Monthly Archives: April 2017

Tim Walker’s Migrant

Prime Minister Bill English has made a big call in limiting the number of migrant workers allowed entry to New Zealand.

The increasing public pressure that ultimately forced our PM to make these restrictions can be summarised in a few brilliantly insightful, tremendously inspired – mildly ignorant but – classically Kiwi phrases: ‘Bloody immigrants, stealing all the jobs…’, ‘Bloody immigrants, they’re a menace on our roads…’, ‘Bloody immigrants, can’t understand a bloody word half of them say’; or the 21st century addition, ‘Bloody immigration, that’s the reason why house prices are so bloody high, swhy a typical Kiwi bloke like me can’t get me and the missus and her six kids and two dogs into a home, and it shouldn’t matter that me or the missus can’t work cos we’re bofe on disability cos we’re recovering mef addicts or that we ended up trashing our last house the tight-arse Gov’ent gave us then blowing it up as well cos nah, we got as much right to get into our own home as the next family cos this is New Zealand, everyone deserves their own home eh’.

The main issue with our Prime Minister’s decision to lower the number of immigrants permitted to work in New Zealand is that many of the nation’s best workers in fact are migrant workers; to say that those ‘immigrants are stealing Kiwi jobs’ is an entirely ignorant statement and is at the very best a partial truth…

Rather than worrying about cutting back on immigration the New Zealand Government might be better positioned focusing on the aspect of dealing with/culling out the number of born-and-bred Kiwi folk who really provide nothing for, but who are more than happy to take from, their country; a fine example of whom are the number of ‘homeless’ Auckland people/families who – on account of the shortage/expense of homes in the area coupled with an ostensible shortage of brainpower/financial nous suffered by these same folk in the same area also the inability to take responsibility for or indeed to plan/organise/manage/sort out/show some Goddamn foresight in their own lives – have been stuffed into motels at over $150 per night (well over $1000 per week) at the Government’s/taxpayers’ expense then as though their wellbeing is everybody else’s responsibility and is in no way their own, the majority of these people are still complaining that they’ve ‘been forgotten by the system’ or, more confounding still, are ‘not being looked after’.

…The majority of immigrants attempting to make a home in New Zealand seem content to occupy the positions of employment that, so often, our so called ‘typical Kiwis’ either lack the ability, the dedication or simply the desire to fill…

A reprobate group of Northland teens were recently filmed attempting to kick in the glass door of a liquor store; these thugs were later filmed giving supposed insight into their actions, claiming: “Oh we gotta do it eh, cos there’s no other way to get stuff round ‘ere … Cos there’s no jobs out there eh … Oh yeah like none of us got jobs eh, cos there’s no jobs … So come on Government, create some more jobs and we won’t do the crime eh…”

…The owner of a Northland trucking firm, Stan Semenoff Transport, recently appeared on the News, albeit dejectedly, maintaining that on account of recent migrant restrictions he was suffering a shortage in workers meaning that almost a quarter of his trucks were sitting, driverless, in his yard; Northland fruit pickers have also been in demand this year as it appears the leisurely task of picking fruit for little more than the minimum wage, but significantly more than the dole, is a job that most out-of-work Kiwis feel is beneath them…

These new migration restrictions have seen the implementation of a ‘projected income to duration of visa ratio’, meaning that the greater the wage an immigrant is forecast to earn, or indeed the higher the skill level they currently possess, the longer their New Zealand working visa may extend.

…A truck driver’s wage isn’t terribly impressive and nor are the formal qualifications required to fill that position; these factors disqualify most truck driving migrants from long-term working visas as heavy haul drivers, yet as Mr Semenoff explained, “…while the jobs are definitely there, it does take a special sort of person to handle a big rig…”…

Prime Minister Bill English once in the past found himself in an uncomfortable situation as he – as then Deputy PM – was quoted making the remark: “A lot of young Kiwis who are available for work are pretty damn hopeless.” – this comment was inspired by the revelation that many youthful New Zealand jobseekers were finding it difficult to pass a company’s standard drugs test then of those who did, many of them lacked the dedication to turn up on time – if at all – for their first day on the job.

…Among New Zealand dairy farms Filipinos make up a large portion of the workforce and are by all accounts superb workers; Chinese and Japanese immigrants oversee a large portion of New Zealand’s takeaway outlets while Indian folk operate the majority of New Zealand dairies then are still somehow free to drive many of our taxis, yet still there are vacancies in New Zealand’s employment market…

In order to hold down employment a person must want to do so – it is so very easy for an out-of-work youth to claim ‘there are no jobs’ or ‘migrants are taking all the jobs’ simply because these are the fashionable statements among today’s jobless yet – if somebody genuinely wants to work they will.

…As a stoic National supporter it pains me to see the Government doing something so patently short-sighted and worse still, so clearly pandering to the nation’s alarmingly high percentage of malcontents; that said if the ‘malcontents’ are indeed comprising the majority (as one would be forgiven for believing they do in New Zealand), what with election season approaching…

From construction labourers to farm workers, from supermarket workers to fast-food vendors, there has never been and likely there never will be a shortage of rudimentary employment possibilities in New Zealand.

…Migrant workers have for generations been filling the gaps in New Zealand’s job market generally left vacant by those positions that our beloved ‘typical Kiwis’ simply, don’t want to do.

This country needs migrants for without them our nation of malcontents, rather than languishing on a Government-funded lifestyle while complaining about the trans-Tasman wage-gap, might be forced to work jobs they feel are beneath them thus would soon become a whole lot more mal-contented.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Minnie Mom-Wage

Photography by Mel Can-Tent

 

 

 

 

Tim Walker’s Karma

All this negativity surrounding New Zealand’s supposedly ‘polluted rivers’, ‘unclean streams’ and ‘unswimmable waterways’ seems to have pissed off the freshwater gods.

The diluvium that recently swamped Edgecumbe residents in New Zealand’s northern dairying hub, Bay of Plenty, soon after making landfall mercifully moved offshore; if only to allow the next cyclone an unobstructed run at the area.

I can almost imagine the conversation from upstairs: “Ungrateful mortals still seem to think the water’s not clean enough in New Zealand – I say, have they been to China? We’re hardly ever seen there anymore and they don’t seem to mind.”

“Yes, I must concur, in this day and age, it’s unbelievable, it really is.”

“Interesting, yes, New Zealand, such a puny slice of land, so very pervious to onslaughts of most any kind … Hmm, and despite our recent, prolonged absence from the east of their southern island, they’re still not complaining much there, are they?”

“No but then, those one’s never seem to complain about much of anything at all, in fact the only complaining we hear in regard to that portion of the country, is usually done by citizens at the other end of the country, on their behalf.”

“What, do those mortals at the southern end have difficulty articulating?”

“I don’t believe so, they just appear more content and indeed, less given to whinging than their northern counterparts.”

“Hmm, doesn’t make a lot of sense now, does it?”

“No it doesn’t, and what’s more, it’s usually the same groups of malcontents, too, doing the complaining.”

“Hmm, so what do you propose we do then, about this, apparent, plight of theirs?”

“Their supposed lack of freshwater..?”

“Quite, their supposed lack of it.”

“Well, we could always give them more autumn rainfall..?”

More autumn rainfall – do you not think northern New Zealanders receive sufficient precipitation as it is?”

“Certainly, yes, I do, and they do, but if they are still unhappy with their freshwater quota, well, what else can we do?”

“I’ll tell you what else we can’t do, and that’s that we can scarcely allow them to go on grumbling about such a potentially serious issue – why they could end up giving us and our entire weather-god cohort a bad name in New Zealand, and we couldn’t have that now, could we?”

“You are correct, we could not have that.”

“However, at the same time we do need to teach these ungrateful mortals a lesson – we can hardly afford to have them thinking that whenever their situations become dire, they can simply start complaining and all their worries will soon be over, now, can we?”

“Again, you are correct, we cannot have that.”

“So, what do you propose we do?”

“Well, I suppose, we could unleash a second biblical flood upon them..?”

“True, drastic but true, although how would we isolate such a large storm so as to not punish those mortals in the lower half of the land? They after all, have done nothing to anger the gods and indeed, those ones seldom do.”

“I think, perhaps, a smaller flood then – big enough to devastate, but small enough to be contained by just one realm.”

“Even still, we must consider the errors encountered last time – the deluge cannot remain exclusive to just one area while leaving others completely untouched or, obviously, these modern mortals will realise something untoward is upon them – they will sense the divine influence.”

“Yes, I do agree … In this case I feel we must concentrate our rainfall over the problem area, while still soaking the rest of the nation in the process, but of course not to the same extent.”

“Hmm, yes, that might work … What are your thoughts on successive weather systems?”

“You mean, like, two in a row?”

“In succession, yes.”

“I suppose, if it was keeping within the guidelines of feasibility, it could be done.”

“Yes, well, I think you are forgetting that in this modern time – with what those idiot mortals like to refer to as ‘climate change’, even though the phrase they really ought to be considering is ‘evolving planetary weather cycles’ – regarding weather phenomenon, most anything is feasible.”

“Yes and incidentally, those ‘idiot mortals’ to whom you just referred, with their ‘climate change will destroy the world’ and ‘save the people from themselves’ mentality, are the very same bunch of idiot mortals who are unhappy with our recent allocation of fresh, clean and – you’ll like this word – ‘swimmable’ water.”

“Hmm, that is upsetting, but like I said, regarding the weather phenomenon pertaining to the projected devastation of this portion of northern New Zealand, you need not be concerned about ‘feasibility’ – in this modern era on planet earth, weather gods now have free reign, indeed, anything goes.”

“You do make a valid point.”

“Shall we say successive cyclones then?”

“I suppose that would work – but what will we call them?”

“Hmm, I think we should name the first after a woman.”

“You always name them after a woman, let’s name them after a man for a change..?”

“No, I decree the first, and the most devastating, shall be named Debbie, after the most tempestuous harridan I ever knew … You may name the other whatever you wish.”

“The second is to be not so powerful, is that correct?”

“At this point it seems only fair.”

“I shall name mine, Cook, then.”

“I thought you wanted a man’s name..?”

“’Cook’ can be a man’s name.”

“’Cook’ can also be a chef’s name.”

“Irrespective, I feel that the name ‘Cook’ is well suited to my, as you have it, lesser powered storm.”

“Or, in the spirit of fairness, we make both equally devastating..?”

“Man alive, how much do you dislike these mortals?”

“No, you’re right, but there still must be two – make sure the cyclones are successive.”

“As you wish – the first devastating and the second, not so much..?”

“Well, that will ultimately depend on how the mortals react to the event in question, in that, after the first – Debbie – they may be unprepared for a subsequent deluge.”

“I suppose, but, if you will permit, I would still like to instil in mine – Cook – a reasonable amount of destructive force, if only to measure those northerners’ resilience..?”

“As you wish.”

“Shall we put this ‘tutorial’ underway then?”

“Let’s, although, and this is perhaps the most important aspect, however violent the nature of the individual weather systems, it is imperative that the total ferocity of both storms is large enough to ensure that once the water has receded, leaving lakes, ponds and reservoirs flushed, rivers rerouted et cetera, to ensure there can be no more mention of ‘unclean waterways’.”

“Agreed … Let it be so.”

“Indeed … LET IT BE SO.”

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Suggy Gummies

Photography by Wea Tarse

Tim Walker’s Idioms

Apparently an idiom is a ‘word or group of words that take on a new meaning when used in a different way to their usual sense’, which just sounds complicated.

‘Raining cats and dogs’, at the tender age of 17 hoping to learn once and for all the meaning of the word ‘idiom’, upon looking it up in the family dictionary, reading the explanation but drawing a blank, was the example given…

Idioms are perhaps better recognised as those hackneyed or clichéd words or phrases, often involving metaphor, hyperbole or other parts of speech that don’t strictly remain true to a word’s literal meaning, but which bring to the party a particular, often light-hearted and usually more memorable meaning.

…I would have put money on the fact that the idiom in this case was the word ‘raining’, but then the whole ‘cats and dogs’ thing really didn’t sit right with me either; 17-year-old me felt that he was pretty clued up when it came to recognising metaphors though – so did it turn out that ‘idiom’ was really just a fancy way of saying ‘metaphor’? …

Idioms can be described furthermore as the inane and largely meaningless, daft little quips, two-bit remarks, or silly additions/tags/add-ons at the ends of sentences that really offer nothing extra but which pompous folk are sometimes heard to utter in the belief that their words make them appear clever in the opinions of their audience, while in reality, as we all know – because it honestly doesn’t take a brain surgeon to work it out – unnecessary words are a good way to lose your readers’ interest.

…’Raining cats and dogs’, in my 17-year-old-opinion, was a cheesy saying that old people used to use when it was pissing down outside, which was all well and good but I still couldn’t for the life of me work out which word in that sentence was actually the idiom…

To a nervous orator speaking off the cuff, idioms are a Godsend – prefabricated statements that slot effortlessly into speech and which are easily recognisable to an audience – yet there is a major issue to be taken with idioms: they’ve lost their way.

…I recall glancing hopelessly between the definition presented to me and the example, thinking, ‘Yes, but what does it mean?’ All I (thought I) knew was that somewhere within the saying ‘raining cats and dogs’ there was an idiom, but God only knew where…

Idioms are generally figurative/metaphoric by nature (meaning that when someone says ‘literally’ then proceeds with an idiom, someone else might well shake their head despairingly), for example (‘literally’) ‘that car must have been going a million miles an hour’, and are renowned also for being hyperbolic (refer again to the above bracketed segment), for example ‘that car couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding’ (despite earlier being spotted travelling at somewhere close to a million miles an hour).

…A little way down the track it dawned on me, ‘raining cats and dogs’ was the idiom; therefore, I concluded, an idiom was basically the same as what I’d been referring to for years as ‘an adage’, ‘a cliché’, ‘a proverb’ or, to a lesser extent, ‘a saying’, and, if I’m honest, regarding the revelation I mean, the whole thing was a bit of a let down.

No question, idioms are out of control. Some of the world’s more modern idioms are just so ridiculously figurative that they do indeed take some figuring out, and even then they sometimes make no sense at all.

All at once it seemed that the world population started to notice they’d been putting on large amounts of body-fat; this was around the same time that Political Correctness had come into vogue though, so instead of implementing logical (but potentially inflammatory) labels to describe these corpulent characters, such as ‘big’, ‘large’ or ‘oversized’, as a global populous we developed the pleasantly inoffensive, also decidedly ambiguous, compound idiom ‘overweight’.

Shooting into fashion almost immediately after, or perhaps as a result, was the ‘dieting’ phenomenon; better yet were the variants of these poor life choices – ‘the nut diet’, ‘the vegan diet’, ‘the Atkins diet’, ‘the kiwifruit diet’, ‘the lemon-detox diet’, ‘the seafood (also the beloved adaptation, the ‘see-food’) diet’, ‘the low-carb diet’, ‘the high-protein diet’, ‘the gluten-free diet’, ‘the Paleo diet’ and so forth, and often around again – from which another single/compound/duel-word idiom was borne, ‘weight-loss’; then to go with this newly coined idiom, of course, was the counterpart – even though if they’d just done some exercise they could have eaten practically whatever they’d wanted and there would have been no unexpected – ‘weight-gain’.

The exception to the above convoluted formula is when throughout this (hypothetical) exercise regime a dieter builds significant muscle – because that also surely weighs – but apparently this ‘over/weight-loss/gain’ thing doesn’t actually refer to weight at all but to body-fat – which surely weighs as well – yet if somebody is visibly larger than they were last time they were seen, they are not said to have ‘grown’, ‘swelled’ or ‘upsized’ as one might expect, but to have ‘gained weight’, and if another is maintaining a steady weight on the scales but is becoming flabby to the eye, they might also consider they are ‘gaining weight’; but then if someone reduces their actual weight but doesn’t consider they’ve downsized at all, technically, in their opinion, apparently, that’s not ‘losing weight’, either.

I did give ample warning that these idioms could be complicated but please, bear with me, I have examples for Africa.

Speaking of international countries – also ridiculous state-of-the-art idioms – it turns out that in order to fill the void in New Zealand’s construction sector, we are having to bring in tradies from abroad, while also encouraging more people to undertake training to become tradies…

This sounds logical – tradies of course being tradespeople, such as plumbers, electricians, carpet-layers, mechanics, carpenters, bricklayers, greens-keepers, engineers, hairdressers, butchers, bakers and cabinetmakers – indeed more tradies sounds like just what New Zealand needs at the minute.

…Imagine my confusion to hear on the News the other night, backed by footage of a team of carpenters busy at work, that a ‘number of high school leavers were keen to be starting their apprenticeships as tradies’, implying that ‘tradie’ is now a position all of its own and perhaps more worryingly, a young person with no skills can start their career as a tradie…

I recall during my apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic, I had a boss who was recognised as a ‘qualified tradesman’; I know furthermore how every apprentice aspired to earn that recognition as a ‘qualified tradesperson’ in their respective industry – bricklaying, plumbing, engineering etc – where we could then refer to ourselves as ‘tradespeople’ or, I guess, as fashion seems to be dictating, ‘tradies’.

…Yeah, turns out that somewhere amid the confusion of the rebuilding of Christchurch, the term ‘tradies’ became the universal reference – idiom – for ‘carpenters’ or, as I believe they like to be known among their cohort and around the traps, ‘builders’.

For the record those of you who wish me to stop speaking might like to tell me to ‘shut up’, of course forgetting that I can be equally, if not more annoying with my lips sealed as with my mouth agape; why then would someone seeking the cessation of speaking use such a cryptic command as ‘shut up’, when they could be straight to the point with ‘silence/be silent’, ‘quiet/be quiet’, or simply, ‘hush’?

Maybe the most infuriating form of idiom though is spoken through a ‘pleonasm’ – a term which essentially translates to ‘unnecessary words’, about which we spoke previously before but in a disparately different context – meaning that when the good Samaritan can see with his eyes that he must retreat to go back to transport and deliver the still-living breathing tuna fish to the safe haven then revert back again to solely one of his various different types of pre-existing psychological mindsets before stopping in to visit his old grandmother by 4 p.m. that afternoon while the sun still shines brightly up in the sky, he could well be considered the embodiment of ‘pleonasm’ and as such, be outcast for the rest of his idiomatic life.

On that note, please pardon me while I tuck in my shirt for it is hanging out; also hanging out were a bunch of mates rocking it at the beach while lapping up the sun but whom, incidentally, weren’t even wearing shirts, if you get my drift.

Tell you what though, if all that exposure to the UV Index ended up giving those young bucks the Big C, well, their lives could soon be hanging by a thread, but, ah well, can’t win ‘em all you know, I suppose, them’s the breaks, I mean, if I’m honest, you can’t control fate so, I don’t know, you know, to be fair, literally, it is what it is, done and dusted, stick a fork in me I’m done and whatnot, so, let’s face it, like, to be honest, I mean, to be fair, what are you gonna do you know – know what I mean?

Typical of the way the cookie crumbles, as a child I was blessed with a nervous bladder; unwanted urination in this capacity was usually referred to as ‘an accident’…

‘An accident’ nowadays of course, is a traffic incident but they don’t call it that, do they? They being the Police Force, the media, and the population in general; no, they don’t even have the decency to call it the infinitely more logical title of ‘an incident’, they just go on blindly calling it ‘an accident’, as though it was unavoidable and nobody involved had any choice in the matter, simply because it was accidental.

…Understandably then when I heard on the News last night that an old lady had ‘had an accident just one hundred metres from her home’, every shred of my empathy went out to her; I felt I knew exactly what she must have been going through – I have always found it frustrating how the urge to urinate seems to compound the closer you know you are to a toilet…

One has to assume that, as they are unintentional the majority of traffic incidents are mistaken happenings, or mishaps, thus not the intention of anyone on the road at the time, but to have ‘an accident’ just sounds so very smelly and, in fairness it doesn’t really do justice to the severity of the situation, as I am confident would be done by the term ‘incident’, ‘mishap’, ‘smash’ or just plain old ‘crash’.

…So imagine my shock to hear the poor old biddy had also caused a car crash.

Pee in your knickers and your Vitz in a fence, what a day.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Vic U Oss

Photography by Ed A Umb

Tim Walker’s Thug V

What is so lacking in humanity among New Zealand families that we have groups of children running wild in city streets; terrorising, burglarising, traumatising and pulverising local business owners?

Is the above phenomenon still just an audacious ploy for teenagers seeking the rush of wrongdoing, along with maybe a few packs of cigarettes and a couple of extra dollars in their pockets?

Is it also a fact that the aforementioned criminal act bears ramifications so very miniscule that when caught, the punishment faced by these young perpetrators is still likely to be outweighed by the meagre gains from the undertaking of this offence?

So when did New Zealand parents decide that this generation of millennial child ought to be brought up as the most disrespectful, impudent, apathetic, insensitive, discourteous, impolite, unhappy, incorrigible, unethical, insolent, uncontrollable, impertinent, undisciplined, intolerable, essentially the most recalcitrant generation to date?

Oh I’m sorry, had you not decided that?

Then why have you allowed it to be so?

Why, as the parents of these reprobates, have you neglected your most basic of parenting duties, thereby enabling your offspring to become the most loathsome, the most vulgar, the most reviled and abhorrent of juvenile thugs?

Why have you allowed your beautiful progeny to mix with a grotesque clique of cretinous dropkicks, to engage in the most despicable of crimes and often to demonstrate a level of brutality that would cause even the soulless facade of a psychopath to cringe?

If your answer is along the lines of – ‘Oh but I had no idea raising kids would be so much work…’, ‘It’s not my fault, it’s society…’, ‘Yes but with outside influences today I just can’t control them anymore…’, ‘It’s not my fault, it’s the Internet’, or the classic, ‘Bringing up kids wasn’t supposed to be this hard…’ – then why the bloody hell did you have children at all?

Can you not see that there are so many parents in New Zealand today who, like you, are totally unequipped to deal with the rigours, the unspoken and unsigned but certainly the implied contracts into which two people enter on the mere conception of a child?

Does it not bother you that this generation of youthful thugs which you and others like you are breeding, is leaving a permanent smirch, an immovable tarnish on the once peaceful, also progressively multicultural, landscape that is New Zealand?

Do you not find this inhumane treatment of – particularly Indian – dairy owners, at the hands of your children, unforgivable?

Do you not agree that to beat and to break a man beyond recognition then to leave him to die on the floor of his own shop – often after he has migrated to New Zealand seeking a better life for his family and where he has then been working long, arduous hours just to turn sufficient profit so that his children can experience the bountiful liberties offered by a first-world education system – is utterly reprehensible, unconscionable, and just a little ironic?

Do you agree furthermore that the sentences passed down by courtroom judges to minors in these cases, are so Goddamned feeble that they border on laughable?

Can’t you see that when your children attack a hardworking Indian dairy owner and leave him incapacitated, how he then – probably for the first time since bringing his family to New Zealand – must apply for workers’ compensation thus go from playing a vital role in our workforce, where his business will have been paying the taxes from which – either through DPB or basic dole payments – after an adolescence spent avoiding school your children likely plan to benefit, to being Government funded himself meaning that the actions of your children now become damaging to the dairy owner, to New Zealand society, and to themselves?

Do you understand though that because there is such little deterrent – in fact there is almost encouragement – for minors to commit this variety of crime, it’s your children who are being convinced to do it given that the repercussions, upon these minors’ inevitable indictment, are so very inconsequential?

Do you think that we, as New Zealand citizens, should be forced to endure your children’s continued spate of deplorable behaviour just because you, as parents, are so abjectly failing in your duties?

Do you think that’s fair?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Ria Kelsey Trunt

Photography by Joo V Nihal