The Weekender 01/08/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 01/08/2010 - 16:20
August already. Who would have thought.
Sport
The National provincial rugby champs have kicked off and defending champs Canterbury were held to a 23-23 draw against Hawke's Bay last night. Northland made the most of their chances for an upset 26-19 win over Taranaki. Waikato beat the Bay of Plenty for the first time in a few years but only by 13-10, and Southland beat Manawatu 37-23. The biggest upset was Counties-Manukau thrashing Otago 29-13 after being inspired by their new player/coach Tana Umaga
Kiwi Cameron Appleton & his Team Aqua have won the matching racing part of the RC 44 Valencia Cup in Spain this week.
The Black Sticks completed a three match clean sweep of France in warm up matches for hockey's Champions Trophy. They won 3-0, 4-2 and 4-0. Previous to that they drew a series against Belgium losing 3-5 and winning 1-0.
All White's striker Chris Killen looks to be heading to China to the Shenzhen Ruby FC club in the Chinese Super League.
Scott Dixon hasn't been doing great this season but he won the Edmonton Indy in controversial circumstances after the last-lap leader was penalised for blocking his team mate.
Sarah Walker won silver at the UCI BMX world champs in South Africa this weekend.
You never really know at the start of an international rugby season, just how things are going to turn out. Last years results don't really matter and it's not until you've played 80mins of rugby against the old foes that you know if the All Blacks have (yet again) what it takes for a good season. Sure they did well against South Africa but then Australia thrashed the Springboks as well - how would the All Blacks fare. What an amazing game. Australia scored first after a knock down, barely minutes later Dan Carter caused a knock down & got a try back & then we quickly got another to indicate the game was to be unlike any we had seen in a long time. It truly was a crazy game. The All Blacks seemed to score whenever they needed to and although Australia sometimes scored after sustained pressure, the All Blacks defence was incredible. As far as attacking goes, if you didn't watch the game you should try & catch a replay of Cory Jane's incredible side line skill where he kicked the ball forward, while being tacked & staying in, for Mils Muliaina to score. The All Blacks crushed Australia 49-28 for their third tri-nations bonus point win - the bonus point coming in the first half & the AB's getting seven tries in all, Muliaina got 2 while there was one each for Corey Jane, Rokocoko, Carter, McCaw, & Flynn.
The game also saw a record broken. Joe Rokocoko became the most capped winger in All Black history with 64 & is second equal on 46 test tries - only three behind Doug Howlett.
NZ News
If I had another jokes section I think this would've made it in. A Tuhoe delegation has assured a UN visitor that the iwi would not practise apartheid, should they regain ownership of Te Urewera National Park. Other than Tuhoe's comments, it's probably also a sad joke that the UN's special rapporteur on human rights and indigenous peoples is investigating a breakdown of treaty negotiations. The UN is ignoring true human rights abuses in Africa but have time to stick their noses in part way through negotiations when both National & Labour governments have previously shown willingness to settle treaty claims (ignoring for now, my Grandfathers comments that this round of treaty negotiations was the third time Maori have been paid out for the same past wrongs).
Well the news of the week had to be the ruckus within the Labour party. A strange letter was anonymously handed to the press this week saying that there was a move within Labour to remove Phil Goff as leader of the opposition. The perpetrator turned out to be non-other than recently demoted MP Chris Carter. The Labour party was quick to go on the attack - along with a really silly move of having Phil Goff filmed at a school sing along, purely for PR purposes. Phil Goff was quick to say Chris Carter had been caught out with unauthorised travel to Tibet and was probably about to be sacked anyway. In Chris Carter's defence the travel was paid for by the Chinese government & during a recess in parliament so that attack sounded like Labour was simply trying to make him look bad. Chris Carter was suspended & probably by now is kicked out of the Labour Party. While it was a silly attempt at an overthrow, the question remains whether Phil Goff can do anything to increase Labour's popularity.
A man had a P-fuelled 13 hour crime spree across Auckland stealing two cars from petrol stations. The following day North Shore police released images of him, unaware that he was in custody of South Auckland police after a collision the night before. He had driven the wrong way down an off-ramp and crashed and then he was restrained by members of the public until police arrived and arrested him - good on the road-workers who grabbed him!
I was talking to my cousin this week who mentioned how safe & nice NZ seems. Unfortunately it's not always the case, we do have vicious bank robbers. This week a shirtless man entered a Hamilton bank and demanded $10. When the teller said she didn't have any money he asked for 50c before crouching into a starting race position and running from the bank. A passing police officer caught the man who is being assessed by mental health staff. Surely it had to be a dare!
An update on Auckland City Council and the bus-lane rules. Apparently the government warned the council against being "too pedantic and bloody-minded" and they have backed down and said they will begin a trial using markers to indicate where the 50m mark is.
The government are making some changes to the drink driving rules. An alcohol watch dog says they haven't gone far enough but they are strengthening penalties for a range of offences including doubling the maximum prison term to 10 years for dangerous or reckless driving causing death. They are introducing a zero limit for repeat drink-drivers and drivers under 20.
7: % increase in fee-paying international students for the first four months of this year compared to last year
8: wins in a row for the All Blacks over the Wallabies ;-)
16: floor high fall for a 15 year old in Auckland, he fell through a car port roof & survived!
46: students from Seddon School in Marlborough have been affected by swine flu - out of a roll of 107
54: charges against NZ fishing company Aurora Fisheries & Japanese Kanai Fishing for breaking quota rules on a $2.4m catch
60: cents to be the cost of sending a domestic letter from October 1 according to NZ Post
10,000: litres of petrol spilled by three companies have resulted in a fine of $160,000, court costs of $80,000 and maybe $200,000 for clean-up costs
2m: $ fraud charge against a Kapiti Coast accountant by the Serious Fraud Office
230m: $ Mangere Bridge upgrade has completed the first stage with three of the four South bound lanes opened, the old bridge will be refurbished over the next month
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4626 (-0.0094)
EUR 0.5547 (-0.0092)
USD 0.7235 (-0.0043)
AUD 0.8026 (-0.0104)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Colin McCahon
THE LUMINARY
Colin McCahon is the region's most revered artist. He reconceived Aotearoa, to paraphrase Australian author Murray Bail, as the land of the long black shadow. Squinting into the hard sun, McCahon saw, "something logical, orderly and beautiful belonging to the land and not yet its people. Not yet understood or communicated, not even really yet invented. My work has largely been to communicate this vision and to invent the way to see it."
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/mccahon.html
Waiting for Dark
Preparing for a family vacation, Kathy and Matt explained to their young children that they would be sitting in the car for a very long time. The kids were told they would not be arriving at their destination until after dark, and were warned not to keep saying, "Are we there yet?"
After a few minutes of peaceful driving, four year old Rachel perked up, "Is it dark yet?"
Check
out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42
Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
The
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www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
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