visit from Prince William started today
4.9: % behind the average house prices from the late-2007 peak
9: % drop in recorded crime for Counties Manukau for the October-December quarter
13: people died on the roads over the Christmas/New Year period
24.55: % stake in North Queensland's Cairns & Mackay airports has been bought by Auckland Airport
40: $ fine for freedom camping on the Coromandel is a small price to pay according to some tourists
52: % average popularity for National over the whole of 2009
68: % of kiwis think 2010 will be better than 2009
80: % of a large survey want the legal driving age to be 18
90: minute wait for fish & chips from a busy Whangamata fish shop
98: drowing deaths last year - the second lowest since records began in 1980
98.3: score for Blanket Bay Lodge near Queenstown ranks it as one of the best accommodation properties in the world according to Conde Nast Traveler 2010 Gold List
100: Gisbourne homes were evacuated after a major scrub fire
100: years of annual family picnics for the Gordon & Campbell families in what could be NZ's longest running family tradition
120: whales died in strandings on the Coromandel just before New Year
133: kg striped marlin caught by 43kg 10 year old Sam Marsh
200: mm of rain fell in South Canterbury the other week - not everyone in NZ has had nice weather like me!
578: ewe's sheared in eight hours is a new world record for Matthew Smith, the previous mark was 560
701: paua collected by three Stratford men was well above the legal daily limit of 10 per person
2,571: sunshine hours for Nelson as it regained the sunniest city of NZ tag
4,000: drivers are aged 90 or older
22,623: flying hours for one of the NZ Airforce's Orions, three more are over 20,000 giving them some of the highest flying hours in the world, a re-wing project should extend their operational life to the mid 2020's
150,000: $ settlement has been reluctantly accepted by the Berryman's to settle the bridge dispute with the Government - shockingly low
500,000: fewer litres of diesel should be used in Antarctica after a new NZ-US joint-venture wind farm was opened
500,000: $ raised by Starship kids hospital by donated old mobile phones
1.5m: $ cannabis bust in a Motueka house on New Year's Eve
2.5m: $ worth of LSD was found on a man trying to smuggle it into an Auckland prison - he was arrested
80m: $ in reparations is owed to crime victims, a 33% jump in three years
Finance NZ Dollar
Since the Weekender last went out
GBP 0.4542 (+0.0134)
EUR 0.5135 (+0.0168)
USD 0.7384 (+0.0264)
AUD 0.8007 (+0.0003)
The Weekender NZer of the week
Jack Lovelock
Jack is having a memorial unveiled a century after he was born. He won gold in the 1500m in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and it was NZ's first track & field gold medal.
Golf Quitter
Two men were chatting casually at work over the water cooler. The conversation turned to golf and one asked the other, "Do you play?"
"Yes, the younger man replied, "I used to, but I quit because I wasn't very good. I consistently shot in the lower seventies."
There was a long, low intake of breath, then the other man said, "Lower seventies, huh?"
"Yes," his coworker said.
"Consistently?"
"Yup, Every hole," the younger man said with a sigh.
I've just got some photos up from our lovely holiday week at Waihi Beach.
Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/SummerHoliday
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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