Welcome along, it's almost the end of the school holidays!

New Zealand beat Zimbabwe by an innings and 301 runs. Obviously it was only against Zimbabwe but it was a great result. Chris Martin got his career best figures of 6 for 26 - not bad for a 37 year old! The final day was a day or records with Zimbabwe being bowled out twice in one day, their first innings of 51 is the lowest by any team against NZ, and NZ's first innings lead of 444 was the first for NZ over 400.

In national cricket Auckland won the HRV cup over Canterbury with a 44-run win.

The NZ Breakers got their fourth win in a row beating the Sydney Kings 93-64.

There hasn't been any big news this week, there has been some bad news though. A father of two was fatally stabbed in Lower Hutt after a road rage incident. Two men have handed themselves in to police and have been charged with assault with further charges pending. Also a Japanese man died on the Milford track. He was tramping alone & it is suspected he had a heart attack after a fall.

Yep, it's still summer holidays!

5.7: earthquake south of Stewart Island this week
100: km drive for a Porirua woman before realising her kids weren't asleep in the back of the van

123: people drowned in NZ during 2011, up 41% on 2010 (a record low year) and an eight year high
218: wickets for Chris Martin in 65 test matches, fantastic bowling results - however he has scored just 112 runs with a high score of 12 not out

11,708: dog attacks against people last year

1.5m: Aucklanders due on Wednesday, 1961 was 500,000 and 1996 was when they hit 1m

Bob Charles - design of the golf 

Yesterday I went out to the Parachute Music Festival at Mystery Creek, here are a few photos https://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/Parachute2012

The numbers must have been down this year, there were gaps in the tenting spaces and even gaps around us at Main stage!

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}

Welcome along to the first Weekender of 2012, I hope you've had a great Christmas and New Year.

The Breakers have continued their winning ways beating the Tigers 91-77.

David Ferrer claimed his third Heineken Open final when he beat Oliver Rochus in Auckland last weekend. The last time someone won three times was in 1976.

The Wellington Phoenix beat Newcastle 5-2.

Former Chiefs coach Ian Foster has been named the new All Blacks assistant coach backing up coach Steve Hansen, and Grant Fox is to join as a selector.

Young kiwi Jack Gill has broken the under-18 world shot put record on the eve of his 17th birthday. He threw the youth 5kg shot 24.45m.

The worst news of the holiday period was New Zealand's third worst aviation disaster when eleven people died after a hot air balloon caught on a power line near Carterton and then burst into flames. The pilot and five couples died, including one couple who leaped to their death. It was mostly older couples although there was one young couple. The pilot had over 10,000 hours of commercial ballooning experience so no one is quite sure what happened yet.

A hole appeared in the middle of the main Coromandel highway this week, it appears to be a mineshaft hundreds of metres deep!

Since last we spoke the Rena has completely split in two although containers continue to be removed. There was a great time-lapsed video here. Before the split 397 of the 1200 containers had been removed, and about 500 are unaccounted for. New charges have been laid against the captain and the navigational watch officer.

Auckland wharf has been in the news over the past few weeks with an industrial dispute. Fonterra has moved all it's shipping away from Auckland as the aftermath continues, and now the Ports of Auckland have moved to lay off the striking Union based workers.

The New Zealand Cycle Trail has been opened for business. At the moment it is still more of a collection of great rides including 102km of five Waikato River trails: http://www.nzcycletrail.com/

Prime Minister John Key has confirmed that the SAS will be withdrawn from Afghanistan in March. He told them "You made a difference. It's time to come home." He paid tribute to the two soldiers who were killed in action (Corporal Doug Grant and Lance Corporal Leon Smith) and said "I deeply regret the loss of our soldiers but I do not regret our commitment to operations in Afghanistan.

0: drink-drivers when the Central Districts stopped 2,553 motorists in an operation just after Christmas
1: # friendliest country on earth according to a survey of expats in the 2011 HSBC Expat Explorer Survey

3: rd highest-achieving sporting country in the world rating for NZ, relative to population - and 24th best sporting nation in the world, thanks to the All Blacks RWC win
5.8: earthquake on the Southern coast of the South Island this week

6.37: earthquake in Christchurch on Christmas eve
18: deaths on the road for the official holiday driving period - a disappointing end to a low road toll year
284: dead on NZ roads in 2011 - down 85 from the year before & the lowest road toll since 1952 - 59 years!

150m: $ worth of trade deals were generated from the Rugby World Cup

(Since the last Weekender)

Paul Callaghan - design of nanotechnology 

Just after the New Year we headed south for a wedding, here are photos of the trip down the West Coast to Invercargill and then back up the other side: https://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/Invercargill2012

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}

Welcome to the final Weekender for the year. With Christmas on Sunday, it's unlikely I'll have time next week so the Weekender will take a break until into the new year. Have yourselves a Merry Christmas!

The NZ Breakers have jumped out to a lead in the Australian NBL champs with a 10-3 win record and five wins in a row when they beat Cairns 85-65.

Kiwi V8 driver Jason Richards died this week after battling with cancer for 14-months.

As everyone expected, on Friday Steve Hansen was announced as the new All Black coach. The former All Blacks assistant is still to name his assistants.

You may not remember but last weekend NZ wasn't looking likely to win their first cricket test in Australia since 1985. Australia resumed on 0-72 and made it to 2-158 and appeared to making short work of NZ's total. But then Doug Bracewell stepped up 3-159, 4-159, 6-192, 7-194, 8-199, 9-199 and then finished off the final wicket for NZ to win by 7 runs - in a test match! Tim Southee got a couple of those but Doug ended up with six wickets (for 40!), nine for the match. In something we all hope won't be repeated, the Australians thought it would be a good idea to make the man of the match a fully public voting event with only Australian's allowed to vote, so embarrassed losing Australian David Warner got man of the match for his 123 not out. The series was drawn 1-1 but what an awesome result for the eighth ranked Black Caps.

There was a great rescue off the coast of Taranaki this morning when three commercial fishermen abandoned their sinking fishing ship and took to their life raft. The Taranaki rescue helicopter got to their last know location & found them 15mins later and then did three text book winches to get all three to safety. They had a couple of 4m swells which made it all a bit tricky.

There is another rescue under way after a Russian fishing ship called the Sparta send out a mayday, but this one is a bit further out - actually in the Ross Sea next to Antarctic ice. An RNZAF Hercules made the seven hour flight to drop extra pumping equipment and fuel.

The official recount has been completed in Waitakere and in a surprise for everyone, Paula Bennett retained the seat by 9 votes. The seat has swung back & forwards with Bennett being ahead on election night by 349 votes, then Labour's Carmel Sepuloni taking the lead after special votes had been counted (and saying some not nice things on the strength of that!). Labour can still appeal the decision which I guess means another recount but it would be costly and doesn't happen often. It doesn't change anything for National and Labour swaps Sepuloni for another MP on the list.

In other news Labour has chosen it's new leader with David Shearer winning the secret vote. He has only been in parliament for a couple of years so is a new step for Labour.

New Zealand has signed up to a new working holiday scheme with Israel - a first of its kind for Israel. Up to 200 NZers a year will be able to travel to Israel & stay for up to 12 months.

There has been some weather this week! The Nelson area had one in 50 year flooding with roads washed out, houses evacuated and even a flash flood sweeping a 77 year old farmer from his armchair in his lounge, out of the house and 500m down the stream. He ended up a bit wet and with a broken finger! They had 320mm of rain in 24hrs - two months worth!

During the Rugby World Cup, one of the features in the official "fan zone" was called "the Cloud". It was a big cool looking tent down on Queens Wharf and show cased New Zealand - including NZ's great technology. Before visiting the Cloud, people tended to see NZers as friendly, straightforward and hard-working, but rural and not creative. After seeing great kiwi inventions like the Martin Jetpack, YikeBike (?), Sealegs and other things, the ratings for creativity increased by 72%, innovation by 66% and technological advancement by 59%. Generally the visitors left "with a sense of surprise at the level of innovation and technological nous".

5: th most democratic country in the world rating for NZ in the latest Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index. We followed Norway, Iceland, Denmark & Sweden

14.6: % price rise for a pack of cigarettes which will push a standard 20-pack over the $15 mark
41: st ranking for Jay Quinn in the international surfing rankings, he has jumped 57 places
7,500: $ fine for a real estate agent who didn't tell a potential buyer that a property had already been sold & strung her along for months

11,000: sqkm iceberg is being tracked and is currently about 2,500km southeast of the South Island - it has been tracked for 10 years

200,000: customers were without power for a while after Huntly power station developed a fault

Robert Burchfield - design of language

The other weekend we went on a walk at the end of the Hakarimatas to the Kauri trees & here are the photos https://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/KauriWalk

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}

There is one thing I've been meaning to tell you all about. World Cup flags. Obviously the Rugby World Cup is long gone (well, here to stay for four years but you know what I mean), but as we drive around there are still so many NZ, All Black and minor country flags (Samoa, Tonga etc) flying, it really is great. During the RWC there were heaps of flags but there are still plenty around which is great to see.

There was finally some good news for the rugby sevens with NZ beating South Africa 31-26 in the final this weekend.

Dan Carter was married to Black Stick Honor Dillon on Friday. One hundred guests gathered at an exclusive lodge near Blenheim with Hayley Westenra singing background music.
Additionally Ritchie McCaw was named the New Zealander of the year. Well at least the NZ Herald NZer of the year.

 

Ben Sigmund gave the Wellington Phoenix a late win over Perth Glory.

The Black Sticks were beaten 2-1 by Australia and will play the Netherlands for the chance at their first major hockey tournament medal since 1976. In the last game against the Netherlands, the Black Sticks grabbed a 3-3 draw coming back from 3-0 down. Update: The Netherlands won the bronze medal 5-3.

Cricket is a funny game. In the second test, NZ were bowled out for 150, and as always we bemoaned the lack of real batsmen (especially when Daniel Vettori is ruled out of the match!), but then Australia collapsed for 136 giving us some hope. When I say collapsed, the bowlers did a great job especially Chris Martin who is on form. We started off well in the second innings but couldn't keep it up and only made 226, and now Australia is sitting on 72/0.

The NZ Breakers beat the Gold Coast 106-85 with a big game from Alex Pedger.

Jack Gill has qualified for the London Olympics with a 20.38m shotput throw, beating the qualifying standard by 8cm and his personal best by 37cm. The sixteen year old was actually a little disappointed as one of his warm up throws was 20.75m but it wasn't officially measured.

In polticial news, the National Party has signed agreements with the single MP parties of ACT and United Future and then just today announced they had signed with the Maori Party although it wasn't a confidence and supply agreement. So even without the Maori Party, National has put together a government although with a narrow majority.

As always with the counting the special votes in an election, there were some changes and as typical the vote swings slightly to the left. The Greens picked up one more MP which was Mojo Mathers who is NZs first profoundly deaf. The two close seats were Waitakere which swapped from National's Paula Bennett to Labour by 11 votes, and the Christchurch seat switched to National, although no doubt both of those seats will be recounted.

The new Kopu Bridge has been opened, to the relief of all Coromandel travellers this Christmas season. The bridge was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

The Defence Force has finally received some helicopters which will replace the Iroquois which have been in use for 40 years. Two of the eight NH90s arrived at Ohakea this week.

0.5: % of 68,000 motorists breath-tested last weekend were over the limit - the police are saying the drop in drink drivers is a positive sign
10: years since the RSA killings and then this week a 62 year old RSA manager was brutally attacked

20: "basis points" increase to NZ (vs Australia) after Australia lost 6,900 jobs when they were expected to gain 10,000
20: metre fall for abseiling performing artist when her ropes (or the people holding her) gave way, she fell solidly straight onto concrete but was left with only a broken cheekbone

50: road deaths in the Waikato this year, compared to 48 last year. The national road toll has dropped drastically, while Waikato increases
800: people caught in a weekend blitz on drivers using cell phones
166,000: $ raised for prostate cancer education in the Fight for Life this year

696,300: $ loss for the Crusaders during the last year due to the earthquakes and the inability to play home games
800,000: $ raised for Children at Waikato Hospital by the Countdown Kids Hospital Appeal

Bill Buckley  - design of ion beams

Have a look at photos https://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}

Hello & welcome to this week.

Following on from last weekend's loss in the Gold Coast Sevens, the NZ team didn't even make the final this weekend in Dubai. England successfully defended their title beating France 29-12. England had beaten NZ 10-7 and Fiji 19-12 on the way to the title.

Alison Shanks has done great in the UCI World Cup cycling meet in Cali winning the gold for the individual pursuit. The women's team got silver in the team pursuit, the men got gold and Simon van Velthooven got silver in the kilo time trial.

The Aussie V8's (which are no where near being supercars despite their insistence on that word in their name), have announced their new cars to be introduced in 2013. The new format no longer requires that they can only be Aussie V8's (made by either Holden or Ford). The new cars will be lighter, have improved safety and will be cheaper to build and repair. It will be interesting to see if any other manufacturers can be bothered racing in this competition. I remember the great old days with Toyota Corolla's at Bathurst - along with the Jags of 85 & 86 and even the Godzilla's.

The NZ Breakers hit the front of the Australian NBL competition again with a 108-98 win over Melbourne.

There has been quite a bit of talk about all the Australian cricketers missing with injury but it seems like with the All Blacks & rugby, they have enough depth to cover the loses. We had hoped NZ would have something that could stop a weakened Australia but that looks unlikely. NZ got 295 & a couple of early wickets against Australia but they still reached 427. Now it looks like NZ has collapsed to 121/7. We still trail by 11 runs with only 3 wickets remaining! As with just about all games of cricket since Daniel Vettori began, if it was for Dan (captain or not) we would be in far more trouble. In the first innings he rescued NZ reaching 96, and he was by far the most economical of the main four bowlers and picked up a couple of wickets. As always our batsmen have let us down. In the second innings the top five batsmen scored: 12, 1, 2, 0, 0 - and that included Captain Ross Taylor.

In national cricket the Northern Knights are well out in front after a win over Canterbury, followed by Auckland, Central, Wellington, Otago & Canterbury.

NZ Rugby hosted the "Obvious Awards" this week. Officially named the Steinlager Rugby Awards, they announced that the All Blacks were NZs rugby team of the year (no... really?), and Graham Henry was coach of the year. Also fairly obvious and well deserved was Jerome Kaino was named the player of the year. He played all but 55 seconds of the rugby world cup.

Marc Willers has won the American BMX Association Grand Nationals final in Oklahoma.

The Silver Ferns were unable to retain their FastNet title after being beaten 33-26 by England in the final last weekend.

The Wellington Phoenix beat Sydney FC 2-1 last weekend.

There have been three large fires this week. A far North scrub fire didn't take too long to get under control, a fire to clear bracken on Glen Dene Station spread to neighbouring DOC land wiping out 30 hectares of conservation land and took five helicopters to put out the blaze. However the biggest was a 130ha blaze on the Karikari Peninsular which destroyed a number of baches. Two men also died, a helicopter pilot and a DOC worker who had been fighting the fire, but were sent to rescue a group of people stranded on the beach. The group of people had escaped from their bach & headed to the beach. When they heard the helicopter they thought they were safe but then it crashed into the sea killing the two men. The group finally managed to start a boat and get out to sea and survived.

The election news hasn't all settled down yet, but the news this week has more been the fall out from Labour than the announcement of a new government being formed. Phil Goff has stepped down as the head of the Labour Party, although he will still be an MP. That means the hopeful MP's are now posturing to try & improve their chances. The two most likely candidates are David Shearer and David Cunliffe, although clearly Andrew Little (former union boss) is wanting to improve his profile as he simply had to comment on a Huntly mine incident this week. Apparently a worker went to the media (probably not the usual chain of command) about gas levels in the Huntly East Coal mine claiming that the reading was "Pike River ready to go" and a "time bomb". Andrew Little chimed in claiming "there hasn't been enough action" (since Pike River). However the Huntly mine manager said their machinery stops when gas levels reach 1.25%, and miners are evacuated - something that happens occasionally when a geological fault is hit.

The only other political news of interest was how fed up North Shore residents are with MMP after their much disliked former Mayor Andrew Williams snuck into parliament despite receiving just 2.5% of the North Shore vote. We was at number three on the New Zealand First party list so now only has to report to Winston Peters rather than any New Zealand electorate - the great bane of MMP.

5.7: Richter scale earthquake in Wellington with no reports of damage
18: % of Maori now live overseas

20: % of cell phones used in Christchurch the 10 days before February earthquake were next used in another location (i.e. the owners fled Christchurch). Most of those returned within two months
33: % more ball play in the Rugby World Cup than in 1995, passes have increased from 179/match to 263, kicks have dropped from 75/match to 41, the winning margin between Tier 1 & Tier 2 teams has halved

83: men elected to parliament (out of 121), 38 women, 74% of European descent, 17% Maori

96: year old Auckland woman was flown to Japan to receive a face-to-face apology from the Japanese government for the way she & other nurses were treated during World War II

124: cases of whooping cough in Wellington in November - up from 36 in October

Thomas Brydone - design of export 

Have a look at photos https://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}

Welcome to the election Weekender! Sorry, but we have to do this once every three years.

The NZ Warriors have had a great two way deal with James Maloney helping the troubled player get back to his best, but he won't be staying at the Warriors after deciding to head back to Australia for family reasons after next season. They were able to hang onto their find of last season - Shaun Johnson, who has re-signed to the end of 2014. Also Kiwi international Thomas Leuluai is heading back to NZ & the Warriors from England.

The Rugby Sevens season has begun with the Gold Coast Sevens this weekend. NZ beat hosts Australia 26-7 to make the final, while Fiji beat South Africa 26-7. Then Fiji showed their flair in the final to beat NZ 26-12 for the win.

The NZ Breakers rebounded from their two game slump with a 23-point come back win to beat the Townsville Crocs 88-74.

Our cyclists have done well at the Oceania track cycling champs in Invercargill with four New Zealand records broken.

Despite previous news, Hayden Roulston has now pulled out of the NZ Olympic build up saying that BikeNZ made it too difficult to make all the required training runs.
Finally for cycling, Jesse Sergent has re-signed with Team RadioShack for another two years. The more NZ riders competing in top teams - the better NZ will do in events like the Olympics (unless they don't make it there ahem Hayden).

In the Volvo Ocean Race, the Team New Zealand entry "Camper" is now is second place with Puma retiring with a broken mast. Update: the first leg is now over with Telefonica reaching Cape Town. Camper is 81nm out with likely third place getter Groupama 668nm away. Third place is a safe bet with the other three entries all retired from leg one!

In the America's Cup World Series, Team NZ have retained the lead after the third event in San Diego by one point over Oracle 4.

So unsurprisingly the election was the story of the week. It has been interesting all round. From my point of view on the good side, National along with ACT & United Future should be able to form a coalition. On the bad side, MMP will (likely) be retained with a bare 53.5% of the vote (special votes to come), and the Winston First Party reached 6.8% so is back in parliament.

There are a number of interesting points. The ACT party won the Epsom seat through John Banks, but didn't get enough votes (1.1%) to get party leader Don Brash in as an MP. Don Brash immediately indicated he would resign as party leader (ending his second parliamentary foray) and leaving the way open for John Banks to lead ACT. ACT lost four seats from last election. The Labour Party lost nine seats from the last election, getting a 100-year low of 27.1% of the vote with leader Phil-in Goff indicating (but not saying) he would step down. The Green party were the winners in some way (probably due to Labour losing out), becoming the first Green party in the world to get over 10% of the vote (10.6) and getting four more seats for 13 in this parliament. The Maori party always sound bigger than they are - they only have three (Maori) electorate MPs. National got two more seats than last election for an MMP record of 60 seats by one party. The Conservative Party (a new party for this election) got 2.8% of the vote (but no MP's) - more than ACT, Mana, Maori, & United Future. The final intrigue is the Christchurch central seat where for the first time ever both the National & Labour candidate, received 10,493 votes after ordinary votes were counted.

Right that's it. I've had enough of the inconvenience due to the Rena oil spill. (mock outrage over). This weekend we were actually affected by the Rena! For people who don't live in Tauranga it was a new experience. We went to visit friends at The Mount, and picked up some lunch to eat on the beach near Papamoa, but the clean up crews were out in force and had signs up asking no one go on the beach to make clean up easier.

Officially there were 11 containers of dangerous goods on the Rena, however an additional 21 containers of undeclared dangerous goods have been found on board. The danger is actually only low but will make salvage a little more difficult. This week has seen high winds which increase fears that the ship will break up. Sixty (Rena oil affected) penguins were released back to the ocean this week.

There was a spectacular helicopter crash in Auckland this weekend, where the pilot was able to walk away. If you haven't seen it on your local news, you might want to check YouTube http://youtu.be/G6LJkjcMO_U

40: kph top speed for the motorised bike that a Hamilton man used to try and out run the cops - the late model Holden did manage to keep up

1,480: votes for the Pukeko allows it to be named Bird of the Year in the Forest & Bird's annual election
50,000: $ (estimate) deal done by Dan Carter & Honor Dillon with the Australian Women's Weekly to cover their wedding

6m: $ on offer for people who want to help clean up the Waikato River

John Britten - design of speed

There are another weeks worth of photos of our roses!

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}

Welcome along!

The Volvo Ocean race continued this week. The Team New Zealand entry "Camper" made some ground on the leaders but was still 120 nmiles behind.

 

The national cricket competition - the Plunket Shield - is on again. I'll let you know when gets near the end of the competition, but new Black Cap Kane Williamson just missed out on a triple century for Northern District against Wellington when he was left stranded at 284 when ND declared.

Melissa Ingram has broken the NZ women's 400m freestyle record again at the FINA World Cup in Japan.

Jack Bauer has made a major step forward in his cycling career after signing with the major pro-team Garmin Cervelo for next year.

The Rena clean up has continued this week, with the oil removed the containers became the main target. The first day they took 3 containers off - only 1,197 to go. However the second day they got twenty (now 50). The containers on the deck are one story, however they have suggested they may need to break the ship apart and "herd" the containers to Papamoa beach for recovery. The owners of the Rena have officially appologised saying they will pay for recoverying the oil, the containers and salving the vessel.

The beaches have officially been given the all clear. All areas except a section of Papamoa Beach and Maketu Spit have had access restrictions lifted.

The political story of the week followed a cup of tea that John Key had with ACT party political hopeful John Banks. The basic idea is that National gets their voters to vote in John Banks in Epsom, then ACT support National to form the new government. The problem was that some reporter recorded the conversation and wants to release it to the media (and possibly has already released it to Winston Peters) but recording without consent is basically illegal so the police are investigating.

Unfortunately that leads to the other point that Winston Peters seems to be rising in the polls and we are nearing the unenviable situation where if National don't make 50%, and if ACT don't win Epsom, and if Winston First (sorry I mean NZ First) get to 5%, then he will be the one person who chooses the NZ government for the third time in six elections. Don't forget to vote against MMP if for no other reason than to get rid of Winston First.

Last week around 700 National Party signs were defaced and it turns out it was a Green Party member - the partner of the co-leaders executive assistant. The Greens were highly embarrassed and provided volunteers to clean up the boards. The defacing was a simple blue sticker made to look like it was supposed to be there saying either "The Rich Deserve More" or "Drill it! Mine it! Sell it!". The man in charge has resigned from the Green party and the assistant has been stood down, pending a investigation.

 

The new Victoria Park tunnel has been officially opened this week. The tunnel opened two lanes for north bound traffic with south bound traffic using the existing motorway. The opening of the tunnel is the first step in the whole project to increase traffic flow through central Auckland. The first couple of days saw delays in the area - the delays were blamed on curiosity & people not being familiar with the new road.

6: people saved by Beau Hamilton at Hot Water Beach, he saved a New York woman and five friends who went to try and save her
8: NZ Airforce Skyhawks have finally been sold after years of paying millions to keep them saleable

19: people arrested for making & selling ecstacy, they included two policeman - I think it's great that we have so few corrupt policemen that they make the news
72.6: % of people approve of National's new law & order policy to keep prisoners in jail after the end of their sentance if they are deemed dangerous enough

200: games in charge of the NZ Breakers for coach Andrej Lemanis
248: paua were being illegally taken when Fishery officers caught the man on Akaroa Harbour - the largest haul this year

400: more houses have been added to the Christchurch Red zone, which means they won't be rebuilt
1933: was the year of the Rangiora Mother's Union cookbook was published, including a recipe for a Pavalova - two years before it was published in Australia

Freezer Order
I have my own system for labeling homemade freezer meals.
Forget calling them "Veal Parmigiana" or "Turkey Loaf" or "Beef Pot Pie."
If you look in my freezer you'll see "Whatever," "Anything," "I Don't Know," and, my favorite, "Food."

That way when I ask my husband what he wants for dinner, I'm certain to have what he wants."

Our roses are continuing with the second rose bush about to explode:

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}

Welcome along as we get closer & closer to the end of the year!

The Volvo Ocean Race started with the smallest fleet ever of six boats this year, and already two of those have dropped out. As of Friday the leaders of the racer were the Kiwi father & son team of Ross & Campbell Field on BSL. Meanwhile, Team New Zealand had some problems after leading at the start of the race & then picking the wrong line and dropping right to the back.

Not anything at all to do with NZ but South Africa beat Australia in a cricket test in Cape Town in three days this week. Australia batted first & got to 284, then they got South Africa out for 96 & seemed in control, until Australia were all out for 47 (!!), setting a target that South Africa reached with eight wickets and a day and a half spare. Australia did briefly threaten NZ's record lowest ever score of 26 from 1902. 

The Breakers might be out in front of the Australian National Basketball League, but they do need to keep their mind on the ball and this week they dropped a game losing to the Wollongong Hawks 81-63.

Strange things are afoot in NRL coaching circles after Championship winning Manly coach Des Hasler was sacked this week. He had signed up to move to the Bulldogs after next season but this week Manly have accused him of attempting to poach staff and players for his new team and fired him. Both the Bulldogs team and Hasler have denied acting improperly.

The first ever winner of the Sir Richard Hadlee Medal was Chris Martin who won the trophy for NZ Cricket's supreme player of the year. They must have thought his bowling was pretty good if his Learn to Bat video is anything to by.

In Rugby League England beat the Kiwis 28-6 over night meaning that England will take on Australia for the Four Nations title.

Pumping oil off the grounded ship, the Rena, is getting closer to being complete. They had a good day towards the end of this week and now have just 150 tonnes of oil left to go. Update, Prime Minister John Key has confirmed that the oil pumping is completed. That should mean that and end to oil on the beaches (although the media is still showing old oily beach photos & not the cleaned beaches with people swimming like Dad saw last week). The only thing to worry about now is shipping containers so I guess that mission will be the next thing.

Former chief of Pike River Coal mine, Peter Whittall, has been charged in connection with the explosion that killed the 29 miners. He was the face of the whole incident and at that time seemed like a national hero. He has said he has worked in underground mines all his life & would never do anything to put men at risk, so he will fight the charge & will not be made a scapegoat.

1.2: % increase in house prices for the last year meaning they are only 4.4% below the top of the market back in 2007, according to QV

4: new volcanoes have been found under South Auckland - that's a total of 55
5: th for NZs Kimberley Smith in the New York Marathon in 2hr 25min & 46sec
38.9: % of NZers favour a National coalition with ... the Greens, follow by Act on 18.9% with the Maori party close behind on 17.8%. Among National supporters Act is favoured with 30.7%

64: % drop in customs seizures of tablets used to make the drug P since 2009 - 55% drop this year
102: year old British woman is immigrating to NZ after her rest home in Kent was shut down
241: road deaths so far this year - a record low

580: damaged school buildings due to water leaking will cost over $1b to fix according to a government survey which has checked 3,249 buildings out of 5,500
70m: $ deal for an Auckland University venture to charge electric cars wirelessly

500m: $ improvements to Waikato Hospital infrastructure haven't stopped them jumping an unprecedented two performance grades this year from poor to good

Godfrey Bowen - design of the wool clip

Our roses are getting better & better! https://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/Roses

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}

Welcome along to this week.

The NZ Breakers beat Adelaide 99-90 this week.

Graham Henry stepped down this week as coach of the All Blacks. His winning record of 85.4% (88 wins from 103 tests) is the best of any international coach in the professional era. He did say that he thought his assistant Steve Hansen should be the next All Blacks coach.

The other bit of rugby news is the Sonny Bill Williams has (finally) decided on what he is doing next year - joining the Waikato/BOP Chiefs! He will do a bit of boxing on the side but it will be interesting to see how he goes, and it's great to have a couple of All Blacks (Sonny & Aaron Cruden) joining the Chiefs with a few (Mils, Sivivatu & Stephen Donald) leaving.

The salvage operation on the Rena container ship grounded off Tauranga continued this week. They made some good progress and are now down to pumping off the last & most difficult tank which is submerged with the slope of the ship. There was also some bad news with the ship's buckling getting worse. But also a ship has arrived from Australia to help remove containers, although it will take many months to get them all off.

There have been calls to sack the Hamilton City Councillors after the release of the damning audit report into the handling of the Hamilton 400 V8 contract.

At the next election we have a referendum on our voting system with a call to get rid of MMP. The funniest part of all this is that the anti-MMP organisation are using a picture of Winston Peters, referencing the two elections where Winston was in control of choosing the government after an election - something I think should be up to the people of NZ, not one person who only got a handful of votes.

1: st ranking for the Education Index on the UN Human Development Index 
2.10: $/L for 91 octane petrol as prices have remained the same for a record length of time - seven weeks! (well since April 2009 anyway)

3: cruise ships are booked in to go to Lyttleton Port this summer - down from 64 last year - following the Christchurch earthquakes
4: Whitelock brothers have been named in the Crusaders squad for the 2012 Super 15 season - Luke joins George, Sam & Adam

5: th most developed country in the world ranking for NZ according to the UN Human Development Index
13: MPs for the Green party if their current support of 10.1% continues to the election

29.1: % support for Labour in the latest poll - down is not the direction you want your support heading with an election only weeks away

70.6: % support for John Key as preferred Prime Minister, I'm not particularly sure why but John has huge popularity
87: % of NZers are either satisfied or very satisfied with their lives according to an NZ General Social Survey

15,500: runners turned out for the Auckland marathon last weekend

Peter Blake - design of circumnavigation

I've been taking a photo a day of our roses as they come out - check them here https://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/Roses

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}