Monthly Archives: July 2016

Tim Walker’s War

The paradox of war: War Crime.

In a civilised world where all things inhumane are illegal or at least heavily frowned-upon, killing is obviously outlawed.

A clever loophole to this law is to ‘declare war’ on the group one wishes to kill; in this case the act of murder becomes lawful.

The one hitch in this loophole is that, while in this time of war killing may have become legal, if a potential murder victim has reached hospital grounds or other medical area – this includes the medics themselves – killing them again becomes illegal.

The above ruling makes the aforementioned game of war a little more challenging but assuredly, no less fun for those involved…

The nation of Syria has been recently seen to be flouting these rulings of war, mercilessly killing contenders who have made it to the hospital ‘safe zone’ and who, according to these rules of war, ought to be considered ‘paxt’; Syria are thereby committing the most egregious of war crimes.

…Other law-related technicalities that must be observed while playing war games are as follows: a participant announcing their ‘surrender’ must be immediately excluded from the game but may be ‘captured’ by the ‘dominant’ team; ‘surrendered’ parties must be treated to a ‘standard’ of upkeep in line with their nation’s perception of ‘humane treatment’; ‘torture’ of ‘surrendered’ parties is deemed ‘illegal’ even if ‘surrendered’ party becomes ‘belligerent’ and is ‘really asking for it’.

Furthermore any ‘obscenities’ and ‘atrocities’, the particulars of which will vary according to one’s national background or indeed upbringing, according to the rulings of war, are to be considered ‘bad sportsmanship’ and will not be ‘tolerated’.

Failure to uphold the above ‘rulings of war’ will result in allegations of ‘war crimes’, which is punishable by ‘international reproach’.

Should a nation appear to be committing war crimes yet show no regard to these rulings of war, however, or if a nation such as Syria outright refuses to play by the rules of the game, alas, there is little anyone can do to stop them.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Cream O Waugh

Photography by Stu Pad Game

Tim Walker’s Thug IV

What kind of shitheads are we breeding in New Zealand?

It was only hours ago that a Papatoetoe dairy owner was pummelled into a heap behind the counter of his own shop by a knife-wielding assailant.

Having recently sold his Whangarei dairy after enduring a similar incident this was the second workplace attack this humble shopkeeper has faced…

Cigarettes and cash are the targets for these pathetic thieves – refusing to exert any kind of genuine effort in their chosen lifestyles of slothful loitering, preferring instead to let somebody else do the hard yards before taking what that person has earned then bitching and moaning about how the kinds of foreigners who usually run New Zealand dairies ought to go back where they came from and stop stealing Kiwi jobs – bounties to which these shitheads so brazenly help themselves before returning to life as that irrepressible stench fouling up Auckland streets for so many hardworking Kiwi citizens.

…Reportedly this Papatoetoe offender might be responsible for as many as nine more dairy robberies throughout Auckland in the last while, meaning he will have potentially amassed as many as 38 packs of smokes and/or as much as $180 cash.

‘So why isn’t the bloody National Government stepping in and sorting out some of these national problems, that’s what I want to know’, is a question that a number of concerned North Island families have recently been heard voicing.

Exactly how our national governing body, the National Government, or indeed its rather more laborious opposer, the Labour Opposition, is expected to remedy an issue that likely stems from the compounded effect of generations of domestic abuse, child mistreatment and all-around familial neglect – ultimately unfit parents who insist on bringing into this world children when as parents they have no passion, no zest, no desire and particularly, no bloody right to wear the ‘Parent’ nametag or in fact to even try to come anywhere close to being the paragon of virtue that nametag suggests – is beyond me.

It’s people, and people need to take responsibility for the actions they perpetrate as people.

Sounds like people are largely shitheads.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Gus Liss-Wunders

Photography by Ima Ina Fury

 

Tim Walker’s Fustigator XXXVII

 

I am usually colourful yet ideally not.

I am ingestible yet only if times are tough.

I am akin to juice yet am not any longer.

I am wasted yet only over urea-rich soils.

I am harbourer of minerals yet expended.

I am a form of discharge yet not unhealthy.

I am a conductor yet only in solid form.

I am in a stream yet pollute that very thing.

I am known to shower gold yet inexpensive.

I am in rhyme with touring yet not too far.

I am responsible for superfluous waterfalls.

I am you are in easily yet far from a toilet.

 

WHAT AM I?

 

 

 

 

 

Last edition’s Fustigator: Legend

 

Tim Walker’s Fustigator XXXVI

 

I am traditional yet often fallacy.

I am without logic yet celebrated.

I am a tale yet I am not the last bit.

I am without witness yet revered.

I am insignia yet I refuse to sign off.

I am without code yet I am an icon.

I am a great being yet not verified.

I am without history yet am historic.

I am a key yet will not unlock a door.

I am without leg yet put at the end.

I am in a ledger and yet only in part.

I am without mortality yet often dead.

 

WHAT AM I?

 

 

 

 

 

Last edition’s Fustigator: Weight

Tim Walker’s Vitamin

For the first time since the existence of penicillin, New Zealand’s National Health Board is recommending we take vitamins.

This seems an odd move for medical science, with their hitherto unrelenting promotion of synthetic drugs and equally unabashed ridicule of natural vitamin supplements – particularly vitamin C which to those with any common sense (medical profession therefore excluded) is understood to be a superb way to boost one’s immune system thereby improving the ability to ward off illness yet unlike prescription drugs is not an unequivocal remedy and as we know if there is one thing those medical folk like it’s their one-pill-fixes-all solutions…

So does this mean National Health, amid this heavily prescribed and anti-biotic nation of ours, is actually dictating that Kiwis jump on board the vitamin wagon and start self-helping?

…Let’s not get carried away: in fact the one pill medical science is now conceding Kiwis mighty need to be popping over winter is vitamin D…

What is peculiar about the above ‘professional recommendation’ is that these respected medical boffins are claiming the sun’s rays are providing inadequate vitamin D, at a time throughout history where ‘the sun’s rays’ have never been more powerful.

…Medical science maintains that during these winter months where the strength of the sun is less with ultimately fewer sunlight hours, vitamin D supplements will provide people with that extra boost of mirth, leading to an overall increased feeling of wellbeing, ordinarily derived from natural sunlight…

Never once during the aforementioned ‘recommendation’ was there mention of the more obvious option: ‘making a conscious effort to get outdoors more and increase one’s sun exposure’; but then, medical science has always been more about ‘fixing the issue with a pill’ than ‘preventing the issue through prudent health management’.

…I recall ten or so years back when hoodie sweatshirts were first capturing the appeal of New Zealand’s youth, there was one ‘health professional’ who came forward with her terribly dreary opinion that this variety of casual-wear would be ‘detrimental to youthful development’ as the hoods in question ‘severely cut down on the amount of sun’ to which these trendsetting ragamuffins were exposed…

Many women use a daily body lotion that will in fact contain some element of sunscreen yet, instead of recommending the reduction of sun-reduction, in keeping with the fashion New Zealand Health seems still to be encouraging sun avoidance while at the same time promoting an oral intake of the very vitamin lost through that sun avoidance.

…Of course the real issue as I perceived it was that all those years ago, hoodie sweatshirts with their ability to render a wearer incognito therefore sinister, was something of an intimidation to older, less hip, street wanderers.

The issue as I perceive it now, medical science is taking yet another health concern which has a clear self-help remedy, and promoting the concept of medication.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Vitty Mann

Photography by Sal Phelp

 

 

 

Tim Walker’s Fustigator XXXV

 

I am that much of this yet not so much of that.

I am without gender yet common female topic.

I am a feature of growth yet not specifically age.

I am grading system yet bigger not always better.

I am seen on fish epidermis yet am without smell.

I am disliked in old yet am celebrated in young.

I am seen on food products yet have no appetite.

I am integral in BMI yet Bulging Maidens Invite.

I am often mistaken for size yet can be deceptive.

I am the measure of heft yet not of greatness.

I am frequently prefixed between Juliet and Lima.

I am current tense for what we do for the bus.

 

WHAT AM I?

 

 

 

 

 

Last edition’s Fustigator: Object

Tim Walker’s Manslaughter II

The killer of Luke Tipene – the young man who was stabbed in the neck and allowed to bleed out on a Grey Lynn street outside a friend’s party – has been convicted.

Ironically neither of the 17-year-old men involved in the above incident had actually been attending the party in question when Vincent Skeen smashed the bottle that he would then use to plunge into Tipene’s neck.

Skeen sat in the dock, appearing nonchalant, unaffected even remorseless, as the charge of manslaughter was passed down…

Honestly, that sickened me – Luke Tipene, a hardworking, dedicated, teetotalling young man who found himself embroiled in a largely unrelated conflict and who ended up dead for trying to sort it out; killed by some idiot he had never met but who saw a fight brewing and thought, ‘I wanna get me a bit of that’, and where, despite it being primarily a fistfight, Vincent Skeen being the brainless personification of pugnacity that he so clearly is, shattered a bottle on the road and thrust it into the nearest body he could find.

…According to the Defence: “There was no murderous intent, therefore a charge of murder cannot be justified”…

Looking into Vincent Skeen’s vapid eyes, perceiving his obtuse manner; witnessing the obnoxious glaze in fact I could see only murderous intent – maybe not so much now but certainly in a few years, I mean once Skeen starts running with gangs, ripping off cars, dealing meth, burglarising, terrorising, womanising and being a general scourge on society, yes, indeed, projected murderous intent was all over the young offender’s face.

…According to one partygoer, the Grey Lynn party ‘got out of hand pretty quick, but it was really nothing but a bit of a harmless scuffle, like, it would have all blown over’, until, presumably, one of the brawlers started bottling people…

I have seen plenty of examples of the aforementioned altercation: silly little boys engaged in pissing contests; silly little boys exerting power, strength, exuding testosterone and such – yet all it takes is for a tumbling head to hit a solid curb and suddenly the ‘harmless scuffle’ becomes manslaughter.

…That fateful night in Grey Lynn it only took one moment, one miscalculation, one error in judgment; one blind act of rage for countless lives to be irreparably damaged.

I have been the one at a party who observes a group’s aggression levels inexplicably rise, I have been the one who looks on as those aggressors begin to cause unrest, I have been the one who tries to sort out those issues, to smooth over disagreements, to ease the tension; I have also been hit in the face, been knocked to the ground for my efforts – oh yes, I am very much familiar with the kinds of idiots who jump into fights purely because a fight is taking place and assuredly, I cannot vouch for their goodness.

In a few months’ time, when Vincent Skeen is sentenced, I sincerely hope he receives the maximum imprisonment a manslaughter charge can bring.

God knows he deserves it.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by A R Soeul

Photography Mehr Dering Swain

Tim Walker’s Fustigator XXXIV

 

I am a little obfuscated yet only to begin.

I am indeed general yet am not military.

I am the last subject yet am not in maths.

I am basically a thing yet I can be more.

I am oblique at the start yet always direct.

I am owned by anyone yet not everyone.

I am in part subjective yet am without ends.

I am a modicum of this yet am also of that.

I am initially obtuse yet complete the reject.

I am something of anything yet rarely nothing.

I am a projectile with trajectory yet centred.

I am obviously injected yet who needs more?

 

WHAT AM I?

 

 

 

 

 

Last edition’s Fustigator: Fantasy

Tim Walker’s Graded

From the Japanese ‘gentle skill’, practisers of jiu-jitsu wear belts awarded in the following order: white, blue, purple, brown, black.

Within those colours are separate levels, grades, or tabs which indicate progress through the grade; yet training four to five, or even six times a week, generally, to progress through the stages of white to black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, unlike, for example taekwondo, where an intense training regime might be expected to yield a black belt in approximately four years, is likely to still take somewhere over ten years.

Having begun a twice weekly training schedule with Axis Martial Arts fifteen months ago but not believing my attendance to be necessary at the first of the six-monthly grading days – I did make a point to head along to the second one in December of last year because, while I didn’t realistically feel that I deserved to receive a tab so early in my martial arts career, the after-function for the second grading was much more geographically convenient than the typically central Christchurch location of the others, thus I was keen to go and I would have felt cheap going to the after-party without at least enduring a grading – therefore Saturday, I attended my second ever grading day.

Such is the plethora of content to learn in the art of jiu-jitsu, such are the number of techniques – as well as the smoothness and finesse of movement that comes with those skills – by the time a student finally wins the honour of wearing a coloured belt, Axis Martial Arts likes to make damn sure that student deserves it.

In order to make it into the Wainoni Road dojo on time I estimated I should leave a good hour before proceedings began; this it turned out ensured I arrived on Saturday a little over quarter of an hour early, which I consider just enough time to conduct a basic warm up for my aging body.

The day began with a rigorous group warm-up, which given my earlier personal efforts was downright gruelling, where we then paired up and began regular sparring sessions – five minute rounds of intense battle where the only way out is submission.

Sometime later, more exhausted, stiff, sore and ultimately broken than I can recall being, ever, the grading officially commenced.

It is definitely a peculiar sense of camaraderie that is engendered while locked in an embrace with another man, hearts pounding, muscles burning; both breathless and heavily perspiring as you do your best with what little energy your body is affording you to manipulate the limbs of your opponent into unbearable positions or, failing that, choke off the blood supply until one of you foolish children calls an end to the shenanigans by tapping out.

I was proud to hear my name called, then empowered as I stepped forward to receive my first – but not last – grading.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Ann Jury Ish

Photography by Joo Djut Sue

 

 

 

 

Tim Walker’s Fustigator XXXIII

 

I am indeed a thing yet am not a proper noun.

I am make believe yet cannot make bees leave.

I am in everyone yet everyone is not in me.

I am generally a daze yet am usually controllable.

I am weak in acting yet powerful in thinking.

I am based on reality yet hyperbole becomes me.

I am delight to the mind yet sometimes fraught.

I am an innocuous pastime yet frequently illicit.

I am result of boredom yet am brain stimulation.

I am without freewill yet temporarily I will free.

I am initially blowing or support inside wit as yet.

I am fizzy orange drink yet ending needs to see.

 

WHAT AM I?

 

 

 

 

 

Last edition’s Fustigator: Music