I am very clingy yet am extremely fragile.

I cause frustration to those who contact me.

I am not overly big yet I am very strong.

I am difficult to remove once I have made my presence felt.

I consider it important to have stability around me.

I prefer older locations but really am not fussy.

I contain a feature that strikes fear into the hearts of many.

I am high maintenance yet highly attractive.

I am the gatherer of a hunter-gatherer combo.

I provide a home for a single occupant yet we frequently have company.

I do what I can to ensure those who stop by never leave.

I am one thing yet my name is compound.

I have been called two names yet both end in the description of a lie.

WHAT AM I?

Last week’s Fustigator: Sea Lettuce

As I endure the nor’ west gales that first made their presence known at 6 a.m., I am not surprised to hear the melancholy drone of fire sirens.

The town fire siren was first heard at around 10 but given that the fire truck and tanker have been occupied for practically every minute since then, heroically fighting fires up and down the countryside, just a single blip has been heard from the town’s siren with each new fire alert, coming every hour or two.

It’s a nor’ west day, I recall thinking, that’s the way it goes.

By 5 p.m. the wind is at its most fierce – forecasters promised winds of up to 140 kph but I dunno. Let’s call it 120.

I estimate the wind will die back soon so step outside and start making rectifications: broken branches need tidying, garden archways need straightening, rubbish bins need locating; deck furniture also needs collecting from wherever it has ended up.

I can see a thick haze of smoke in the sky to the east. I am surprised at how thickly widespread the fug appears. I can even smell it which, given the wind direction, makes no sense. I turn and peer westward. Sure enough, the air that way has become hazy also. I can’t help feeling a little unnerved: blazes to the east, blazes to the west; me in the middle. I gaze at the clear north sky for reassurance.

I then hear something which makes me angry to a level that even the irritation of a galeforce nor’ west wind cannot achieve.

In the radio’s 5:30 news broadcast it comes as no surprise that ‘bushfires on the Canterbury Plains’ are leading news; the reasons for the fires however, ‘authorised burn-offs’, make me insane with rage.

Authorised burn-offs..? On a day where galeforce north westerly winds were predicted..? Who would be stupid enough to do anything fire-related on a galeforce nor’ west day? Are you serious? Shit, just plough your bloody stubble back into the ground and be done with it.

No, the farmers responsible for those out-of-control fires ought to be shot – volunteer fire crews from throughout Canterbury were pulled out of their day-jobs to risk their lives and douse your idiocy.

Dickhead.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by A Dick-Ede

Photography by Paul Ureddin

Given that much of our planet’s existing landmass is purported to be thousands of millions of years old while little old New Zealand has only been out of the ocean for hundreds of millions…

The aforementioned information has been sourced – due to an alarming discrepancy thus I would assume a frightening inaccuracy in the facts hence figures offered by perhaps the only source of information that most people seem to recognise these days – not so much through the whirring box of (apparent) knowledge sitting before me and more through the recall of my days as a fourth year student at primary school.

…Also the fact that on account of New Zealand currently rocking some dynamic tectonic plate action while the rest of the world is being/has been largely beaten flat by erosion New Zealand’s mountainous landscape is still rising, in years to come I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the nation of New Zealand comprising not only a far greater acreage, I believe it just might be flaunting the world’s tallest peak.

This week’s Theory therefore pertains to the movement of planet Earth’s tectonic plates and the way they will, with time, undoubtedly further raise New Zealand from the depths of the ocean, holding it aloft atop a great pedestal of dirt and rock – thus by implication sinking or at least lowering the rest of the world with all its safe unmoving land – until New Zealand (also perhaps Chile, Argentina, and some others) will be able to look down on the rest and say, ‘Hah – who’s bigger now?’

It isn’t likely to happen in my lifetime but, you know, something to think about for future generations trying to decide whether to put down roots in New Zealand or Guyana.

Some of those ancient lands around the Middle East and India, which have since been eroded flat, already have perilously low elevation while those not-quite-so-old, mountainous, ancient lands such as South America or the Himalayas, given another few (thousand million) years, I predict, will go the same way; which is to say, into the ocean…

Yes, I realise this theory utterly contradicts many of my other Theories which maintain that Armageddon will befall the planet sometime within the next few hundred years, but this is more of a contingency theory – a prospective, what if it does or, just in case that doesn’t happen, theory.

…As for our partner to the west, Australia, I didn’t like to say it before but, realistically, dude, you were beaten flat a very long time ago.

Do we therefore even need a conclusion?

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Chef Tang-Lands

Photography by B Tan Flit

Olympic athlete Nick Willis is being ‘praised’ for his ‘public confession’ after posting via Facebook his admission of past ‘pornography addiction’.

According to Willis he is currently ‘two and a half years pornography-free’; according to the greater New Zealand public he ought to be celebrated for overcoming such a ‘vicious addiction’…

I’m wondering, when did the act of enjoying pornography to the extent that one ends up spending much longer than one would deem ideal sitting in front of a computer screen with a transfixed expression of vacuous arousal plastered all over one’s face become an addiction?

…According to one such person, Willis should be ‘given a medal’ for coming forward and ‘speaking about’ such a ‘taboo subject’ that ‘everyone does’ but ‘nobody talks about’.

Willis claims that since he has ‘come out’ he would like to be able to ‘help others’ overcome their ‘compelling addictions’, too.

Seriously? Pornography addiction, really? Seems as though this might be one of those things that ‘professionals’ like to slip under that cloak of make believe along with sex addiction – all consuming, mightily enjoyable, socially unacceptable, yet ultimately harmless.

So answer me this: how many busy people – people who get up early and who arrive home late – ever succumbed to your so called bloody pornography addiction? Conversely, how many people with too much time on their hands – those who essentially make their own routines and who can practically take free time as they please – end up suffering from this very issue?

Take away the spare time and suddenly there is no way to continue the addiction.

It’s like I’ve always said: addiction is simply the act of liking, or enjoying something too much; in most cases the only compulsion is the one that you develop in your own mind.

In fairness though, while the novelty long ago wore off for me, I can see how so many people do still like pornography too much.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Nick S Willy

Photography by Dick Ted

I need sunlight to live yet full exposure will soon kill me.

I am pleasant to touch yet unable to feel myself.

I am partial to salt but stay well clear of pepper.

I thrive in the wet yet am often found to be dry.

I often cause injury yet am susceptible to bruising.

I share a colour with nature yet live upon the rocks.

I have a cold circulatory system but I stink when I get hot.

I have the name of a vegetable yet am unpalatable to humans.

I am two words yet the first is a letter and the last can be another few.

I have initials S and L yet Sexy Lady I most certainly am not.

WHAT AM I?

Answer in next week’s edition of Fustigator.

Given the direction this world seems to be heading with its desire for simplicity along all avenues, I simply cannot believe we have yet to adopt a metric system of angles and particularly, metric time.

(I realise I have touched on this topic with a past Metric piece but that was more satirical; this is not.)

This week’s Theory therefore pertains to the certain future implementation of both metric angles, and metric time.

A metric angle system just makes sense – 360 degrees in a circle is as illogical as 1760 yards in a mile, 20 ounces in a UK pint, or 12 pence in a shilling then twenty of those in a pound.

There is no valid reason for a complete circle to comprise 360 degrees and in a time where most units of measurement come with a deca, centi, kilo, or milli prefix, it just makes no sense to go from centimetres and kilograms, into a unit that has utterly no reference to 10s, 100s, or 1000s.

Metric time was a notion that came to me a long while ago: I witnessed my young nephew’s futile attempt at deciphering 2 pointers at 12 points around 360 degrees on his little wrist and asked myself, why are we persevering with this?

When I put this query to somebody else they tried to tell me it had to do with the Moon and planets and all that jazz that nobody really understands, so we can’t rightfully change it…

I thought about that; I realised that in fact I did understand planetary time measurement but still, there was no reason that a day needed to be divided into 12 segments – that arrangement smacks of the nonsensical actions of primitive man to me.

…Realistically the only units of time that are not controlled by humans are days – the time it takes the Earth to complete a full rotation on its axis – months – the time it takes the Moon to orbit the Earth – and years – the time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun.

The time Earth takes to spin one full rotation to be measured in 24 units..? What? Then to put 7 of those days in a week..? Why? Four – sorry – approximately four of those week things to make up an entire Moon-cycle..? Are you serious? Then what about 12 of those Moon-cycles in a…

No, wait, that last one has to be. That’s the way it is. Even man’s fastidious meddling can’t change that.

…Turns out our Moon undergoes 12 full cycles in the time it takes our Earth to orbit our Sun, which might just be the inspiration for 12/24 hours in a day, I don’t know. Anyway we call that a year and it has to be as long as it is because Earth has to rotate 365 times within that period.

I get that, that’s fine, the above information checks out. There is still no need – and as far as I can see no inspiration in the worldly clock – to have 60 minutes comprising those hours or 60 seconds within each of those Goddamn minutes – particularly when in the art of time-keeping we like to break up those 12 hours into 60 minutes into 60 seconds then into…

What? Are you serious? Now you go metric..?

…Bloody milliseconds. That’s right: 10s, 100s, and bloody milliseconds. As though metric’s not good enough when time’s big but once it becomes too small for your unwieldy imperial system to handle – like inches having to become thousands of inches – only then do you adopt metric.

So are we still doing a theory, or what?

Yeah, about that, my impassioned ranting, true to form, seems to have inspired a minor digression.

Therefore in conclusion..?

Right, therefore in conclusion, my theory maintains that one day soon people are going to become fed up with this antiquated way of measuring time, oh and angles too, and although one could easily claim the opposite: ‘There’s nothing wrong with the seven day week, the twelve hour day, the sixty minute hour and the sixty second minute – the three hundred and sixty degree circle seems pretty much beyond reproach, too’, just think about it.

That’s exactly what past generations said about the yardstick, the foot, and that infernal bloody inch.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Yeardly Stick

Photography by Farney Engles