The Weekender 21/02/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 21/02/2010 - 22:49
Birthday February continues - today is Craig's birthday!
Sport
Sir John Walker held a 1500m record since 1979 (3min 37.40sec) and this week Nick Willis broke it with 3min 35.8sec.
Cara Baker has won the Australian open water swimming race, beating the Aussies in the 5km race finishing in one hour and 20 seconds. But the title went to the first Australian home.
The Wellington Phoenix beat the Perth Glory in their A-League elimination semifinal 4-2 after a penalty shoot-out when they were tied 1-1 at full time.
Northern Districts have won the domestic one-day title after beating Auckland by 21-runs. Young all-rounder Kane Williamson is one to watch after he scored 69 off 71 balls to help Northern to 304, and then he took five wickets for 51 runs.
On to Super 14. The Stormers won their second game in a row, beating the NSW Waratahs 27-6, the Hurricanes beat the Western Force 47-22 in Wellington, and the Brumbies were beaten by the Bulls 50-32 in South Africa. The talk of the weekend was the Chiefs vs Lions game where both team had a great attacking game - and no defence. The final score was a record for Super 14, 72-65 - 137 points scored! The Cheetahs beat the Sharks 25-20 to ruin John Smit's achievement as the first South African to have played 100 Super rugby games for the same team. The Reds beat the Crusaders 41-20 in a surprise result, and the Blues beat the Highlanders 19-15 in Dunedin.
Table: Bulls 10; Hurricanes/Chiefs 9; Stormers 8; Reds 6; Crusaders 5; Brumbies/Blues/Cheetahs/Waratahs 4; Sharks/Lions 2; Highlanders 1; Force 0.
Last weekend Samoa beat NZ in the finals of the Las Vegas Sevens.
Mahe Drysdale easily won his sixth national sculling title, down the road at Lake Karapiro this weekend. It was a Kiwi one-two with Nathan Cohen finishing second. Emma Twigg lead the women's single sculls from start to finish. Mahe didn't have everything his own way though, after he and Peter Taylor came second in the men's double sculls to world class scullers Matthew Trott & Nathan Cohen. In third place were the world champion Germans Eric Knittel and Stephen Kruger.
New Zealand qualified for the Badminton world finals after beating Fiji and Tahiti 5-0 in Invercargill this week.
NZ probably won't be mentioned much in the Winter Olympics, but Kendall Brown claimed a respectable 15th in the women's half-pipe after pushing through the pain of a dislocated shoulder.
Bangladesh were in Hamilton this week as they took on the Black Caps in the only test match. NZ were sent in to bat & declared at 553 for 7 after Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum both got out (189 & 185 respectively). Bangladesh batted well & we took a long time to finally get them out at 408. NZ declared at 258 for 5, leaving Bangladesh 404 to win and they were all out for 282. NZ won by 121 runs - still close enough to have me slightly worried, and not good enough for anyone to be complacent with Australia arriving shortly.
The America's Cup has returned to America after Oracle beat Alinghi 2-0 in the best of three challenge. Oracle was headed by Sir Russell Coutts who was kicked out of Alinghi before the last series. Russell has now won the cup four times for three different nations, although he wasn't actually on the boat this time.
NZ News
A kiwi was among the 64 people rescued off the coast of Brazil when a Canadian sailing ship sunk.
Telecom has had more problems this week. Firstly when their network couldn't cope with traffic this week and lots of people couldn't use their phones, secondly when it came to light that come employees (from their Manila call centre) sent text messages swearing at customers, and finally when the lads from Top Gear were in town - minus Richard Hammond who promoted the new network last time he was in NZ. They said Hammond was too embarrassed to return to NZ and said they would switch to a live feed to talk to him, but when the monitor was only blank they joked it was because the XT network had crashed.
Philanthropist couple Neal & Annette Plowman have gifted Rotoroa Island to Auckland. The 82ha island is east of Waiheke Island.
Auckland's mayors have said they will not pay for the redevelopment of Auckland's Queens Wharf. It was John Key's hope that it would be "party central" for the Rugby World Cup, but the mayors don't want to pay $100m to fix it up.
There is a plague of mice in parts of Southland, mostly around Fiordland, Te Anau, Stoney Creek & Five Rivers.
Here's an example of how the Maori party and National are working together (just in case you were wondering). Recently the Maori party developed a Maori-based health plan. John Key said (insisted) that it should be available to everyone and should be based not on race but on need. Maori party co-leader Tariana Turia believed that although the plan had been designed with Maori whanau in mind, there was no reason it could not also be used for others - a win win result!
Former New Zealander (anyone else want him?) Peter Bethune illegally boarded a Japanese whaling ship this week in order to make a citizen's arrest of its captain after alleging he rammed and sank Peter's ship and attempted to murder the crew. He was also going to present them with a $3m bill for replacing the decrepit vessel. I think he may have been at sea too long! Apparently he is now being detained and refusing to be transferred. I wonder if Mr Bethune should be arrested for endangering his crew by causing a collision at sea in the name of a publicity stunt.
18: months of use of Taser stun guns (by Police) and there have been no complaints about their use
29: people have died in five years while taking part in adventure tourism in NZ
100: hours community service for a former Napier florist who changed her competitors details on Google maps to direct clients to her business
5,600: $ reward for information on a spate of deliberately lit fires near a West Coast kiwi sanctuary
3-5m: $ is all that a former ASB investment banker will have to repay after stealing nearly $18m
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4526 (+0.0079)
EUR 0.5145 (+0.0023)
USD 0.7000 (+0.0020)
AUD 0.7790 (-0.0077)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Thomas Brydone and William Davidson
CHILLY BIN BILLIONAIRES
New Zealand has long been heralded as a country that 'rode to fortune on the sheep's back'. The next time you carve into a fillet of tender Kiwi lamb sirloin, now exported to more than 190 countries around the world, you might like to pause to chew on the fascinating story of how the frozen meat export industry began: a story of technology, determination, vision and pioneering colonialism.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/brydonedavidson.html
What's Wrong Now? Next, we lost the radio and most of the instruments.
My friend, an ex-Marine Aviator wanted to show off his new twin-engine plane. I was riding along as he put it through its paces. Suddenly, we were caught in a violent thunderstorm, with lightning crashing all around us.
As we were being tossed around in the sky, George said, "Uh-oh!" Fearing the worst, I asked, "What's wrong now?"
George replied, "I got the hiccups. Do something to scare me."
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Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
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