As expected the plot took some unexpected twists (thank you, brilliant example of paradox), therefore is undergoing its first name change.

From ‘Fighting for the/our Future’, which was always pretty lame and bordering on immature anyway, to ‘Pride in the Name’, which is downright awesome.

Of course along with the title amelioration, there will need to be some basic adaptations in wording throughout the story to coincide with this shift, so you can be sure your first two parts will be tampered with.

Have a nice day, third part tomorrow.

Nice one.

The flight was interminable.

The seats were good, then food was superb; it was the company that didn’t so much agree with him. For a one month old the boy had lungs, he had to admit that much. Flight officials had quibbled about allowing such a young child to fly halfway around the world, but Karl’s eminent company stature meant that he was afforded liberties of this nature. His initial plan had been to offload the infant to passing airhostesses whenever there was an issue; alas, he was soon discovering that all they were trained to do was make a lot of garbled noises that annoyed Karl almost as much as the sound of his own baby crying – that still sounded strange, his own baby; he was only 30 years’ old, for Christ’s sake – even then the wretched infant didn’t stop crying.

He felt ashamed, understanding what it’s like from the perspective of other passengers when a baby onboard a flight screams for the duration; he had been one of those passengers. There were moments of peace, moments where the baby fell silent; in these moments Karl tried to catch two or three winks of sleep. The problem with that, he was so excited by the fact that the baby had stopped making noise and so anticipative about when it might start again, that of course he couldn’t sleep. So other than those few moments of quietude, the journey thus far was bedlam. He spotted a young stewardess who he’d hitherto not seen, making her way unsteadily along the aisle, and waved her down. “Excuse me, Miss,” he whispered, his voice hoarse from pleading with the child, “please help me.”

“OK sir, what seems to be the problem?” she responded with all the enthusiasm of a trainee whose spirit has yet to be crushed by The Man.

Karl looked at her as if she was slow, turned to his wailing baby then back to her, and uttered in quiet disbelief, “Really?”

“OK sir, is that your baby?” the stewardess asked with an exemplary display of inflexion over the last syllable that most Kiwi girls do so well.

“Yes,” said Karl, still in a disbelieving tone, “it is.”

“OK sir, do you want some help?”

“Yes please,” he whispered, running a tormented hand through his hair, “just make it be silent, please.”

“OK sir,” the girl said, leaning over and caressing the baby’s dome, “how about I see what I can do.” With that she slipped in beside Karl taking the spare seat between him and the child. The stewardess then unbuckled the baby’s seatbelt, removed him from his seat and started bouncing him gently on her lap. Karl had to admit, she appeared to know what she was doing.

“Oh, you’re so special, aren’t you, who’s a little cutie pie…” she murmured to the baby, then turning to the father, asked, “…What’s its name?”

“Oh sorry,” said Karl “I called him Kahn, after his mother.”

“Oh, how cute, little Kahn, little baby Kahn – does Kahn want his bottle?’

“No,” said Karl with a hint of irritation, “he’s just had it, he should be fine.”

“Oh right, um, it’s probably his ears then – are your ears popping, little baby Kahn?”

“Just to clarify” – glancing sideways to read the girl’s nametag, sarcasm oozing from every orifice – “Bethany, he doesn’t actually speak yet, so if you’re hoping for some sort of response…”

“Oh no, that’s fine,” Bethany chirruped, undeterred, “we’re still getting our points across, aren’t we, little baby Kahn?” To Karl’s further distaste the girl then started emitting some sort of low-pitched gurgling sounds while jiggling the baby on her lap; for the first time the father heard the sound of his son’s laughter. He looked over to see the girl playing childish games with the delighted boy. “Oh, what a cute little birthmark,” he heard her gush.

Karl had no knowledge of a birthmark.

The airhostess continued eliciting all manner of sounds from the infant and two minutes after that Kahn was asleep. Karl was in awe. “Wow. You’re brilliant.”

“I’m a woman,” said Bethany matter-of-factly, placing Kahn back in his seat.

“Even for a woman, I think you’re brilliant – do you have kids, Bethany?”

“Ah, no, I don’t,” she replied somewhat uncomfortably, turning back to Karl and looking for an opening to stand and leave, “I am only 21, sir.”

“Oh,” said Karl, keen show his appreciation to the girl while making up for the way he’d treated her so callously, “well, you’re clearly a natural – do you want kids, Bethany?”

“Um, yes, I do, sir … very much…” her voice trailed off as she looked down at her feet and shifted uncomfortably in the seat next to Karl.

“Well,” he said, turning to inspect her features more closely, “pretty girl like you, I’m surprised there’s any issue at all.” For the next few awkward seconds, without the baby’s wailing, all that could be heard across the plane was the impenetrable audio of background chatter mingled with the occasional cough.

“Oh, well,” Bethany abruptly stood, “look, sir, I can’t just sit here chatting all day, I really have to go and help other passengers with -”

“But I thought you were still helping me, you know, with Kahn,” he said, cutting her off.

She hesitated for a moment, thinking of airline rules, regulations, policies, etiquette and such, before saying, “Oh, OK then,” and reluctantly resuming her seat.

“Tell me about yourself, Bethany.”

Severe turbulence took hold of the plane for the next minute or so, causing unrest among passengers but not, thankfully, waking the sleeping child in the seat over from them.

“Ah, what did you want to know, sir?”

“You can cut the ‘sir’ crap for start,” Karl ordered with a grin, “we’re chatting.”

“Oh, OK, but I thought I was helping with -”

“You are,” he said with a chuckle, “let’s just say you’re helping me with the untimely death of my wife.”

Bethany swung to face Karl. Her face was agape. Karl wore the impassive expression of a seasoned salesman. Eventually recovering Bethany managed to choke out the words, “What? … Your wife is dead?”

“Yes,” said Karl Solemnly, “she died giving birth to her son.”

“Oh, that’s terrible,” she said with genuine emotion, something Karl guessed was seldom seen in her line of work, “so … Can I ask … What happened?”

“You can,” he waited until Bethany had become suitably uncomfortable before continuing. “She went into labour, the baby breached, apparently there were further complications – as if passing a backwards baby isn’t complicated enough – causing her to suffer horrendous blood loss, also unimaginable pain – for which she refused to accept any kind of assistance – pain meds or in fact any drugs at all – against her native country’s custom, she reckoned – until it killed her.”

“Oh…”

The airhostess to Karl’s right was clearly aghast that anybody should speak so candidly on the topic of their wife’s death, which, judging by the baby’s age, was a decidedly recent death. They sat in silence for what felt to Bethany like a lifetime worth of personal discomfort, until finally she broke the stalemate.

“…So, your wife -”

“Kahn.”

“Ah, no, your wife … What was her name?”

“Kahn.”

Confusion came at Bethany from all sides, slapping her across the face, telling her how stupid she was; assuring her that she wasn’t good enough. “No,” she tried again, her voice rising, cracking; her face now burning from the embarrassment, “your wife.”

“Bethany, as I said, my wife’s name was Kahn.”

“What?” confusion, embarrassment, bewilderment, misunderstanding, bemusement, all of Bethany’s greatest foes joined forces to deliver one almighty slap to her self confidence. She felt tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She knew her mascara was running. The forefinger of her left hand confirmed this. Again she made to stand up and move out. “I’m sorry, sir,” she mumbled as she laboriously shuffled past Karl’s long legs.

“Bethany, stop.”

She stopped.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said again, “I didn’t understand.”

“Bethany,” Karl said softly, “not understanding is not something to be sorry for, I probably wasn’t making myself clear anyway. Now sit down.”

She sat down.

“As I mentioned, Bethany, I called my son Kahn, after my late wife. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, sir, I just, I get confused -”

“Bethany,” he looked at the forlorn stewardess with her pretty face all made up and her blonde hair done so nicely with her blue dress looking so chic, “stop being so sorry.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I’ll ignore that. You are a beautiful young woman. You should not be sorry for anything that you do, that is the pretty girl’s prerogative. Understand?”

“I think so … All except that last word.”

“Prerogative, or understand?”

“No,” Bethany laughed, “I’m pretty sure even I understand what understand means.”

“Your prerogative is your right. You are a beautiful young woman. As a beautiful young woman, it is your right to live a life free from restraint, oppression, or ever having to say you’re sorry.”

She laughed again, “Thank you sir, you’ve made me feel a lot better. It was just so confusing because I didn’t remember that you’d said you’d named your baby after your dead wife and then I wanted to ask about your wife and you kept saying ‘Kahn’ but I knew that was your baby’s name and I thought Kahn was only a boy’s name anyway…”

It was Karl’s turn to laugh, “I see how you might have been confused, and I’m sorry for confusing you, because you’re right, Khan is typically a boy’s name. In fact my late wife was christened Khanum, which is the female alternative to the male version, Kahn, which means, commander, or leader. But once she reached New Zealand she shortened it to just, Khan, for simplicity, hence, my son’s name. Khan.”

“Thank you, sir,” Bethany said triumphantly, “I understand, as is my perogative.”

“I’m glad,” said Karl, “but I know it’s selfish of me to have kept you so long, so I‘ll let you get back to it.”

“Oh, alright,” she said, standing up, “but can I just ask you one more question?”

“You most certainly can, Bethany,” he cheered, “after all, without questions, we would be a very dull people.”

“Oh, OK … Well, I’m just wondering, why you’d be taking your baby to such a horrible place as North Korea?”

“It can’t be that ‘horrible’, surely?”

“Well, I’m not trying to put you off, but I hear it’s pretty awful…”

“It can’t be that bad, Bethany, after all, that awfully horrible place produced my darling wife.”

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, I -”

“Bethany, what did we just say?” Karl jokingly admonished.

“Oh, no, it’s just, I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t know, therefore, you don’t have to be sorry.”

“Oh, OK, thanks,” she whispered before sliding back into isle.

As she walked away to assist another passenger Karl smiled and remembered how he’d performed similar esteem-building techniques on his wife; such a diffident and downtrodden young woman she had been.

Another round of turbulence struck the plane, not as bad as the first, but bad enough to wake a sleeping child. Karl turned his gaze to the right, antipathy dripping from his features as he focused now on the child’s tiny uvula, vibrating uncontrollably as so many vociferous sound waves accosted the air around it.

“Don’t worry Kahn, almost home now,” he whispered to himself.

Mr Williams, Karl, to his friends, was new to the concept of fathering a child; newer still, to the idea of doing it alone. Compounding the struggle, piling straw after straw upon the camel’s back, was the irony that now, more than anything, the man just wanted to be alone. He was mindful of how awful this nagging desire for solitude sounded in his own head and could only imagine how inhuman he would sound should it ever cross his lips; nevertheless, he knew that if he was not allowed both adequate time to mourn the loss of his beautiful young wife and to regain a semblance of mental structure in his own head, he might very well end up resenting this innocent child.

Internally, psychologically, Karl Williams was a broken man. It was his fault his wife had died, because it was his seed that had been growing inside her. It was his seed that grew and grew until it was ultimately responsible for her demise. It was his seed. His seed. He had planted the seed and it had grown into a destructive monster. Now he needed to be apart from that monster, at least until he could be certain he wouldn’t attempt to vanquish it as it slept. He could appreciate that the murderous thoughts which held arbitrary assaults on his mind were somewhat removed from that of a balanced man and could appreciate furthermore that all it would take for the life form in the crib next to his bed to go from the ‘despised big ugly monster’ to his ‘cutest little baby monster’, would be time.

In the eyes of others Karl Williams was a good man. Anyone who was lucky enough to have dealings with him was quick to bestow endearments of ‘kind’, ‘honest’, and ‘pleasant natured’; attributes he used to his advantage when it came to his job. Never a manipulative or duplicitous person, he enjoyed a solid reputation both within his company and throughout his client base as someone who could invariably be trusted to display up-front honesty and wholehearted forthrightness. It was precisely this likeability that lead to Karl recently being named Salesperson of the Millennium; after receiving the annual award every year since joining Long White Cloud Travel at the age of 20 on the company’s first day of existence in 1982, management decided that 10 consecutive years of awards was approximately tantamount to the big one, therefore despite still being eight years shy, at the mid-year office party in 1992 Karl was presented with the Millennium award.

He glanced wistfully at his thousand-year trophy glistening high on a shelf in the far corner of his bedroom, dreaming of happier, simpler times, then stared down menacingly at the wrinkled little face of the monster that had shown no compunction about exchanging the life of his beloved wife for the life of his own. He had told them this would happen; they had told him it would be fine. That’s what they always told him: “It’ll be fine, Karl”, or, “It will all work out in the end, Karl, you’ll see”, or worse still, “Don’t worry, Karl, just have faith, God has a plan…”

God, he felt like throttling the ignoramuses who said that. God? What the hell’s God got to do with anything? He might as well have put his faith in Santa Claus and seen how many gifts turned up.

He was bitter, he knew that. He needed to cool down, he knew that too. He needed to turn his back on the cards life had dealt him and walk away from the table – but he couldn’t, could he? There was someone depending on him, wasn’t there? Karl couldn’t understand them leaving him in charge of such a helpless soul when he’d so clearly told them that he was unstable; but “No”, they’d said, “You’ll be fine”, they’d told him. “A new life is just what you need to help you move on from the loss of your wife”, one of them had said. What were they insinuating, that he should just accept it as an exchange of life; a fair swap? Fair? It was unjust, that’s what it was, and the loathing that he felt – towards the baby in part but mostly towards himself – was almost unbearable.

He needed to get out.

During his ten years of loyal service to ‘New Zealand’s Premier Travel Agency’, the one thing he had never done, although after five years employees were entitled, was take a company funded, annual holiday.

It was exactly two months after the death of his wife, September 10, when Karl Williams contacted his boss to request his rightful yearly holiday along with an extension to his paternity leave; expectedly, his superior did what he could to lighten the load on the bereaved solo father.

Departure: October 24^th, 1992. Destination: Pyongyang, North Korea.

I’ve decided to write another novel.

For a long while I felt I had sufficient other writing avenues to satisfy my creative urges, but no more. It’s time to try something else. Rather, I’m currently in the process of trying something else. Thing is though, the Canterbury summer is not my optimal novelling time – too warm, too much to do, too much other stuff going on; too difficult to keep focus.

Busy hotness notwithstanding, the time is now. I found myself forming the first idea a few months ago. Every spare moment I am building on that idea. To be fair the idea is now pretty massive. It needs to come out.

I started yesterday. Today is Saturday. To date I have written a shade less than 2000 words in my most peculiar of novelling techniques: I start with a title. I write the beginning. I then continue through until the end. It’s truly bizarre stuff.

It’s called, Fighting for The Future, or Fighting for Our Future, or something like that. I’m not going to try and tell you what it’s about because, well, it’s a novel. It’s about many things. The theme however, is modern day world war. I think. Can’t really be sure what it’s about until I’ve finished writing it. That’s all I’ll say on it for now, but as I am much too lazy to maintain this site and write a novel, I’ll simply post the latest excerpt from the aforementioned piece of literary genius, each week.

Couple of things first. As I have zero intention of replicating my usual novelling schedule of ’80,000 words in 40 days’, your weekly excerpt mightn’t be much; also, given that what you see will be the draft, it is subject to, and in fact probably will, change.

This week I’ll rip ‘n stick the prologue, which is quite short.

Fighting

for the

Future

 Tim Walker

[PAGE BREAK]

I have no idea of the time, I am no longer certain of the date, but if the temperature is anything to go by, I can be pretty sure its still winter. That makes it somewhere close to July 2014. Anyway, like I said, its cold, I’m hungry, I wish I had a better way of killing time than just writing these dumb notes, that probably no ones gonna ever read anyway, but I don’t, so I am.

Still fighting for our future, K.

[PAGE BREAK]

The absence of screams belied her pain.

The level of discipline she had been forced to uphold since childhood was so deeply entrenched in the young woman’s disposition that even as she lay giving birth to her first child; even as the breached baby prolonged the agony of labour for another excruciating hour; even as the blood loss surpassed two litres; even as the husband squeezed her hand and begged her to accept pain medication; even as the colour drained from her attractive features; even as the final skerrick of life left her supple body…

“Congratulations, Mr Williams, you have a beautiful baby boy.”

…Even then, she didn’t make a sound.

See? I told you so. Exercise is bad for ya.

Really? I disagree.

Nah, they said so – too much exercise is bad for ya.

Guess it must depend how you define ‘too much’, because I recently heard that 20 – 40 minutes of exercise each day was beneficial to prolonging life.

Nah, but I heard them say it so it has to be right – Strenuous exercise can lower life expectancy, so there.

So there, what?

So, I can sit on my arse all day and play X-Box and it’s not bad for me anymore.

But it was before..?

They always said it was.

Similar to the way ‘they’ always said that fat was to be avoided at all costs..?

Yeah, just like that, but then they said that it wasn’t bad for me anymore so now I can eat all the junk food I like and play X-Box all day and now it’s good for me, eh.

Eh … You do realise that big corporations perform whatever research is required to produce whatever findings they need, to push whatever product is fashionable at a given time?

What? Whaddaya mean by that?

For example, if Cadbury wants to prove that their chocolate is at all beneficial to peoples’ health, they simply pay a research company to study it from every possible angle until they come up with the desired results.

Yeah, I thought I heard chocolate was good for me.

Along with a glass and a half a day of red wine, right?

Yeah man, and if a glass and a half is good for me, think how good a bottle and a half must be.

Not quite. The key is moderation.

What?

In moderation, wine is beneficial –

Yeah, so I drink heaps of it for heaps o’ benefits.

Nice one. In moderation, dark chocolate is beneficial –

Yeah, dark chocolate’s not sweet enough for me, I only eat white chocolate … that has to be some good though eh?

Unlikely. In moderation, exercise is beneficial.

Yeah, but they reckon exercise is bad.

Prolonged, strenuous exercise has been said to cause more harm than good, yes.

Right, so it’s like I said though, I can drink wine and eat chocolate and play X-Box and it’s good for me – talk about knowing your body.

Stunning. Idiots like you are the problem with media driven research.

Nah, it’s good, they tell me that I’m doing it right…

You hear what you want to hear; you hear half a story and make it sound how you want it to sound – then you have the audacity to complain when things go wrong.

Yeah but only because they tell us wrong.

No, because you comprehend wrong.

Well they shouldn’t tell us stuff that’s confusing and stuff like that.

They don’t so much confuse as they mislead consumers.

What? Why would they do that?

As I said, corporations hire researchers to conduct studies then manipulate their findings in order to produce results to support their product.

That doesn’t sound right…

No, it doesn’t, does it?

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Miss Leed Pablick

Photography by Doctor Fein Dings

Time Management. What a brilliant ability if you have it. Used properly it can lead to a person’s climbing ladders of respect, competency and the big one, success.

Conversely, poor time management can piss off a lot of people.

Generally speaking I possess adequate time management skills; which is to say, being late for an appointment, or even falling behind on my own clock, causes a great deal of anxiety.

Conversely, some people possess inadequate time management skills; what’s worse, the majority of these people aren’t bothered by their own tardiness. Often they don’t even seem to be put out by the fact that their lateness might be contributing to another’s lateness and that other person’s lateness might be perceived by them to be a significant thing which…

I’m way off track.

The point is that I detest – nay – I despise being late. I honestly cannot handle it. Even if the time of my appearance is not of great importance, if I end up being later than I intend to be, I am reduced to a trembling ball of stress. I don’t mind being early though, so much of the time, to avoid committing this utmost personal transgression, I afford myself a good half hour buffer which…

Shit. Off track again.

The point is that I have fallen into a gay little routine of posting my piece of weekly insight, not unlike the way I’m happily posting this very piece of scintillating perspicacity, every Wednesday. Sometimes I go a little bit nuts with excesses of scintillation and so forth, resulting in more than just a Wednesday post, but do be assured, there is and will always be, a Wednesday post.

Therefore, last week when I found myself stranded on an elongated New Year’s Eve getaway, with Wednesday approaching and my impending post comprising but a few scant lines about a topic with which I very much wished I was more familiar, and me over an hour’s travel from my beloved QWERTY board, I began to panic. I knew that what I had already written was largely bollocks and knew furthermore that even if I did manage to get home by Wednesday, it was going to be a push to squeeze out the required article.

Suffice to say, I take this crap pretty seriously.

With an effort I made it home by midday Wednesday. After quickly tending to the desolate wasteland that, on account of several weeks of unabated heat, had become my property, I sat at my computer and flicked the switch that makes shit happen in my head.

Yeah. To my surprise shit happened pretty readily: in a little over half an hour, including the time it took to delete the existing material, I had churned out a draft of over 500 words.

I was lucky that week. Well, I’m going away again this week and to avoid elevated stress levels this time, I’m going to ensure that this Wednesday’s post is…

Early.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Thar D Lad

Photography by Celia P Dint

The way we’re going, do we really think WWIII is that far away?

First of many recent global tumults was the commencement of this seemingly endless war in Iraq; sometime after that there was the prolonged skirmish in Afghanistan; some years later we saw the start of massive unrest in Syria; a little later on Russia kicked up a hell of a stink regarding possession of Ukraine or Crimea or something like that – firing off missiles, shooting down planes etc – but the big one, and in my opinion the most insanely volatile one, is North Korea.

In a few words, Kim Jong Un. The man was granted an inordinate amount of power as a virtual teenager after being selected for the position of National Dictator ahead of his elder brother because apparently the other sibling ‘wasn’t cruel enough’. That’s worrying in itself. More worrying though, is the fact that although North Korea occupies a chunk of land smaller than the South Island of New Zealand, it is the world’s fourth greatest military power.

Did you get that? That’s the world’s fourth greatest military power – to protect themselves against what exactly? The other thing about that, they also have China on side, meaning that if North Korea felt like dropping an A-Bomb on Washington DC, there’s little the US could feasibly do in retaliation; although after hearing Barack ooze his well rehearsed propaganda all over our TV screens one would be forgiven for thinking that all 50 United States of America are utterly untouchable…

It began with a movie. A satirical comedy based around North Korea; based around Kim Jong Un. Of course there were complaints. There are always complaints. It’s when the main complainant is a world renowned hothead, a famously rotund control-freak overflowing with petulant pugnacity, that it might be prudent to take a breath, cool off, and perhaps try a little compromise.

Huh, compromise. The problem is that when it comes to backing out of a scrap or in fact yielding in any capacity at all, President Obama is really no better.

There it is – the makings of our third World War. Another way to go about it, as we saw a while back from Australia’s Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott, is to start threatening and handing out ridiculous ultimatums to Russia’s Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, for being suspected of shooting down that Malaysian Airliner – the one after the one that went missing and has yet to be discovered. In principal this kind of tough talking makes a lot of sense, but you just know that that vodka swilling commie doesn’t give a damn about anyone else and is probably quite confident that should it come to it, Russia could trounce Australia in a fight anyway.

Let’s look at it objectively: we have one psychotic Korean dictator; one equally pugilistic republican US President; one astonishingly svelte Russian Prime Minister; one irate Australian piss-ant and one major problem. Our world leaders appear so taken by arrogance that they no longer understand the concept of humility; respect.

I reckon North Korea ought to release a satirical comedy based around the events of 9-11 and see what the US reckon.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Pug Nay Chess

Photography by W W Tree

Tomorrow will mark the commencement of our newest year, 2015…

Are we all pronouncing that correctly – twenty fifteen?

2015 AD is, presumably, two thousand and fifteen years After the Death of the Almighty J Dog. Prior to that, time was measured in BC, so they reckon. Yeah. Couple of issues I take with that.

Firstly, how did a man in 122 BC know that in exactly 122 years a virginal girl was going to get knocked up by a man she’d never met and give birth to a child who 33 years later would supposedly die for our sins? Also, who accounted for those 33 years, and what where they called? For instance, a few days BC Mary and Joseph were preparing for this miraculous birth. 1 day BC they were laid up in some sort of manger. The next day, assuming a speedy labour, was 1 day – what?

It was no longer Before Christ but neither was it After His Death, so, what did they call it? Were those 33 years even recorded, or did time just go from 2 BC to 1 BC, then enter into some sort of limbo period for the next 33 years until His death, where they brought out AD?

I’m just a little perplexed is all, I mean, I think we’ve lost 33 years somewhere. I want to know what happened – where did those years go? We might have busted into the latest millennium back in 1967 and not even known it; alternatively it might still be 18 years away…

I think it’s easier to just be an atheist and believe that death is death.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by A Theo Iztick

Photography by Bliss Feemy

Today’s kids are all about this newfangled 21^st century but hold up, who remembers the ‘90s? Sure, they were last century but shit man, what a brilliant decade. Reckon 1992 was my favourite year. Some say 1994 was better but I maintain: “Nineteen ninety-two was the best.”

Now we’re in 2014. Twenty fourteen. That’s how it’s always been said. Twenty fourteen. Two numbers, just like nineteen ninety-two; so why do some people seem to think that with a new century comes a new manner of articulating years? Why are these people compelled to spell out the entire number like over-articulate dick-wads – ‘Two-thou-sand-and-four-teen’?

I understand that in that first decade of the 2000s it was preferable to say, ‘Two thousand and three’, rather than, ‘Twenty zero-three’, but now from the middle of the second decade it just sounds daft – ‘Two thousand and fourteen..?’

The current year, twenty fourteen, is fast coming to a close and will soon be succeeded by a new year, twenty fifteen. However, the first idiot who tries to tell me that the New Year is ‘Two thousand and fifteen’, simply, will receive a slapping.

I do hope I have made myself clear and hope furthermore, that everyone has an enjoyable and prosperous Twenty–Fifteen.

Merry cliché and a hackneyed New Year to you all.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by P Dant

Photography by Daft Punk

Wow. That New Zealand rugby team sure is something to behold. The way those 15 men use that 100 by 69 metre pitch to such marvellous effect; the way they consistently decimate the competition to maintain their undeniable standing as the world’s best; the way their coach handles himself in front of the camera and manages to easily out-staunch his contemporaries; the way their uniforms accentuate every rippling muscle of their formidable physiques; the way their almighty name sounds in your ears – the All Blacks…

Yeah. That could probably use some work.

Back in the early 1900s when a simple mispronunciation lead to NZ’s rugby union side going from the ‘All Backs’, on account of their all-round speed and agility, to the ‘All Blacks’, for some other reason entirely, the fact that only one or two of the team’s players were Black didn’t seem to matter; to now, at a time where the world has become so utterly hung up on political correctness, it is more than a little odd to see just how easily we accept that our national side is called the All Blacks – if it were anything other than our beloved rugby team you can be damn sure we would not stand for it.

What’s interesting though is how quick we are to dismiss the notion that this is a blatant, also mildly offensive, misnomer. Sure, they wear black clothing, but the thing is, in today’s world, if Steve Tew suddenly decided that our national rugby team was to change its name from, for example, the ‘National Brotherhood’, to this new and improved version, the ‘New Zealand All Blacks’, it would cause no end of uproar – “Why would you call them the All Blacks when only a few of them are Black?” some might ask, or “Gee, I don’t know about that, isn’t that a bit, you know, racist?” or perhaps “Nah man, that’s one of those words, you know, you gotta actually be Black to say black.”

In a time where some idiots consider calling a Nigerian ‘Black’ an act of racism, how is NZ still getting away with this?

A little while ago, when the All Blacks were planning to travel to the USA for a one-off match against the Eagles, I watched in delight as a NZ television news reporter interviewed US citizens at random and asked them if they knew what the ‘All Blacks’ were. After receiving a continuous stream of blank, perplexed, or sometimes belligerent, faces, this pasty-skinned reporter approached an African-American woman and said, “Excuse me, Miss, hi, I’m from New Zealand, I was hoping to ask you a question.”

The young lady looked at first shocked, then confused, then glanced at the TV camera and reluctantly replied, “Oh, OK … Go ahead.”

Flashing a quick grin at the camera himself the reporter fired out the question: “Alright, Miss, can you tell me what the All Blacks are?”

This poor little Negro lass’s face dropped; she looked horrified. She glanced again at the camera as if to confirm that this funny-talking person was for real, before turning her gaze back to the reporter, giving a nervous little half smile and replying, “I dunno … My family?”

Never in all my evening news-watching experience have I laughed so hard.

The question remains: how long will it be before someone in NZ realises that we are blinded by our own sense of arrogance and that our national team is flaunting a name that would get a White man killed on the streets of Chicago?

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Platta Cull Crect-Ness

Photography by Ray Chism