Interesting how many of us feel the need to compensate for our lives of inactivity by paying for a gym membership.

In the past we might just have got up off our arses and become active in our own time, under our own volition…

Indeed, where in the past one might readily have combined exercise with leisure – invigorating morning walk or a couple of hours gardening with the afternoon sun – nowadays it appears recreation and exercise must be taken as totally separate pills.

…We now seem to abide the belief that all physical activity is to be reserved for a gymnasium or other fitness institute, while our recreation time is to be used solely for Netflix and/or chilling…

So when was it that we decided we needed to pay to be active – when did we stumble upon the conclusion that healthy movement was taxing thus work and sloth was fun thus play therefore one must be kept apart from the other?

…Pretty sure this philosophy was instituted around the same time as the release of PS3, or that first X-Box; in fact it must have been a similar era to the production of the very first Smartphone, and gosh, what a wonderful time that was for Internet subscribers – best thing since Broadband made it possible to connect the telephone (landline, people) and the Internet at the same time – so now people could be sure they didn’t miss a moment of life’s wonders…

Is it that we as modern people have so much else to occupy our time that we now need to force ourselves to get out and be active?

…To be fair many of these modern people do appear quite content to miss out on life – with its birds and its trees and its air and such – just not their other life – life inside an electronic box…

Do we actually feel that casual exercising is no longer a worthwhile task so, I mean given the way technological advances have removed from life many of the requirements for physical exertion, the only time we now feel able to raise our heart-rates is when our Smartphone App tells us it’s time to hit the gym?

…The physicality of most jobs has been replaced or at least eased by technology, and most people seem to have made the effort to render their home lives similarly inactive – what with all their time-consuming devices that require only a firm grasp and comfortable chair – leaving that weekend saunter through the shopping mall as the only potential exercise a youthful body might enjoy…

Or is it that this modern age of cotton-wool-schooling along with the next few years of a terribly sheltered early adulthood thanks to our Government ensuring that today’s youth can be as disorganised, as unprepared, as irresponsible, as immature and as indolent as they choose and still be afforded a promising start on life – along with the inability to commit to anything unless they are told step by step exactly how to go about it, coupled with the refusal to exhibit towards any potential safety issue even the most basic display of common sense, believing instead that regardless of how much they were asking for it modern people ought to be protected from any of life’s hazards, perils and ills, thus from their own stupidity – has left us with such a low supply of willpower that we simply can no longer compel ourselves to embark on anything the least bit trying?

… Alas even purposeful walking has been substituted for preoccupied – head down, immersed in the computer in our hands – dawdling…

Some of us pay someone to mow our lawns because we don’t have time; we then pay to go to the gym and walk on a treadmill. Some of us pay to put our car through the carwash because we can’t be bothered; we then pay to go to the gym for Zumba classes. Some of us talk ourselves out of going for a late-afternoon bike ride around the block; we then pay to go to the gym and ride the exercycle. Some of us pay to have our trees pruned because it’s too hard; we then pay to go to the gym and lift weights. Some of us pay someone to shop for our groceries to save time; we pay for a gym membership then pay to watch television.

…Seems paying to be active is a trend that might be trending for some time then.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Indie Lint

Photography by Yung Pearson

 

 

As perfunctory platitudes go, ‘Splendiferous Christmas and a Gay New Year’ are the only season’s greetings I will allow myself to be heard to utter.

The other one, the one I didn’t say but which I have subliminally inserted into your mind – if not in the last paragraph then almost certainly now – used to rile me with its mindless and by implication, its meaningless nature. (Also who still says ‘merry’? Hmm, around the same number of people who say ‘splendiferous’, I’d say.) So I coined a new one. I think it rolls off the tongue. Others opinions are varied. I’m not bothered. I refuse to engage in the modern population’s habit of vacuously reciting idioms, of which much of the time they have little to no understanding, simply because it’s what other folk are doing. I’m not like other folk, see?

No, I’m different. I have no problem with that; it’s the way I am. Reckon I’ve been ‘different’ for over ten years now, so it’s not as though it’s a revelation. Probably fair to say that by now I’m at one with my vast differentiation and indeed, I embrace it. After all, it’s my differences that make me not the same as everybody else.

What I do find mildly frustrating about being different though is how most people I encounter still seem to expect some variety of normality from me, as if their eyes aren’t even perceiving the veritable depiction of individuality upon which they’re gazing; meaning that when I do fall back into my classically outlandish or ribald ways these unprepared onlookers, precious souls as they are, become inexplicably shocked, dismayed, or even, heaven forbid, disillusioned. It’s as though these people, these horrendously ‘normal’ folk expect the well-dressed, clean cut rural lad standing before them with the peculiar tone and queer facial hair configuration – the pointy sideburns, the overgrown tickler along with the disastrously high hairline – to be the height of etiquette and to not speak out of turn; as though they expect I should be acting differently…

I recently found myself the subject of relationship advice; the advisor in this case was my 87-year-old grandmother. Typical of the older generation she’s a gregarious soul who believes that everyone should have someone and that no one, under any circumstances, can be happy on their own. Much as I try to impress upon her that I am a currently single male by choice – as I have been for the past all my life – largely because I have yet to encounter that wondrous female accomplice who will put up with my many foibles, who will tolerate my before-my-time bought of terminal eccentricity and/or ultimately, that wondrous female accomplice who will endure my expansively idiosyncratic being. (Thinking of it just now, I am not all that certain that such a woman actually exists but, I guess we’ll see.)

…Here’s the thing, I am acting differently; I’m acting differently to everyone. Here’s another thing, it’s not just an act; it’s actually how I act – despite the active reactions. (Yes, act is a versatile word.) Then after demonstrating to these ‘normal’ folk the mere basis of what it is to be ‘different’, I feel as though it’s then up to me to bring out the metaphorical tub of mental salve to liberally apply to the stretch marks of their frightfully expanded minds…

I am unsure quite how I ever came to be the focus of relationship advice from an octogenarian, but once Grandma started on her rant I realised I was in for the long haul. I could see she had on her impassioned face and had slipped into her adamant tone (this is where any alternatives I might try to edge in alongside her prefabricated conclusions, in fact any contribution I might try to offer at all, is wrong) thus felt that to interject at this point could only end badly, so just let her go with it. This ‘advice’, if I allow to come freely, (passion feeding passion and such) ordinarily, soon turns into more of a telling off than anything, as Grandma brutally points out everything that she believes (therefore that is) wrong with my approach at whatever it is that’s being ‘discussed’.

…It was during my recent stint as a North Canterbury farm labourer that I was introduced to some of the straightest minded people I think I have ever or likely will ever meet (not so much my brother-in-law though, fair to say that after all this time he is starting to get me, and even occasionally reciprocates a bit of my crazy himself), but that’s just farming – seems to be an industry where shenanigans are generally frowned upon. In fact I reckon the only time that farmers do let loose and allow themselves to be depicted (maybe just a little) as idiots is when they’re boozing, although, frequently as that is (the boozing not the idiocy), it’s still too far much normalcy for my liking…

Thinking of it, I had just finished regaling her with the tale of misfortune that occurred while picking up my suit from the drycleaners and finding it in a less than desirable state; I then listened ‘attentively’ as she had regurgitated every piece of dry-cleaning knowledge that she had gleaned from her mother during childhood as well as a couple of glistening pearls (radio talkback, I believe) on stain removal – all of which I have been forced to hear umpteen times already – meaning her next piece of homily, as goes Grandma’s natural conversational shift, of course, was regarding my dress sense. Then as if she had no former knowledge of me at all, she actually told me that I should be looking at what other people my own age are wearing to get an idea of today’s fashion – I looked at her in disbelief and retorted, “What … So I can look the same as them?”

…Posing as the third wheel (technically it’s called a jockey wheel) to the marriage that is my sister and brother-in-law, while at an event mixing with this farming crowd I witnessed a number of terribly ‘stable’ relationships – terribly ‘stable’ men with their similarly ‘stable’ women – which admittedly did start me pondering my own situation. It’s not as though I am unfamiliar with men and women in stable relationships (and like, I’m pretty sure I know how babies are made too), it was just this particular assortment of ‘stable’ men and women and the relationships that they maintained…

”Just to get an idea,” Grandma was saying, as if had no idea, “get an idea of what people are wearing these days.”

“Really? Shit I already know what the cool kids are wearing, Grandma, and quite honestly, I don’t want a bar of it – I tend to do what it takes to go against the grain of convention.”

“Why would you want to do that?” she snapped, insinuating her belief that the most important aspect of life is fitting in so seamlessly that nobody can tell you are a separate personality.

“Grandma,” I started with exasperation, “you know that I don’t fit in with your beloved mainstreamers … You know furthermore that I have given up even making an effort to do so.”

“Why?” she demanded.

I shook my head then stared at her expectant face. “I have no desire to be like other people Grandma, because simply, generally,” I lowered my tone, “I don’t like other people.”

“Well that’s not very friendly,” her voice shot up, “how do you expect them to like you if you don’t like them?”

“I don’t expect them to like me,” I said disbelievingly, almost sardonically; at the same time feeling a little like a primary school pupil under a firm telling-off from the principal, “I have no desire to recruit so called ‘friends’, and even less desire to dress the way they do.”

“Well I’m sure they’re not wearing black suits, anyway,” she muttered, ensuring the last word was hers.

I paused, unsure if I should go on. “My God woman, what are you talking about?” I said with a chuckle. “The only time you’ve seen me wearing my black suit was years’ ago and if I recall, on that day you complimented me on my dress sense – for which, incidentally, you then tried to claim credit as if you had been the one to advise me on it, when, if I recall furthermore, you ridiculed my purchase of a totally black suit, said it was ‘foolish’ of me to buy a totally black suit, particularly to wear to my sister’s wedding.”

“Well, you looked like an undertaker.”

“So why..? But you..? I thought..? But you said…” I gave up, understanding that Grandma’s ability to retain information past more than a few words was lost.

“Just get an idea of what people your age are wearing,” she reiterated (said for the first time).

“Hang on,” I said, realising if I wasn’t careful this could go on indefinitely, and in fact if it did Grandma would probably be quite happy. “Look, I know what people my age wear, just as you know what I wear and typically, as you know, I don’t wear a black suit.”

“Really? When do I see you dressed up?”

“Every Wednesday I come by here – today, for example.”

“And you look very nice today.”

“Well, I do at least make an effort to at least look presentable.”

“And you look very nice too … Oh that reminds me, my neighbour’s got a very smart jacket he was throwing out, that I said you might like..?”

I sighed, thinking of how many ‘people my age’ would wear that jacket. Grandma’s neighbour lives in the retirement village with her and is older than she is; besides, and if only for her own sense of self-importance, I had taken an obligatory look at this jacket the first time she had made the suggestion, several months earlier.

…All the seemingly happy couples did make me wonder if perhaps I should be making a bigger effort to conform to the ways and methods of these folk – of ‘normal’ folk. I understand that it would be a terribly dull existence but then I wonder for how much longer I can realistically pull off being ‘different’..? (I have a feeling that after a certain age a man’s abnormalities, their quirks, or ‘differences’ as it were, are perceived less as fun and light-hearted foibles, and after a certain age I think he stops being perceived as simply ‘different’ and starts being seen as ‘that creepy old guy’. I don’t want to be a ‘creepy old guy’. Shit I can’t imagine being an old guy, let alone a creepy old guy. That wouldn’t be any fun. I imagine that would be hurtful.) Would a ‘different’ pensioner even be accepted by his contemporaries or would he be cast off as the invalid pariah? On that, I wonder if the New Zealand Government even recognises ‘different’ pensioners, or if they are treated as foreigners, thus immigrants, and face an impending life of persecution at the hand of Donald J Trump?…

At jiu-jitsu recently, as is frequently the case I found myself rolling with a more experienced, stronger, older, therefore much more able athlete than myself who was, as is frequently the case, pummelling me. At one point during the session (an uncomfortable stint of ‘knee on belly’, as I recall), as is frequently the case, I found myself uttering an assortment of involuntary squeaks and grunts (along with the customary knee–on–belly onomatopoeia which if spoken quickly and in a strangled Japanese voice I do find mightily comical). Then through the good-humour I saw an opening. With a flick of my hips and twist of my pelvis I managed to sweep my assailant, toppling him and regaining the upper hand; this time releasing an (entirely voluntary) squeak of delight/relief. He looked up at me questioningly – perhaps fearful that during all my involuntary grunting and ‘knee-on-belly’ onomatopoeia I had genuinely defecated myself – I nevertheless recomposed and joked, “Sorry about that, just saying a prayer in Hindi.”

He shook his head. “No point praying man,” he said mater-of-factly, “there’s no god.”

“No no,” I recovered once more, “it’s alright, I pray to myself…”

I witnessed a grin cross my opponent’s face as he awaited the punch-line (something for which I just now realise I have become renowned among my jiu-jitsu classmates).

“…The only being in this world in which I do have faith,” I concluded.”

“Good man,” he said, before sweeping, turning, then submitting me with a neck crank (which is no more fun than it sounds), “gotta have faith in something, eh.”

…I’m not going to do it today though. Today I have more important stuff to do – Grandma related stuff – and I scarcely consider improving my outward display of normalcy important…

I do have faith in myself. I believe in me; I won’t lie, I won’t cheat, and I’ll always do what it is that I say I will do.

…Yet until this world starts making a better effort to comply with me and my standard of living, I have little desire to comply with this world.

It’s just that simple.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Norm L Si

Photography by Nick Rank

Having taken an extended hiatus following, no less, posting of my 500^th Daily Dose of Profundity, I now feel equipped to resume correspondence.

Meantime high country labouring in the Hurunui, toil I have been enduring on my sister and brother-in-law’s farm for the past while, has afforded me the clarity to view my predicament from an objective stance…

One might recall the recent ‘Kaikoura’ earthquake – curiously bitched and moaned about more by Wellington than anyone else – the epicentre of which was situated somewhere between Waiau and Culverden; just kilometres in fact from the aforementioned farm’s location. That particular quake, November 14, 2016, of a 7.8 magnitude, was the largest shake modern New Zealand has seen and, having been sleeping a mere 10 kilometres from 2010’s epic 7.1 epicentre, I could relate to the Hurunui locals’ collective sense of unrest. Yet on this fateful occasion (14 November, 2016), I just happened to have departed the Hurunui District in the days before this 7.8 monstrosity struck, thereby experiencing rural North Canterbury’s November 2016 quake at a comparable magnitude to that which I expect Christchurch city experienced rural Mid Canterbury’s 7.1 shake in September 2010; suffice to say, unnerving, but little more.

…Initially arriving at the Hurunui farm in September of 2016 with the intention of assisting with the tailing of an estimated 7000 lambs, it soon transpired that the younger brother of the wife of the farm owner was in fact a rather fine worker. Further to that discovery, the novelty five litre bottle of Beam that came out after tailing each night, and which he appeared to approach with the abandon of a seasoned drunkard as opposed to a youthful larrikin, was becoming alarmingly depleted…

Back in September, the fresh spring mornings heralded by an idiot rooster which appeared to have little comprehension of time at all, waking and getting up with the sun after sometimes only going down a number of hours earlier had an interesting effect on my constitution, yet really only cemented the adage: the best thing for a hangover is indeed hard work (also copious fluids).

…Five on two off; four on three off – I would arrive at the North Canterbury farm Friday morning (later every second week after a mid-morning visit to the NZ Blood Service to excrete 750mls of plasma), work through the weekend then Monday and most of Tuesday, where I would shoot off a smidgen early on Tuesday afternoon in order to ensure that I made it back to Christchurch in time for jiu-jitsu that evening…

Often working through over a thousand lambs a day the seemingly endless task of tailing was soon finished; I was nevertheless invited back the following week to help out with other farm tasks such as tractor work, or spraying the gorse and broom overlooked by the past farm owner, or weaning of the first of those tailed lambs, or as summer broke it was helping with irrigation – also maintaining the almighty diesel engines running 24 hours a day pumping water into the irrigation system – or grubbing noxious tussocks, or making balage, or shearing, and/or so on.

…The anxiety was getting up. I had too much to do, not enough time to do it, I was more tired than ever, I had become intolerably absentminded, and I was beginning to make stupid mistakes – both on the farm and off. On the plus side though, even after slamming out a few power-naps at some of the more delayed traffic lights on the way back into Christchurch, I was so exhausted at jiu-jitsu that night that my typically fervent pace was replaced with a more methodical, docile and apparently improved technique…

During the first few weeks as a (slave) farm labourer, to my horror I found that I had shed a mysterious couple of kilograms from my already streamline physique – that inconsequential layer of stomach flab had been still reduced and if I had been toned before, this 33-year-old-height-of-hirsuteness was now utterly ripped. However the frequent hunger, the constant sleep deprivation, the excessive boozing, the physically demanding nature of my current lifestyle along with the recurring bouts of anxiety that lifestyle evoked, seemed also to be talking their toll in more insidious ways.

…My house, my grounds, my poor old neglected property was in desperate need of upkeep, only I was too tired, to Goddamned exhausted to do anything about it. While it was really only my ridiculous sense of obligation, some kind of misguided loyalty coupled with a frustrating sense of OCD-induced never-give-up-ed-ness that kept me going back to the Hurunui every Friday, and while I certainly wasn’t benefitting financially, I did feel good about the work I was doing; additionally, in fairness, it was totally pandering to my (I suspect also OCD-induced) passion for efficiency and moreover, productivity…

I have this frighteningly erratic and downright vicious tremor of my arms, neck and, well, most every place within this poor decrepit frame of mine that – supplanting the typical old debilitating rattle the ruinous nature of which I am indeed accustomed – although I don’t tend to experience all that often when I do, quite simply I am aware that something needs to change. I think the reason I don’t see it so much is because this more extreme variety of bodily tremor tends to reserve itself for those negligent moments when I have undergone prolonged periods of being either, outrageously tired, stupendously hungry, horrendously nervous, uproariously excited, or just plain anxious, (yet after running through that list just now I am surprised that this ‘mega-tremor’, as I am just now coining it, is not seen more frequently).

…There was something about the way my brother-in-law ran those multiple-thousands of riverside acres – more like a thriving city business than a dirty old high country farm – that impressed me. I recall telling him as much during one of our nightly whisky sessions (bourbon having run dry some weeks earlier), and I guess that must have been around the same time I decided within myself that if I could help to grease the wheels of this farming juggernaut, if I was allowed to jump aboard this rurally destined freight-train as it careered inexorably towards the upper echelons of farming grandeur, if I could perhaps tether myself to its mighty smokestacks as it ploughed unabashed though the tempestuous seas of the farming world, then yes, I mused beneath a metaphorical cloud of too much pricy whisky, I would quite happily come along for the ride…

Tailing lambs was fine. It was great – I would use all my strength to lift, restrain, clasp then hold the young ovine brutes, as I shoved/pushed/slid them up onto the tailing chute (incidentally it was estimated at the end that I must have carried out this procedure somewhere close to 4000 times), where they would have their ears marked then finally, their tails chopped – it required the majority of my strength therefore leaving little room for any kind of tremor, or mega-tremor, to manifest; also tractor driving – towing a heavy roller, grubbing or drilling a paddock, also mowing then later raking into rows the grass in the paddocks that I had weeks ago rolled flat of any stones so the mower could operate free from obstructions – wasn’t particularly demanding work and aside from the mental strain, which was admittedly huge, my physical state was scarcely called into question.

…Indeed from under an enchanting fug of whisky vapour the prospective possibilities for me as a farm labourer were positively scintillating; out in the paddock the next morning under a beating sun trying to shift a break fence without sustaining mild electrocution while ensuring the live wire remained sufficiently taught throughout the movement to prevent the curious herd of cattle (thank you, yes, I have – heard of sheep?) from stepping over which would mean up to an hour of sprinting up and down hills in an effort to bring them back (which, in my defence, only happened once in about twelve), then shit damn, somehow the mega-tremor caused the wire to dislodge from the standard I was holding in an outstretched arm at waist-height thereby draping its electrified self around me so all I could do to avoid its wrath was rapidly retreat until the wire went slack – but not before succumbing to at least one gigantic belt – then just as quickly pick it up in the hogs-tail insulator and raise to waist height, hoping the curious cattle hadn’t noticed the momentary break in defensive continuity…

It was everything else that was required of me which, when working for myself I can pick and choose my tasks and typically avoid the worst, or slow down and go at my own pace but under someone else’s employ (as I felt I was even though technically I was not), I am driven by my own foolish sense of obligation. This obligation drives, nay compels me to work as hard and as fast as is reasonable, which given my cognitively traumatised plight is an entirely unreasonable burden for me to place upon myself.

…Nevertheless my skin, my flesh, my heart soon inured to giant wallops brought about by cattle fences as I found that, secure as those electric wires generally were in their insulators, no insulator was above the oscillations created by a mega-tremor of the foot stamping the standard into the ground or the arm lifting it clear of the feed-break, and as I found, holding the standard higher to increase tension only meant that when the wire did inevitably jump out, it was less likely to drape across my clothed arm and more likely to drape across my semi-bearded face…

Contemporaries must have noticed the reduction in my standard of appearance and/or mood, and at jiu-jitsu of a Tuesday night I often found myself fielding solicitous queries into my wellbeing; of course I would always respond reassuringly because the truth was, gruelling as my current regime was, damaging as it might have been to my condition, dampening as it apparently was to my mood, I still felt as though I was enjoying the challenge.

…I never did realise there were so many areas in farming life where a steady hand was vital – tasks such as shifting lateral irrigation sprinklers were fine but things like plumbing up the larger irrigation gun, with all its pipes and fittings (also important sequences which if not done correctly can result in the destruction of the unit’s inner workings hence my less than confident approach), and computer units with programmes and buttons which don’t react positively to being pressed four times in under half a second – but I guess it’s similar to most other things in this world at which I’ve tried, and failed…

My strength and natural fitness were proving assets in farm life and of course I no longer had to make time to undertake my daily exercise routine; I felt more physically drained after a day shifting break fences, moving irrigation, driving tractors, mustering stock, digging in fence posts, moving more stock then putting up another break fence to shift the next day – before slurping through a straw the customary whisky on the rocks – than I feel after cycling 80 kilometres in a nor’wester (actually, theoretically only 40 into the wind, providing the wind doesn’t change halfway – which it frequently does – the other 40’s with it).

…Yet growing up on a Mid Canterbury, mid-sized; low country, low rainfall, but extremely high wind, intensively arable farm, then having nothing much to do with farming for over the past decade as I shifted focus to mechanics, to landscaping, then onto literature, I was surprised at how easily I fell in with the high country farming lifestyle…

In my heart I love the prospect of devoting my life to the land; my head however says differently. My head isn’t so sure if my nerves can handle a life of continual hard slog; my nerves, subsequently, aren’t certain if my body can handle too much more of this infernal mega-tremor that they’ve unleashed upon it.

…Jiu-jitsu again tonight (last night). Having not been back to the Hurunui District since Christmas I am feeling mildly refreshed.

Mildly refreshed but very slack.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Rip Dahf Zeek

Photography by Hitch N Hills

 

 

 

Amid a world of uncertain times it is the almighty U-S of A which is arguably perpetuating this worldly uncertainty.

Firstly, in Chicago, for the first time in 108 years, Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs emerged victorious; secondly, still in Chicago and in fact on that very same weekend, for the first time in what must be over 108 years, the Irish rugby union team beat the New Zealand All Blacks.

Soon after these outrageous events had yielded their respective outcomes the outcome of perhaps the most outrageous event, the 58^th US election thus the naming of the 45^th US president, became known.

If the polls leading up to the election were to be believed, as they generally are, it was to be a Clinton walkover…

The only question really was how much of a walkover.

…Then if the polls during the election were to be believed, as they were by everyone except conspiracy theorists, it was indeed going to be a Clinton walkover.

Seemed it just would not be Mrs Hillary Clinton who would be doing the walking over.

As state by state inexplicably went the way of republican candidate Donald Trump the realisation slowly sank in – as the rest of world realised something that they realised they had probably realised a long time ago – that the majority of US citizens are dirty rotten liars.

It seems that even during phone calls with telephone operators one has never met and in fact who one has little chance of ever meeting, the basic human nature of portraying oneself in the most auspicious manner still applies; particularly if one is a citizen of the American people.

Seeing nothing else for it, as though this result was the doing of one weak male and could be undone with sufficient female complaining, hordes of unhappy voters were actually protesting the result of America’s national election; crying foul, questioning the presence of democracy and such…

Having served two terms President Barack Obama is to presently abdicate his reign; according to many President Donald J Trump will pick up those reins and steer the USA into impending doom and/or gloom.

…As though the people of America have yet to realise that their so called ‘democracy’ only works properly if all involved in the aforementioned democratic association uphold their genuine stance; the fact is that of the US’s potential voting population – American citizens over the age of 18 – only around a quarter are enrolled to vote and of them, only a fraction do so…

Realistically Donald J Trump is just one more overly assertive, narcissistic, bumptious American megalomaniac who desires to rule the world.

…Meaning that what has effectively happened here is that Trump’s inflammatory ranting has captured the hearts of those many (evidently a great deal many more than we expected) redneck Americans who hitherto couldn’t have given a damn about politics but who just this once decided to flex their democratic right by voting republican…

Now with the US being the world’s drama queens there have been reports of an American exodus, also the world’s financial markets have become more unsteady than ever, and similar to Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and the ensuing outrage at the implication that a Black man should be able to rule the world, there have even been death threats made on Trump and his family.

…Donald J Trump vowed to throw Hillary Clinton in jail for deeds that most of us have since forgotten; he promised to build a wall between Mexico and the US at Mexico’s expense; he riled the world with his thoughtlessness, he enraged us with his cluelessness, he baffled us with his ignorance, he pandered to the untapped voting populous with his admittedly brilliant politics…

So now the USA has an unqualified idiot at its helm – a trigger happy lunatic xenophobe with his tremulous finger beside the nuclear trigger – but really, I mean bearing in mind the nature of politicians and all that, how often do campaign promises come true?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Happy Trigger

Photography by Hya Trump-Card

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

 

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