Top5: The Western Isle

As you may know, I'm over in the Western Isle right now. Tonight in fact we are repairing broken friendships by watching the Warriors THRASH the Wests Tigers. (hopefully)

To celebrate here are five fun facts:

5. One third of Australia is desert.

4. The 1828 census found that half the population of NSW was convicts, and another quarter were ex-convicts. 26 January, Australia day, is the anniversary of the first convict ships arriving in Sydney.

3. Sydney is Australia's first, and largest, city. Also known as Sin City, Sydney wanted to be the capital of Australia but its convict stigma counted against it. Instead, they built a shithole capital halfway between Sydney and Melbourne; Canberra.

2.Australia's first police force was a band of 12 of the most well behaved Convicts.

1. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

Sports Thoughts: 23 June 2013

Well, I promised you a post today, so here it is. Five random thoughts I've had relating sports in the last few days.

Second string Spain put 10 past Tahiti
Hasn’t it been good to see Tahiti “perform” at the Confederations Cup. Has a team ever got so much credit for such thrashings as the island nation did when they lost 1-6 to Nigeria and 0-10 to Spain? I guess that’s what happens when you’re ranked 138^th and they’re ranked 31^st and 1^st in the world.

Fifa questions Durante's NZ eligibility
In good-but-it-doesn't-seem-it news, Fifa is investigating if the All Whites latest debutant, Andrew Durante, is actually eligible to play for us, being Australian and all. If they rule he isn't eligible for us it is likely that we will be stripped of our mighty victory over the Solomon Islands a few months ago. This is good because the issue was going to come up sooner or later and we'd rather have it worked out now than have it blow up in our faces later on and potentially be stripped of a World Cup qualification win over a team like Honduras.

Meninga cleared of wrong doing
Why is it called the “NRL integrity unit” when it can seemingly investigate anyone under the jurisdiction of the Australian Rugby League Commission, and not just NRL players?

Mini slams 'silly' Origin rule
Why is Anthony Minichello “hitting out” at the international rule regarding allegiance when really his anger should be directed at the ARLC’s insistence State of Origin players declare for Australia? By the way, only 127 days until the World Cup!

What about the Commodores?
And finally, “What about the Commodores” is not a phrase I thought I’d ever hear in V8 Supercars. This week bought the announcement of Volvo’s entry into the competition, joining Nissan, Ford, Mercedes and, of course, Holden. Here’s an artists impression of what one of the new Volvo S60’s will look like;

News in a Minute: 19 April 2013

Welcome to Friday 19 April 2013, the time is Seven, roughly.

Today is a very special unplanned edition of News in a Minute, because sometimes the news is so good, it deserves reporting on. 

Tonight's headline story; A US Senator was sent poison by a man he had previously hired as an Elvis Impersonator. I shit you not. Senator Roger Wicker (Republican – Mississippi) was sent a letter laced with ricin by Paul Kevin Curtis. Curtis also sent a letter to President Obama. Both letters were detected before they even reached Washington D.C. Senator Wicker described Curtis as “quite entertaining”.

In local news, our intrepid police force has caught a thief by following a trail of gummy bears. He had broken into a car but then unfortunately, for the thief, he managed to leave a trail of gummy bears to a nearby bus stop, where he fell asleep. 

The best headline of the week award goes to stuff.co.nz with "Giraffe joins in rescue mission". Yes, Auckland Zoo's own Nakuru has diverted her ship to look for a missing Russian Sailor. Nakuru was meant to be on her way to Melbourne Zoo.

In sports, New Zealand are down to three drivers in the 2013 V8 Supercars Championship after Jonny Reid was replaced by his team. SKY TV finally have the rights to show tomorrows Tonga v Samoa rugby league test match, only signing a deal yesterday. And of course, New Zealand takes on Australia TONIGHT. Good luck boys.

Alright, that's us. Thank you for reading and remember:

Better Living everyone!

Round 1: Don't mention the war

Well, Round 1 is done and dusted and the NRL is back.

Amid swirling rumours of the Sharks rapid demise, Sky managed to sign a five year television deal with the NRL just in time to screen Thursday Night Football. They backed this up by signing the clear number two commentator in Australia, Andrew Voss, to call the Warriors matches.

Channel Nine's Thursday Night Football began with a bit of a dedication to SBW and continued in that vein all night, including a bizzare voice over as he ran onto his field to make his debut for the Roosters, and a pre-recorded half time interview. Now they even have me talking about him, sigh. Oh, and there was also a league match, the Rabbitohs winning 28-10 and George Burgess returning 65 points for your $137k investment.

This was followed up by Friday's come from behind win for Manly over the favoured Brisbane Broncos. However the real news on Friday was Cronulla's decision to sack their physio, manager, doctor and trainer and stand down the head coach. Of course this was due to management failures in 2011 and was in no way related to the ASADA drug investigation.

Which unfortunately brings us to Saturday. Saturday saw the Cowboys defeat the Bulldogs 24-12. That is all.

Sunday gave us the Panthers putting in an impressive display against the Raiders, Dugan getting injured again, the Storm dominating the Dragons 30-10 and the Sharks pull off an emotional 12-10 victory over the Titans. They are running on fumes at the moment though and probably can't keep it up.

Monday wrapped up the week with the Knights thrashing the Wests Tigers 42-10. Benji missed a conversion after the hooter to ensure they finished round 1 in last place. Aquila Uate top scored in dreamteam with a whopping 93 points, highlighting the rule changes that now favour attacking players.

Bring on Round 2!