Monthly Archives: November 2015

Tim Walker’s Theory XVIII

This week’s theory pertains to the horrendous double-standard that is New Zealand pronunciation.

The most frustrating thing about this issue is that we (the culprits) often don’t even seem aware that we’re (they’re) doing it.

As New Zealanders it is no secret that we’ve been making a concerted effort in recent years to embrace all things Maori culture; particularly the language and of course, correct pronunciation of this aforementioned tongue.

The problem is that White folk (some people like to use the term ‘Pakeha’ but why would I, I’m not Maori), typically, struggle to pronounce the phonetics comprising these Maori words – the majority of which I guarantee were constructed by White folk anyway given that most of today’s Maori words are for things that weren’t even in existence in or around 1840.

My first and perhaps most commonly heard example of the lacking ability of the White tongue to properly enunciate Brown words is, Kauri. To perceive the word through a White eye it looks pretty clear: Cow-ree; apparently that’s wrong though. According to other, more distinguished White tongues it’s actually Co-dee. The thing is though when ‘Co-dee’ is translated by a Brown tongue it becomes Co-rree – which is actually pretty close to my first stab, but not actually the point of this exercise.

This merely exemplifies the ridiculous lengths to which White folk are going to ensure they ‘respect’ Maori culture; but I ask you, as much as we like to try and show respect for our own pseudo-indigenous race, and as much as we expect all other nations to do the very same, what about our treatment of other nations’ indigenous cultures?

To elaborate, White Kiwis spend so much time managing the painstaking pronunciation of Maori words (the Co-dees, the Toe-poors, the Kid-did-dus – New Zealand Wood Pigeon, or Kereru – and the My-dee-hoes – the Christchurch area of Mairehau), yet when it comes to other nations’ culturally significant pronunciations, we seem to put them in our mouths, chew them up then spit them into the gutter.

My first example is sickeningly simple; it’s the nation of Ireland. According to the indigenous Irish language that second letter, the ‘r’ there, is not to be overlooked, thus Ire-land – similar to how it looks I guess – yet in New Zealand, the supposed home of cultural sensitivity, we dribble out the name as if it’s no better than any other Northern Island.

Moving on, what about Glasgow? Prominent Scottish city, pronounced by the natives as Gluuzzgor, yet butchered by the Kiwi tongue – the Co-dee, the Toe-poor, the Kid-did-du and the My-dee-hoe tongue – to resemble something akin to Gliss-go.

My theory therefore which, if I don’t quickly conclude is going to be lost amid a torrent of indignant exasperation and spittle spume as I rapidly read back through what’s just been written, is that as proud New Zealanders, much as we might like to think we are politically perfect, culturally composed and of course, flawless in every other way imaginable, we are in fact, perhaps unwittingly or maybe entirely wittingly, committing the greatest offence known to me; the offence of hypocrisy.

Pull your head in, New Zealand, don’t be a double-standard.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Pru Nancy/A Shinn

Photography by Trav S Ty

 

 

 

Tim Walker’s Warfare

Three Mongrel Mob members were pulled from a submerged car at the bottom of a gorge recently, following what Hawke’s Bay Police are calling, “a suspicious incident”.

The three men were on their way to a 50th Anniversary gang celebration, where members were said to have spent the day drinking beer, visiting cemeteries, and taking part in further festivities.

The car in question was travelling a road between Wairoa and Napier, apparently passing through ‘known Black Power territory’, adding to Police suspicions…

Seemingly the cost of keeping their bikes road-legal had become too much for these supposed motorcycle enthusiasts, who would ordinarily have never been seen dead in a Japanese car.

…This is a curious revelation, particularly after TV Three’s Samantha Hayes shot an expose` for her Third Degree current affairs show in which these gang members were not only heard to be denouncing violence and drug use, they were talking implicitly about a future of peace and harmony for their families, among these rival gangs.

The show was clearly a put-on in what I perceived as an ignorant attempt to throw authorities off their illicit trails or even, to draw their rivals into thinking they had become weak.

As I see it gang membership/rivalry/warfare in New Zealand is a puerile exercise: these men pick fights with one another, hold grudges then carry out vendettas against those who have wronged them – following the death of Headhunters prospect, Conor Morris, his gang buddies all swore vengeance on the man who had killed him – this despite no one else in New Zealand having the right to throw down vendettas, and in fact if we did we’d likely be locked up for making idle threats; no, while we regular folk have to be satisfied that the New Zealand judicial system will prevail, not so if you’re a gang member…

Gangs in New Zealand run by a different set of rules and generally, people seem to be accepting of that; even affording the cretins sympathy when their members are killed for reasons which have only ever come about due to the gang’s unholy presence.

…If you’re a gang member in New Zealand people will fear and respect you, even though you’re a gutless piece of irreverent scum; if you’re a gang member in New Zealand you don’t need to contribute to the nation as such, all you have to do is take what you want from it and expect other good, hard-working people to take up your slack.

Motorcycle clubs these gangs are not; murderous criminals they most assuredly are, and now there’s three fewer.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Moe Sykill/N Suzi-Ast

Photography by Mhur Drus Krumnal

 

Tim Walker’s Brown II

According to sources Len Brown will not be standing in the upcoming Auckland Super City mayoral election.

According to Brown himself the decision to abstain from the next election relates in no way to his past indulging of adulterous indiscretion/s which as we should all recall, came perilously close to ensuring that he didn’t even carry out a second term…

Seemingly the stigma that Brown singlehandedly hoisted and carried throughout that second mayoral election in 2013 was a great deal less cumbersome than New Zealand media tried to have us believe.

…As it transpired however Auckland voters are quite a bit more discerning than – certainly I but I guess – most people gave them credit for; indeed basing an electoral vote on mayoral rather than extracurricular performance produced an outcome that few saw coming.

Against many odds Mayor Len Brown has officiated over Auckland Super City for two terms; alas there will be no third.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Baba Bevan

Photography by Neo Moore-Perks

Tim Walker’s Little

Prime Minister John Key’s decision to push through a deal with the Trans Pacific Partnership has caused speculation among those who don’t entirely understand the deal and of course, outrage for those who understand none of it yet think they do.

Our population can be small-minded like that; here is a chance to ensure New Zealand’s produce sector is given every opportunity to flourish, as well as ensuring the financial prosperity of the nation as a whole, and what do our resident team of ‘contrarians against change, particularly-if-it-involves-the-possibility-of-fiscal-betterment-for-anyone-at-all, activists’ do?

They like to grab at a very little part of the information on whatever topic it is currently fashionable to deride then, without so much as even bothering to try and gain full comprehension of the facts or to perhaps come forward and pose a few reasonable questions, they throw together a number of unrealistic reasons that this prospect will be damaging to New Zealand and – let’s be fair – the environment therein then waste an innumerable amount of money and resources staging protest after protest; feverishly, irrationally lobbying against a cause which, I think deep down they know is worthwhile and know furthermore, they will never stop…

Anyway, the TPP has been a thing for a while now. Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Little has been seen at the centre of many interviews regarding just this Agreement.

…Ultimately I think this group of recurring contrarians just like to encumber national progress, also to feel as though they have had an influencing hand in big decisions.

Mr Little’s problem as I see it is that now the TPP has gone ahead and has already been shown to unequivocally be of future benefit to the nation, he can’t rightly say he disagrees with it for fear of being labelled illogical or, in my opinion, stupid, but of course nor can he say he is in agreement because that would, heaven forbid, have him siding with National.

It’s a dilly of a pickle alright and that right there, that is why I chose never to become leader of a major political party.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Polly Utti Kell

Photography by  Con Tray Dashen

Tim Walker’s Friday II

In my ongoing quest to be the finest version of me that I can be, I have always put a great deal of pressure on myself.

According to many I put too much pressure on myself; according to others just enough to be considered adequate.

Here’s the thing about that: as much pressure as I do apply; much as I am never satisfied with my own efforts unless the results reach towards the upper echelons of greatness, and as much as I am happy to do that, fair to say it is probably killing me before my time.

It would’ve been fine, I mean I’m sure I would have been free to exert as much load on my tenuous frame and eccentric mind as I wished had I reached the age of 18 as a fit, healthy and able bodied young man; alas odds of that nature over the years have seldom gone my way.

Here I now sit as a 32-year-old, middle-aged, permanently brain-damaged, increasingly idiosyncratic man whose mind – aside from those first couple of hours in the morning, also throughout and for a few hours after exercise – constantly feels about as congested as it would under the influence of a ripping great head-cold.

Suffice to say following the early morning flourish along with the odd burst during the course, much of the day is spent with eyes closed simply, convalescing which when you think about it, is pretty lame.

I do often wonder, had things turned out differently how my ability to maintain would be currently situated; I wonder, while on account of an overactive thyroid/adrenal gland my levels of physical energy are generally nearing overflow, if my mental energy would have come with something close to the same description or if, perhaps by comparison I was always destined to have an insipid mind..?

I’m just glad it’s Friday.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Min Till Vaggar

Photography by N Scippid-Mend

Tim Walker’s Cairns

After an onslaught of damning evidence against him the Chris Cairns defence team has finally called its first, and only, witness.

It was Chris Cairns himself, which must have been a bit worrying…

Mr Cairns is now, obviously under oath, being forced to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about whether he lied in the past, thus perjured himself, in the ultimate question of deception, regarding the match-fixing in which so many have claimed he was indeed complicit.

…Yet some who testified against Chris Cairns in this ongoing perjury trial are already implicated in the cargo net of deceit making their veracity, in my opinion, questionable; if movies have taught me anything it’s that a man with little to lose can be made to say almost anything against anyone.

This is undoubtedly the Defence’s angle and you know, I think they’re right. If Cairns continues to outright deny any association with match-fixing, then hearsay and conjecture notwithstanding, the Prosecution can’t prove a damn thing against him.

On the topic of outright guilty denial one just needs look at the likes of Lance Armstrong, or Oscar Pistorious, and see how well they’re doing.

Yeah, that’s it Chris: you’re already well past the point of no return so just, deny, deny, deny, you filthy rotten liar.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Noah Ria Torn

Photography by Prack Tussed Lier

Tim Walker’s Theory XVII

Amazing how critical judgement, in 21st century New Zealand at least, seems to relate less to whatever shortcoming for which the judgement is being made and more, to the background or current social positioning of the person being judged.

This week’s theory therefore, pertains to the fact that this typically, guilty-until-proven-innocent nation of ours, tends to base its assessments of our peers on reputation of character, rather than sincerity of soul.

The aforementioned popularity contest, as I see it is a ridiculous and totally erroneous way of gauging a person’s genuine goodness or indeed, their likeability, but is likely the reason that so much irrational and unjust condemnation exists within New Zealand…

It ought to be noted, for the record, I am no different. Like most Generation Xers (although technically I’m three years short – 1960 to ’80 – my usual cohort was quintessentially Gen X) that’s how I was raised, schooled and ultimately, how I was taught to be. In recent years though, given how much unfair judgements and particularly, double-standards have irked me then upon realising that in fact I am little better than those people I’d grown to detest, I have endeavoured to make some amendments regarding the way I perceive the world and its people therein.

…Schoolyard judgement is one thing; cruel as it can be for some while other ostensibly similar parties are blindly revered based solely on their living situations or who their parents are, from experience, and many will surely disagree, is largely a character-building experience and in most cases I think not entirely detrimental.

It’s in later life when those idiot prepubescents are supposed to have developed some level of maturity but still carry on as though the more booze they can sink at the pub while raving about how much more of their lives they intend to waste before doing something productive then ejaculating further torrents of verbal bullshit about nothing in particular and obviously the more slovenly they can look while doing this the more respected they will be among their peers…

Just to be clear, male orientated as the above ordeal might sound, this example does definitely include women.

…These are the kinds of small-minded Generation Xers who, I believe are, perhaps partially maybe wholly, responsible for leading the world, or at least the nation, down its shadowy path of unfair judgement, double standard and essentially, negativity.

I mentioned it in a past post – one of the Maturity pieces I think – ‘…without self assessment there is no way a person can hope to improve themselves.’

This 21st century New Zealand, this 21st century world, I think, I believe, I hypothesize, has become so highly critical of one another based on factors that often cannot be shifted that given time, should we neglect to amend our ways, my theory states that New Zealand’s –  that planet Earth’s – people as a whole will become a very bitter people indeed.

Take a step back and look at how we’re treating each other.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Jen X/ Poppy L A Shinn

Photography by Judge Mint L Whirl

Tim Walker’s Rag

I cannot work out what such a large percentage of New Zealanders have against current All Black, Sonny Bill Williams.

Far as I can see the guy is an absolute paragon of physicality and ultimately, is one hell of a nice guy…

I understand that many consider the proud way he carries himself or the strong North Island dialect with which he articulates himself to be a show of conceit, even arrogance; I understand furthermore that many slow, lazy, overweight, under-inspired, undisciplined, undedicated and indeed slothful Kiwis find Mr Williams’ boundless enthusiasm for maintaining excellence, basically, invidious.

…I truly believe that any New Zealand citizen – and there are many – who takes delight in ragging on Sonny Bill Williams, does so shamefully and, there is no other explanation for it, out of resentment.

Mr Williams was called into Australia’s NRL as a teenager – a feat which not just the typical Kiwi kid can achieve. From there, where most other NRL stars were out drinking to excess, causing controversy and making headlines for reasons that would only bring shame to their parents, Sonny Bill had already abstained from alcohol along with any other kind of drug and, adhering to his rigorous diet to ensure optimum function and body development, from that young age had already proved that he possessed more maturity and basic sense than half the NRL players combined.

The fact that…

To me who remembers Sonny Bill Williams’ entry to the NRL, similar to Benji Marshall, when I was about 30 it felt like he must’ve already been in the competition 20 years and would have been well into his 30s, even though –

…A shade over ten years into his Rugby League career he decided he wanted a change – a challenge – should scarcely be considered anything out of the ordinary; in fact most people are beginning to tire of their career at the ten year stage, so in Mr Williams’ case what does he do?

Well, instead of going off the rails; instead of becoming alcoholic or ruining his life and career in some other way, simply, he switches codes.

Just why that pissed people off the way it did is again beyond me, although I can only assume it relates to my earlier reasoning with that ‘in’ word which some of you will probably want to check on; one can imagine then how his fleeting attempt at establishing a boxing career went down among the austere pit of judgement that is the New Zealand public…

In fairness though Sonny Bill Williams is well over six feet tall so, well, as poppies go, you know.

…So he wasn’t immediately a world class boxer, shit he still showed more balls than most of you pussies would.

I like Sonny Bill Williams. I always have. I always thought he was a genuinely good man and it pissed me off the way everyone seemed to rag on him, saying things like, “Oh, he’s so full of himself, like, the way he does his hair and that…” or, “Who calls themselves ‘Sonny Bill’ anyway?” or, “Oh yeah, he’s got it so easy, look at the way he struts around like he’s all that…” or even, “Oh nah, I can’t stand guys like that, oh yeah, he’s just one of those guys who just has everything fall in their laps”…

Bullshit. That man has worked hard for everything he has and to be everything that he currently is. He is a marvellous role-model for our younger generation and I would sure as hell rather my primary-school-age nephews were emulating Sonny Bill Williams than some of the other fat, lazy, drug-addled celebrities out there.

Lay off him, the man is a god.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Watty Mann

Photography by Jella Smuch

 

 

Tim Walker’s Oil

Select groups seem still to be invested in the fallacy that ingesting fats makes a person fat.

Seems to me about as preposterous as deciding that I’m going to take up chewing horse-tails, based on the supposition that ingesting animal hair will cause my own hairline to grow back.

That was the logic that the medical profession used to push – that animal fats and by implication all fats are what make human bodies fat – trying to scare us out of enjoying one of the most vital and indeed flavourful food groups there is; then all that suddenly changed.

For a long time natural health experts had known that fat was not to be avoided and in fact if anything, it was to be celebrated but of course, few people in the medical profession ever pay much attention to natural health – they’d much rather fix an issue with harsh manmade drugs causing all manner of side effect thereby aggravating and often prolonging the issue, than to simply ask nature for a solution – rendering exposure of this truth somewhat of a non-event.

Then finally the medical profession caught up – kind of. Short of admitting they were wrong in their outright vilification of fats, they conceded that some fats were OK. Saturated fats – animal fats and the like – according to these guys were still to be condemned on account of their purported connection with cholesterol but natural fats – found in nuts, avocados etc – could be eaten largely without guilt.

In light of this the contemptible party ceased being fat, which in fact is easily metabolised by the body, and instead became sugar which, as natural health practitioners have always known, if not properly metabolised becomes fat under a person’s skin.

Alas the medical profession, in all its wisdom and hefty salaries, were still only halfway to the ultimate truth.

This convenient ignorance was showcased the other night in the form of medical-profession-orientated nutritional advice: “Popular as coconut oil has become among consumers,” one of the aforementioned lab-coats asserted, “what these people fail to understand, is that although coconut is technically a nut, coconut oil contains a high level of saturated fat, and should therefore be avoided … When cooking, don’t use coconut oil, try substituting with Canola, or Vegetable oil…”

Remarkable stuff; these so called professional health experts are unwittingly handing down advice that, as most natural health advocates will be quite aware, is potentially fatal.

Just as those ‘professional health experts’ are only now concluding that processed and smoked meats are potentially cancer causing – knowledge that every naturopath will surely have gleaned as children – I do wonder how long it will take New Zealand’s medical profession to learn that heated oils are also cancerous.

Butter or, yes, coconut oil – which despite the name is not technically an oil at all – would be a much healthier alternative.

As for cholesterol: if you have it you have it if you don’t you don’t, is generally the rule. Cholesterol is an inherited condition essentially, originating from a combination of excess and sloth. Moderate quantities of saturated fats are not to blame, moderate quantities of eggs are definitely not to blame; immoderate quantities of indolence – along with a dysfunctional pancreas – likely has a lot to do with it.

Don’t believe everything your GP tells you and certainly, do not allow New Zealand’s band of blinkered medical ‘geniuses’ to misinform you any more than they already have.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Dr Dufus

Photography by Coco Nartoll Saul-Good