Supershorts: Season of hate

Ah, the glorious changing of the seasons. You know the Northern Hemisphere is heading into autumn - the leaves in Hyde Park turning orange - when the British papers start dredging up their annual dose of All Black-hate.

The Times labelled the 1999 All Blacks the biggest chokers in world sport. Which is fine in theory, if your starting position is to assume that the All Blacks are divinely destined to win every World Cup for which they turn up. If, on the other hand, you think the All Blacks of 1999 were weak in key positions (they had no recognised No 8 or centre) were on the bounceback from a dreadful spell (five defeats on the trot in 1998) and had recently lost three of the greatest players the game had ever known (Messrs Brooke, Fitzpatrick and Bunce), then you might think that getting knocked out in the semis wasn't a bad effort.

Around here, we think the All Blacks of 2007 were by far the biggest chokers. But ask us again in 13 months.

Tree one
Wednesday night's Colin Meads dinner party soiree at SkyCity brought out all the old stories. Pick of the lot was the anecdote that reveals the man Pinetree feared. Te Kuiti's finest said that he wasn't daft enough to put the filth on Keith Murdoch until the 76th minute, thus reducing the likelihood of retribution before the final whistle.

Tree two
Pinetree's favourite royal: The Queen Mum - she knew where Te Kuiti was.

Tree three
But the great man wasn't impressed with the Windsors' policy on corgi management. "Dogs inside the house ..." he muttered darkly, with a stern shake of the head.

Primate suspect
Forget the 100,000 security guards deployed around the Commonwealth Games, keeping visitors safe is monkey business. "We have deployed 38 langurs and it is a very effective way to scare away the common monkeys," said Games spokesman Anand Tiwari.

Langurs are big, grey monkeys. Their job? Beat the crap out of other monkeys that might harass visitors.

Cricketers in a death camp
The England cricket team couldn't be accused of overstating the significance of their sport. Yup, there's nothing weird at all about touring a Nazi death camp in preparation for an Ashes tour.

As skipper Andrew Strauss said of the team's recent boot camp that finished with a visit to Dachau, where the Nazis killed 31,951 prisoners: "It was an opportunity for the players to spend time away from the cricketing environment, learn more about the wider world and develop ourselves both as individuals and collectively."

Tweet of the week I
CoryJane1080 Here's a story 4 the guys. I woke up 2 day & looked outside & the lady in the next room was walking round wif no top on ;-). Love #Fiji lol

Tweet of the week II
CoryJane1080 Oh hell just seen the lady that was #Topless in the other room and she is 60+ haha WTF

GOOD WEEK FOR... PHILLIES FANS
Lard-guzzling baseball lovers can now order food via their iPhone and the "At Bat" app. The tucker is delivered to their seat in the stadium, reducing the need for a calorie-burning walk to the vendor to pick up one of Bull's BBQ turkey sandwiches.

BAD WEEK FOR... THE NRL
In what should be its celebratory week, league's bigwigs in Sydney are sweating with rumours that some of the competition's biggest names are to be outed in a matchfixing clean-up on Monday. Enjoy the final, lads ...

THE NUMBER... 1716
The number of professional soccer players sold by Argentinian clubs in 2009, overtaking Brazil (1443) for the first time to become the sport's biggest exporter.