Monthly Archives: September 2016

Tim Walker’s Wonders II

One of this world’s more perplexing mysteries is exactly how margarine’s mid to late twentieth century popularity resulted in the outright vilification of its full-dairy alternative, butter.

Since margarine’s advent early in the nineteenth century it struggled to gain recognition, amid a time where folk had little desire to look elsewhere for their toast spreading needs, with little success.

Margarine manufacturers initially tried dying their product from its natural sterile white colour to match butter’s creamy yellow appeal; even so it wasn’t until the great butter shortage of WW1 that margarine sales really lifted.

To see this butter substitute doing so well was obviously vexing for dairy farmers thus the butter industry lobbied to have a tax imposed on margarine; also to have the yellow dying outlawed.

Some US states early in the twentieth century, in an effort to render margarine as unappealing as possible, even managed to pass a law forcing manufacturers of this ersatz butter to colour their product with a toxic pink hue.

This again set back margarine’s popularity until another butter scarcity in WW2 saw the product return to vogue.

By now people across the world are beginning to wonder why they are still struggling away with such a hard, un-spreadable butter product when margarine is such a wonderful, user-friendly, albeit pink alternative.

Yet at this time, mid twentieth century, the world was still far from willing to make the conversion.

Margarine manufacturers needed to precipitate a change in attitude; they had to find some miracle way they could knock their buttery opposition out of the table spread race once and for all.

Butter is a totally natural product made with 100 percent milk fat; margarine was developed in a laboratory and follows a recipe discovered and patented by French chemist Mege-Mouries in 1869.

During the mid twentieth century where butter manufacturers had ensured that margarine was dyed an unpalatable pink, margarine manufacturers had ensured that butter was prohibited from including additives to make its product more spreadable.

The battle was on, and it was becoming more underhanded by the decade.

Margarine made supposedly beneficial additions to its recipe; butter continued to be made with 100 percent milk fat.

Throughout the 1960s margarine manufacturers struggled for the upper hand; butter continued to be made with 100 percent milk fat.

Then margarine manufacturers finally saw a way through.

In the early 1970s heart disease was one of the world’s biggest killers, and people were just beginning to accept that this probably had something to do with the cigarettes that they smoked so freely and regularly.

From out of nowhere it was revealed that smokers could breathe a sigh of relief – heart disease it turned out was caused by fatty deposits in and around the heart, as a result of ingesting fatty foods.

Additionally, high cholesterol, which health professionals had hitherto believed was caused by improper liver function and nothing more, it now became known was also the fault of too much ingested fat

To many of today’s people the above may seem obvious: ‘Eating fat causes fatness’ – but how is that even logical? Does eating potato skins give people strong skin? Does eating sheep’s wool cure baldness in men? If someone eats an apple seed do they eventually sprout a tree?

No, they don’t, because all food is metabolised in the digestive system – including fat.

…Suddenly the ‘100 percent milk fat’ of butter came into question: is all that fat harmful to our bodies?

From the ‘70s, through the ‘80s, ‘90s, ‘00s and present, this fatty fallacy has been solidified and perpetuated.

Everyone it seems is now trying to cash in on the ‘low fat’ lifestyle, while all that we are actually doing to ourselves by maintaining such a philosophy, is depriving our bodies of vital nourishment and important fatty acids.

As I have mentioned in so many past publications, ‘any company can pay any researcher to find out anything, then if those findings are made public, you are the one who is likely to swallow it.

Don’t be so quick to believe all that the media tells you; they will only ever report the findings they want you to hear while of course withholding those findings which are less agreeable.

Don’t blindly believe anything anymore – do your research.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Butters Scotch

Photography by Marge R Ian

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Walker’s Judicious V

Despite being formally charged with assault, aspiring Wellington rugby star Losi Filipo has avoided jail-time on the grounds that it might be ‘damaging to his future career’.

Filipo, his brother Sam, along with a group of friends, chased down and severely beat two other men, as well as physically attacking these two men’s girlfriends, leaving the two beaten men with massive, life-altering, injuries; yet because Losi Filipo is a current member of Wellington rugby with a bright future in the sport – which could be put in jeopardy should he face a prison sentence – the serious assault charges he is facing, including assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, also two counts of a man attacking a woman, which would ordinarily result in at least one year’s imprisonment, Losi Filipo will not see the inside of a jail cell.

Ironic, given that one of the young men he and his buddies drunkenly attacked, also a keen rugby player, has been told by medical professionals that he will never play the sport again.

Reportedly though, Losi Filipo has ‘shown deep remorse’ for his actions so, you know…

But they do, don’t they – that’s exactly what those drunken shitheads do, I mean once the alcohol’s worn off so the comprehension of their actions can begin to seep through the drug-induced blanket of stupidity under which their timid dispositions cower before they can then revert to the pitifully gutless Neanderthals they truly are – of course they become suddenly remorseful, that’s how it works.

…Not unlike the ‘remorse’ shown by Vincent Skeen – who, incidentally, will soon be out on parole after, as it turns out, already being on parole when he was arrested by Police for killing Luke Tipene with a broken beer bottle to the neck – as he came to the similarly ignorant realisation of what he’d done.

Honestly, I’ve seen it too many times to count – these kinds of guys who are natural born shitheads when they’re drunk, and in fact they’re natural born shitheads when they’re sober too, it’s just that while they’re drunk people are much more accepting of shitheadedness, then while they’re sober, that shitheadedness seems to be confused for arrogance or greatness or something and is naturally respected by their cohort of like-minded Neanderthals – that’s just what happens to young tough-guys when they’re boozing: they drink alcohol, they can’t handle their alcohol, they become aggressive, they cause someone great harm; of course from under their boozy fug they can never appreciate the magnitude of what they’ve done until, next morning they say sorry and probably, let’s be fair, have a little cry about it and blame the universe for all of their ills, and I’m sure their gorgeous girlfriends take pity on them, because that’s just how shitheads roll.

I understand what our judicial system is trying to do here; after all New Zealand has always had far greater success putting Islanders on the sports field than it has putting them in jail but come on..?

Losi Filipo, future All Black or not, had a hand in almost beating to death two men while having no compunction about severely maiming two women – do New Zealanders even want someone like this representing them?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Julie N Severe

Photography Woman Beater

 

Tim Walker’s Protesting IX

The actions of a New Zealand Police Officer were called into question when he was photographed hauling an obstreperous protester by her hair across the street.

In fact this incident took place over six months ago – all the way back in February – and while it was today revealed that the policeman had managed to avoid any legal ramifications from his actions, obviously, among New Zealand’s protesting fraternity, there is uproar.

The aspect of this that raises my ire so very much is the fact that idiot protesters can position themselves wherever they like, they can plonk themselves somewhere and simply refuse to be moved; they can pose as much of an impediment to public flow as they please and providing they refer to their actions as conducting a ‘peaceful protest’ they are practically untouchable by authority figures.

The facts of the above situation, where a female protester was shown a classic example of ‘New Zealand Police Brutality’, are as follows: this woman, with her band of like-minded malcontents, while protesting the TPPA, had stationed herself in the middle of a busy road and was forcing traffic to come to a complete halt before very carefully navigating its way through; the police officer in question, decked out in riot gear as all police were that day, had firmly asked the woman to vacate the premises; she had refused thus the policeman had attempted to lift her and drag her by her arms; she had thrashed free, again taking her position on the road, disrupting unrelated citizens; the officer in question, clearly flustered by the protester’s ignorance, still needing to remove her but running out of ideas, simply grabbed the woman wherever he could and walked backwards.

I have documented in previous articles the massively unfair standard to which our New Zealand Police Force must adhere; offenders are quite free to abuse, punch, kick, spit, shank, or even shoot, and our humble policeman must absorb all of it while somehow maintaining peace in our increasingly lawless nation.

These kinds of protesters are dicks – if you have an issue with the way something is playing out why would you make life difficult for a populous of people who don’t even share your concern? Why would you not do something pragmatic about it?

Rather than waving banners preaching about how we need to ‘Make A Change’ but realistically doing nothing, why would you not make an actual change?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Tia P Pyay

Photography by Notu Day

Tim Walker’s Wonders

Erected atop the Salisbury Plains, Wiltshire, England between 3000 and 2000 B.C., the monument that modern man calls Stonehenge is the oldest and perhaps the least understood of this world’s historical entities.

Speculation has long surrounded the engineer behind Stonehenge along with the reason for its being built, with explanations ranging from an antiquated auditorium to something of extraterrestrial intervention.

Whatever and why-ever this otherworldly construction came to be, the facts are as follows: the monoliths, the single upright stones, are as much as 4 metres tall and 2 metres thick while some of the larger stones, the vertical pillars of the trilithons – great pi-shaped archways which are recognised as the enduring memory of Stonehenge – carry dimensions of up to 8 metres tall, up to 4 metres through, weighing up to 50 tons, and in fact often with several of those metres buried underground.

In my opinion Stonehenge was built by man, using some ingenious lifting techniques involving ramps, rollers, levers, fulcrums, gravity, inertia and manpower, and was a temple of sorts, a shrine; a place to worship Neolithic man’s most powerful god, the god of sun.

Furthermore I believe Stonehenge’s design – seemingly specifically positioned arches which allow through cleverly directed shafts of sunlight at certain times of the day according to the time of month and year – is indicative of a clock or even a calendar, making it an ideal place for ethereal worship.

In prehistoric times where so little of the scientific knowledge that we today take for granted had been uncovered, this was a highly god-fearing existence; everything had gods – the ground, the oceans, the rivers, the animals, the insects, the trees, the clouds, the wind, the air, the rain, the moon and of course, the sun – and obviously those gods controlled everything, meaning that Neolithic man’s only real responsibility was to keep the gods on side.

Logically, sacrifice was understood to be the best way to placate these wrathful gods thus along with constant worship, the sacrifice of cattle, oxen, poultry and even children, was commonplace.

Given this fervent belief system death was considered almost inconsequential, and certainly wasn’t something to be feared: you were born, you lived on Earth, you died; you lived once more among your ancestors and of course, the gods.

It makes sense then that amid a world where the main concern is placating vengeful gods – unhappy gods for instance might lead to inclement weather which might lead to poor crops which might lead to shortages in grain which might lead to malnourished people which might lead to ill health and probable death, and because these uneducated folk didn’t know any better this plight will all have been the gods’ doing – these prehistoric people would quite unthinkingly have devoted their entire lives to constructing this, in my opinion, place of worship to the god of sun which we, as modern people, now refer to as ‘Stonehenge’ and realistically, see perhaps as an unfathomable waste of time because let’s be fair, it produces nothing and offers no ostensible benefit while just standing there taking up space, yet…

This monumental landmark, researchers have found, took over 1000 years to reach full development – given the stones needed to be sourced by foot, excavated by hand, shaped by hand then finally raised, by hand – and at around 5000 years old, purpose unknown or otherwise, it definitely deserves our respect.

…In my opinion, Stonehenge is one of this world’s most awesome creations.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Stubb D Fanger

Photography by Loft N Stone

 

Tim Walker’s Double V

The New Zealand Government has run into disagreement with the Maori party regarding fishing rights in the Kermadec Wildlife Sanctuary.

This ocean sanctuary, an area off New Zealand’s coast in which commercial fishing is prohibited, according to historic treaty settlements, is currently a revered fishing ground for many Maori tribes…

Prime Minister John Key was asked to apologise for his misunderstanding on the issue where he, quite unbelievably, assumed that an area being labelled a ‘Prohibited Fishing Zone’ applied to everyone, rather than just those people who weren’t of Maori heritage.

…Meaning that while the majority of New Zealand fishermen must avoid this Kermadec fish playground, anyone who can prove tribal affiliation may plunder its bountiful depths to their heart’s content…

As so often seems to be the case in New Zealand an act of blatant hypocrisy is being forced upon those who consider themselves ‘leaders’, making ongoing support difficult for those of us who consider ourselves ‘followers’.

…This massive double standard, given that it is being executed by the same ‘tribes’ of people who hunted the moa to extinction and who would rather have ownership of land and see it going to waste than not have ownership of the land and see it being put to productive use thus are the very last groups of people who I would consider ‘conservation orientated’, basically renders the concept of ‘Fishery and Wildlife Conservation’ farcical.

Such is the Maori party’s collective outrage at Prime Minister John Key’s failure to understand the issue at hand thereby granting the Maori people freedom to fish the Kermadecs – a right that is so clearly stipulated in the Treaty of Waitangi, circa 1840 – they have threatened to ‘walk away’ from the National party altogether.

The Maori party’s departure would be a terrible blow for National as, with the election drawing ever closer, they must be considering desperate measures as a means of potentially making up those extra few votes.

A bigger issue is perhaps for the Maori party as, without its big brother National, and given that Labour appear to want nothing to do with them, if they don’t stop continually pushing for unrealistic liberties in the name of ‘their people’ and instead start acting like the ‘one people’ they’ve long maintained that we are, they might well be left out in the cold.

Gosh, aren’t politics terribly exciting?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Maree Putty

Photography by Uton Cold

 

Tim Walker’s Fustigator L

 

I am a total yet not overly big.

I am halfway there yet admirable.

I am a number yet not too high.

I am aplenty yet I am not a heap.

I am an age yet only a middle age.

I am a decimal division yet half of it.

I am a cricket score yet not great.

I am travelling yet only half hour.

I am dollars in a wallet yet pink.

I am a centurion yet if only by half.

I am ten times half decade yet done.

 

WHAT AM I?

 

 

 

 

 

Last edition’s Fustigator: Penultimate

Tim Walker’s Protesting VIII

I was lucky enough to be in Riccarton’s Westfield Mall today as a typically unruly horde of protesters, typically, attempted to encroach on everybody else’s good time.

We had become sidetracked as Grandma – having again fallen asleep with pots on the boil, burning out the bottoms of another few thus warranting this particular ‘emergency trip’ to town; thinking initially that a trip to Briscoes would meet all her saucepan requirements, then deciding that as long as we were in town she might as well stop in at the public hospital to visit her sister, which of course soon led to a thorough going over of Westfield Mall – now decided she liked the look of something over that way.

Typical of protesters their chant lacked diction and try as I might, indeed stand and listen as I did, I was still at a loss as to the reason for this particular day out.

Grandma had successfully done her favourite thing and now, having managed to engage a store assistant’s services, was happily listening as they outlined their range of whatever it was that had piqued her interest in the first place.

Understanding then that I had at least five minutes before I’d have to wander over and soberly explain to the sales assistant something along the lines of, ‘This is my grandmother, and while she is indeed a consumer, right here, right now, she is simply playing a game with you, and while you might feel as though a sale is near, regrettably, and please Miss, I mean don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the attention you’ve given her, I’m sure she has adored every minute of it, but honestly, she’s doesn’t plan to buy anything in your store today, and we really must be on our way’, before leading Grandma back out the shop entrance and resuming our hunt for saucepans – thus I saw fit to make my break.

“Excuse me, Miss,” I addressed a plaque-holding dreadlock-wearing twenty-something year-old woman. “May I read your poster?”

“Go for it,” she shouted, unnecessarily, given my proximity.

I now made a show of reading what in fact I had already perused as I was posing the question and glanced at the woman, her face streaked with the perspiration that obviously comes from getting up late in the morning before assembling a disagreeable rabble then wielding a few signs and embarking on a day of impassioned – albeit unintelligible – ranting.

She pushed past me uttering the words, “We gotta stop this fuckin’ TPP ‘fore it gets started, eh.”

I took a few large steps to again be alongside her. “Excuse me,” I implored, “please, tell me Miss, what is the TPP – for what does it stand?”

“The TPP stands for the end of democracy as we know it,” she shouted back, again, unnecessarily because again, I was right there.

“Right,” I took a few more large steps, “sounds bad, but what about the letters – I mean what is the TPPA?”

“Oh, it’s ah, Trade, ah, it’s the Trade, ah, Partnership – no no, it’s the Trans Pacific Partnership!”

“Oh wow, so what does that mean?” I asked, taking a few more large steps to keep up.

“It’s a trade deal,” she spat the words at me as though I was stupid, “and it’s gonna ruin what we in New Zealand stand for.”

“No,” I feigned disbelief, “not like, really ruined, like, with no democracy and like, when they’ve stolen our sovereignty and that..?”

YesJust like that!” the dreadlocked woman screamed in my face, a look of stark revelation in her eyes, as though she had just successfully proselytised every capitalist right wing supporter in the Mall that day, before realising that I taking the piss.

I took a few more steps to swing around in front of this perplexing creature. “Tell me, please, do you and you cronies even keep up with current affairs, or is this, causing unjustifiable bedlam I mean, just your hobby?”

“What? ’Unjustifiable’..? Are you serious? The TPP’s beating us down and taking our democracy, and you try to tell me this is unjustifiable’?”

“Yeah, about that, did you even see the debate, where the question of whether the TPPA should go ahead was held? I mean, were you following it back then?”

“What? There was no vote, there was no debate – there is no democracy!” she shouted that last bit, which, fortunately I sensed coming and pulled back just in time.

“In fact there was a debate and your guy, the idiot who was there peacefully protesting the TPPA – shouting and carrying on like a bloody child that there ‘is no bloody democracy’ – was voted out of the room … That, my dear, is democracy.”

“Oh, what? When was that?”

“Shit I guess, that would have been what, about, I dunno, almost twelve months ago now, you know, back at the start, when the TPPA was initially being pushed through, when people actually gave a damn.”

“What do you think we’re doing now? We give a damn!” she shouted, again, unnecessarily because, again, I was right there.

“Yes but,” I said, feeling myself becoming increasingly exasperated with this sweaty brick wall, “this trade deal, why are you still going on about it, I mean, it’s already a done thing, I mean, you’re over six months too late – what’d you do, sleep in?”

“TPP is not for me!” she shouted – that basic rhyming scheme giving reason to the fact they don’t refer to it as ‘the TPP-A’.

“Look,” I stated firmly, feeling my ire rise and thriving on the sensation, “you and your silly little band of misfits have clearly been feeding on the Donald Trump election hype, you’ve become all pumped up and empowered hearing how he would abolish the TPPA if he were in power and somehow, for some stupid reason your cohort of brainless monkeys thought that today would be a nice day to resurface with your gay little signs and your shrill little voices and to rave about a topic over which you and your band of ignorant buddies have sweet fuck all knowledge.”

The dreadlocked woman took a large step back.

“The TPPA,” I went on, having expunged my ire, “in a nation such as New Zealand, so small and isolated, is the only way that we as a people, in a future where the world is essentially interconnected, can ever expect to prosper…”

She remained silent; even her plaque was drooping.

I continued. “…International trade, for New Zealand at least, is not a bad thing … I have no idea where all this crap about ‘no democracy’ and ‘losing our sovereignty’ – in fact I would like you to tell me what the word ‘sovereignty’ means in a minute – no idea where all that shit even eventuated, I mean other than the fact that you recent protesters are obviously just copying the old protesters’ chants and well, it wouldn’t even surprise me to learn that you’re using their banners but seriously, what is the point of all this? I mean like I said, it’s done and even if it wasn’t done, why you would wish to stymie New Zealand’s prosperity is beyond me – you’re just causing shit for no reason now.”

“Not for no reason,” she was suddenly indignant, “we gotta stop the TPP.”

“My God,” I said to myself; then to her, “did you just space out for the past few minutes or something?”

“Who’s your friend?”

I turned toward the new voice; it seemed Grandma had come to save me this time.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Brock Wall

Photography by Swaddy Pryre Toster

 

 

 

Tim Walker’s Fustigator XLIX

 

I am one of the final yet not totally.

I am not the first yet nor am I the last.

I am compound yet a cage ultimately.

I am not middling yet nor do I languish.

I am toward the end yet I am not quite.

I am not the worst yet essentially I am.

I am almost there yet just a little more.

I am not second yet inversion will place.

I am too last yet practically at the end.

I am not ultimate failure yet one other.

I am half penny yet not an ultimatum.

 

WHAT AM I?

 

 

 

 

 

Last edition’s Fustigator: Apathetic

Tim Walker’s Stripping

The Chiefs Super Rugby team have avoided legal repercussions following their supposed ‘inappropriate conduct’ towards a hired stripper.

The woman in question, ‘Scarlette’, was paid to attend a private function in honour of the Chiefs, and afterwards alleged that some members of the team had spoken to her crudely, touched her inappropriately and ultimately, had acted improperly.

What I find most shocking about this ordeal is the fact that an attractive young woman wilfully put herself in the company of a team of drunken – and by implication horny – rugby players who likely already feel that their national success effectively elevates them above most other people thus permits them to act in ways that regular folk might consider unruly…

Scarlette is what is known in New Zealand as a ‘sex worker’; because while the act of sexual intercourse might not technically be in her job description, the area to which she caters is undisputedly of a sexual nature.

…Then even from this rather vulnerable position she evidently still found it acceptable to take her clothes off for the team of drunken men and, as per her job description, did what she had to do in order to ‘entertain’ her clients…

Whether a sex worker is paid to indulge in copulation outright, or if her task centres more around the art of sexual seduction and arousal, given that in New Zealand the sex industry now qualifies as a legitimate career choice for those over the age of 18, there is no excuse for any employee of this industry to ever be made to feel degraded or undervalued.

…But perhaps the most shocking aspect, she carried out her task that night without as much as a friend, associate, or indeed a pimp to watch out for her…

Similar to any career in any industry an employee deserves the respect of their clients but in particular, a worker should never be made to feel that their dignity or safety is being called into question.

…Almost as though Scarlette thought the BAD ASS tattoo she bears on three fingers of each hand would make her impervious to men’s indecent advances that night…

As a result a number of Chiefs sponsors are said to have pulled their support, to supposedly distance the brand from this unfortunate incident – as if a company pulling a sports star’s support isn’t just the biggest publicity stunt around.

…Big publicity too, for Scarlette.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Noah Sap-Port

Photography by B Darce Scarlet

Tim Walker’s Fustigator XLVIII

 

I am lacking interest yet I do look good.

I am frustrating yet I am not bothered.

I am dull to be around yet I am svelte.

I am potentially erudite yet I do not show.

I am pointless yet I am unconcerned.

I am typically lazy yet I will work for pay.

I am gender ambiguous yet complacent.

I am wasting time yet time is on my side.

I am usually teenaged yet I can be older.

I am damaging morale yet I do not care.

I am adjective yet one may think me noun.

I am a pathetic trait yet do not need space.

 

WHAT AM I?

 

 

 

 

 

Last edition’s Fustigator: Consequence