Regarding airflow, it is to Mid Canterbury what pollution is to Beijing. It’s unpleasant, it’s omnipresent; it’s infuriating, it’s inimical; it’s downright bloody awful – springtime on New Zealand’s Canterbury Plains and gale-force nor’ west winds go together like sweaty scrotums and itchy arse cracks.

Some years aren’t so bad, some years this delightful breeze is felt only occasionally and seldom for prolonged periods; these are the years where everything living is not rendered a dehydrated, wizened shell of its former self but the other years, the spring of 2014 for example, this ubiquitous, this vicious, this pernicious air current…

At least once a week for over a month now the Canterbury Plains have had to endure winds of 120, 140, or even 160 kph, bringing down trees and subsequently power lines, tearing off shed roofs and blowing over earthquake-weakened structures, decimating garden crops and uprooting freshly planted vegetable saplings, browning off lawns and sucking the moisture out of everything in sight; usually bringing with it a wave of unnatural heat, further fraying irascible temperaments, causing chaos on the roads and in general, leaving in its path a veritable swathe of destruction – here’s an old saying that I just coined: Nothing is safe from a Mid Canterbury nor’ wester.

Beginning life as an otherwise typical wind current moving off the eastern shores of Australia, this dry north westerly breeze collects moisture as it makes its journey across the Tasman, meeting with the South Island’s West Coast and, more to the point, the ostensibly insurmountable mountain range now thwarting progress. In its current state, water laden and weighed down as it is, there is no way it can cross the South Island so what does it do? It dumps its thousands of kilometres worth of absorption on the people of the West Coast where, from its drier hence lighter stance, it ascends to the top of the Alps while releasing every last modicum of precipitation then careers down the other side reaching massive speeds along with equal quantities of heat and desire to irritate.

This famed air current then reaches the hapless souls of Mid Canterbury as an uncomfortably warm, bone-dry, hay-fever-inducing, temper-flaring, gale-force, property-destructing, infuriatingly insolent, invariably irreverent, piece of shit, good-for-nothing-except-drying-washing, wind.

Aside from the ability to dry a pair of jeans before midday, there is a truly beneficial aspect to our nor’ west wind: the enormous volume of water it drops on the Southern Alps replenishes rivers while maintaining Canterbury’s water table, setting up us rural folk for a long and scorching summer of irrigation.

There’s always a plus side.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Wynn D Planes

Photography by Dee Struck-Shinn

Thursday. Rubbish day. What a fine opportunity to observe the human obsession with maintaining image.

In my district we have three bins. One is for organics, one is for rubbish; one is for recycling. The organics bin has a light green top, the rubbish bin has a red or, if it’s an older uniform colour model, a dark green top; the recycling bin has a yellow top. Organic waste is picked up weekly, rubbish is picked up weekly; recycling is picked up fortnightly.

Living alone and leading a reasonably conservative lifestyle the amount of weekly refuse that I generate, is minimal. On account of this my miniature rubbish bin is seldom full by Thursday, but given that I magnanimously share my miniature recycling bin with two parents and one kitten who live off the refuse collection run, this bin is usually ready to go by the designated fortnight. Also being a compulsive mulcher, I have no need for an organics bin.

It was this dearth of regular waste that, however unwittingly, caused me to fall into my ‘every other week’ rotation.

Each Thursday now I have a bin out, but never the bin that I had out the week before. This makes remembering which week it is relatively straightforward. Therefore, every second Wednesday night I pull out my recycling bin, glance down the street, see that once again I’m the first to do so; glance the other way, see that the primary school already has their yellow-top bins out, smile to myself, oddly relieved that I haven’t mistaken the weeks, aware that the school office girl rarely gets it wrong, then walk back up my driveway.

That’s Wednesday night, recycling week. Thursday comes and ordinarily, through some point in the day, I will venture out for an invigorating stroll around the block. It truly is a majestic sight to step out onto the main road and see the wash of red, green, and yellow tops lined up along the roadside.

The following week, Wednesday night I drag out my rubbish bin, perform the usual glances, first down the street to see once again, I am the first; then up the street, to see the school’s multitude of red-top and uniform coloured bins awaiting collection, smile to myself, and head back inside.

Thursday comes and expectedly, during some point of that day I find myself striding down my street through and around the line of green, dark green, and red-top bins. I emerge onto the main road and the sight is quite spectacular.

The houses in direct view of the end of my little street with the school at the top, are conforming with just red or green-top bins. A little way along the main road from the end of my street is evidence of the first uncertain refuse provider – a yellow-top bin can be seen. Drawn into this sense of uncertainty with all the independent thought process of a good little sock-puppet, the next house has also pulled out their yellow-top bin. Over the road, seemingly the neighbour is unsure about following the lead of the house across the road, lest they be seen as foolish by the neighbours on their own side of the road if it turns out to be not recycling week; although the one just down from them is going all in just in case.

Beginning sporadically, this frequency of yellow-top bins increases until practically every house is participating, where it then starts to thin out again as if somebody has decided they know better than these hit-and-miss recyclers, because they could have sworn they put out the recycling last week so heaven forbid they put it out again thereby running the risk of people judging them as recklessly irresponsible home owners with sieve-like memories who by implication aren’t good enough to uphold the strong history of refuse etiquette in the area or worse still, inspiring rumours of poor property and house upkeep along with generally slovenly behaviour with their shambolic recycling schedule clearly marking them as slothful hence unfit parents…

It’s all rubbish.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Oscar T Grouch

Photography by Yela Tubbin

What a bloody joke. Apparently Tinder is ‘the latest craze in dating applications’; apparently it’s ‘a great way for hot girls to hook up with cute guys without those awkward introductions’…

It’s laughable is what it is, and for a number of reasons.

Firstly that young women are adequately low in self esteem to be lured into such a sleazy ‘dating’ network and secondly, that young men are sufficiently devoid of self regard to affiliate themselves with such a website; then there’s the fact that idiot news presenters and other PC governed figures like to refer to Tinder as a ‘dating app’, which sounds exactly like the kind of wholesome classification the developers of the site were hoping to avoid, especially given the ultimate purpose of the application is in fact to get around the tedium of dating altogether.

Admittedly, for the most part Tinder serves a purpose for the youthful and beautiful men and women of the world looking to hook up and play around with their respective counterparts but without any of the obligation associated with the typical courtship process, although to assume such a website provides any protection against, or even the most basic screening of, its users, thereby implying that its use is safer than simply standing on a street corner wearing a sign around your neck stating: ‘JUST IN IT FOR THE SEX GUYS – NO STRINGS ATTACHED’, is truly laughable.

Tinder is dangerous, this much is fact. As it expands its client base, as it continues to embolden its reputation across the Western world as the distributor of free and easy sex-in-the-palm-of-your-hand, Tinder will only become more dangerous.

It must be a favourite for sexual predators – what better way to screen for victims than from the privacy of your own home, from the convenience of your own smart phone; from the lofty position of selecting girls who are practically giving it away anyway? You see, contrary to what some of our younger generation seem to believe, the flawless face that someone sees looking back at them from an online profile, the captivating demeanour and cool temperament emanating from that screen, the wonderfully sweet and breathtakingly seductive things being conveyed, doesn’t actually have to reflect the person at the other end. All it’s likely to be is everything they know you want them to be.

Personally, meeting someone in person is the only way to meet them at all. Nothing compares to the excitement of seeing a new face as they stand smiling before you; smelling their fragrance, touching their skin – it’s so much easier to see through their web of lies when you can see their eyes.

On a related note, the fact that Tinder believes itself to be unique in the sense that it deals solely in sex rather than dating, is equally laughable. Pretty girls who know what they want have been using conventional dating sites to find strictly sexual partners for years – they’re just a little more subtle about it.

Two Tinder related deaths have been recorded in the past while. In my opinion, this is only the beginning. Too many beautiful young women are making it too easy for lecherous old men to exploit their weaknesses.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by B Kear Fell

Photography by Sax Shull Prod-Ata

Listen up. Beef comes from cattle. Mutton comes from sheep. Venison is from deer, pork is from pigs, chicken is from poultry – common knowledge you say? Yeah, I don’t believe you.

Bear with me. If beef comes from cows, this means that veal comes from baby cows, yes? So if mutton comes from sheep and not mutton birds, then lamb must come from baby sheep, right? Baby sheep, yeah, also known as lambs. Sounds simple enough: lamb meat comes from lambs, right. So what’s the issue?

Alright then smartarse, tell me, what defines a lamb? A baby sheep, yes, you said.

Therefore, when you enter a supermarket and purchase an exorbitant leg of ‘lamb’, you are purchasing a leg of, as you said, baby sheep, or lamb’s meat. Funny how supermarket butcheries don’t ever seem to sell legs of ‘mutton’ anymore, it’s always ‘lamb’…

I call bullshit on this whole bloody wrought that is supermarket marketing.

These are the facts. A lamb is a sheep which is under one year of age. After that, it becomes a hogget. The following year, this sheep will graduate ovine university as a t­wo–tooth. Year after that, four-tooth; year after that, six-tooth and so on.

Now. Here’s my issue. This sheep meat that people see on supermarket butchery shelves with the regulation three hundred percent mark up on what the farmer is paid, labelled ‘lamb’, I guarantee is more than one year of age; in fact it’s probably more than two years of age. ‘Lamb chops’? Yeah, nice one. Have you even seen the chop from a lamb? It’s a pathetic, scrawny little specimen containing about as much meat as one might find between one’s teeth after a real feed of mutton steak. Then they sell these massive hunks of red meat and have the audacity to call them ‘legs of lamb’. The leg from a genuine lamb is about as big as a man’s foot and it’s pink, not red. Additionally if it’s ‘lamb sausages’ you’re into, yeah, you’re likely buying four or even six-tooth sheep meat. Not lamb at all. Not even close.

I guess ‘lamb’ does sound rather more palatable than ‘six-tooth sheep meat’ though, doesn’t it?

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Mark Kittens-Cam

Photography by Thea Vings-Wine

A few years back I opened a TAB account. In the heat of the moment I was foolish enough to join the email list for regular TAB updates/promotions. Most mornings now when I switch on the computer, I find my inbox packed full of TAB ‘hints’, ‘tips’, ‘offers’ and ‘deals’.

A few Sunday’s ago the Souths Rabbitohs took on the Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL Grand Final. Unsurprisingly in the days leading up to this match, I was subject to intense TAB badgering. One such offer however, did catch my eye…

One week earlier, I had credited my account with $20. Three bets later, the balance read $51. Having experienced such a run of luck in the past, only to find that by pushing it I could lose that entire amount in a few hours, I simply glanced at my new account balance, smiled inwardly, also outwardly, and shut down my computer, leaving the new sum intact. Some days later I received an interesting promotional deal from the TAB compelling me to delve into those winnings.

…it was offering to reimburse any losing bet of up to $20 on the impending NRL Grand Final. Now, I’ve seen these kinds of offers in the past and paid them little attention but in true gambling spirit, this time I thought, ‘How can I lose?’

Questionable gambling logic notwithstanding, I did have a point. I actually could not lose. If I wagered $20 and won, theoretically, I’d come away with more than $20. Alternatively if my wager was unsuccessful, the TAB would cover my losses. First thing though, I carefully read every word on that promotional advertisement to ensure there was no clever word play or similarly devious trick designed to entrap impetuous punters – ‘up to $20’ was the only potential catch but surely there was no way they could mean ‘up to but not including $20’..? I wasn’t about to bet $19.99, anyway.

I was excited. I had quickly appreciated that this was no time for safe bets. I couldn’t lose therefore, I was going for gold.

I accessed the game in question and scanned the options; the odds. Head to head? That’s not how you make money. Winning margin? Better, but still not paying enough. No, if the TAB were assuring me of reimbursement, my bet had to be more specific.

$20 went on the Rabbitohs to win by 10, against odds of 15:1.

Nice. If I won, I came away with $300; if I lost, I was back to $51.

Come Sunday night, beyond all expectations, the Rabbitohs won by about 30 points – in truth I didn’t ever hear the exact score, I just heard that the Bulldogs took a walloping and left it at that. I didn’t give a toss who won the game, the only thing that mattered to me was that the $20 I had skimmed would be replaced, I assumed by that next morning.

Monday morning came; my account was still only $31. I placed a few bets; my account was $20. I decided to query the missing funds and typed out an email, addressed to the TAB help desk:

‘After placing a bet on last night’s NRL match-up between the Rabbitohs and the Bulldogs, and losing, as per your promise to reimburse any losing bets of up to $20, I expected that the funds would be replaced by this morning.

If Auckland’s recent power failure is hampering attempts to push through the transaction, that’s fine, I can wait.

Just see that I’m not waiting too long.’

After reading through the message a number of times, I was surprised at how uncharacteristically bitchy I sounded – especially in that last line. Regardless, I sent it off and continued the morning’s work.

Not half an hour later a response came through:

‘Hi Timothy,

Thank you for your email, We normally allow up to 3 working days for these refunds to take place as they have to be processed manually which can take time, If you don’t see it in your account by Wednesday afternoon please contact us and we can follow it up for you.

Sorry for the inconvenience, If you have any further questions feel free to contact us.

Regards

Shaun’

Great, I thought, Wednesday afternoon. The system works.

Wednesday afternoon became Thursday morning and still, my account had not been refunded. Not until late Friday afternoon did I again contact the TAB:

‘Following the TAB’s assurance of refunds on bets of up to $20 on last Sunday’s NRL match; then after your further assurance that reimbursement would be complete by Wednesday afternoon at the latest, to my account at least, there has still been nothing.

Is the TAB facing hard times? Certainly shirking the refund of every $20 bet made that night must have been a superb way to raise takings…

In principle, if the funds have not been replaced by close of business tonight, not only will I be closing my TAB account, I will see to it that thousands more throughout Australasia follow my lead.

Thank you.

Timothy Walker’

Wow. That uncharacteristic bitchiness was turning out to be not so out of character after all.

Again, the response was prompt.

‘I have forwarded this on to our Marketing team to look into for you,

Apologise for any inconvenience this has caused, If you have any further questions feel free to contact us

Regards

Shaun’

I checked the clock. 5:04.

Looked as though I’d be extending ‘close of business’ tonight, although confidence was dwindling that the issue of reimbursement would be sorted even by an extended close of business today, tomorrow or in fact, ever.

I then set about finding how to close my TAB account – I didn’t want to, but I had to stay true to my word because God knows I had talked a big game.

By 5:42, having come no closer to learning how to close my account, and having had no response from the Marketing team, I logged off for the day.

The next morning I was surprised to see in my inbox an email from the TAB. With some excitement I opened it:

‘Hi Timothy

Thank you for your email .

We can’t find the information where you were offered this promo however we have credited your account as a goodwill gesture.

Apologise if this has caused you any inconvenience

Kind Regards

Kerrie’

Kerrie, you duplicitous wench.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Anne Grey-Mann

Photography by Thea Al Beeches

A mile long ago lost favour to the kilometre, one yard was supplanted by a metre; a pound gave it up to the kilogram, an ounce was overthrown by a gram; the quart became a litre, a fluid ounce was downgraded to a millilitre; then there’s decimal currency…

Since learning of these measuring amendments a number of decades ago I have often pondered: why, when a metre has a hundred centimetres and a kilogram a thousand grams, does a minute still have 60 seconds? Why does an hour have 60 minutes; why are there still 24 hours in a day? Why did we stop simplifying before the job was finished?

Further to that, I am genuinely baffled that after seeing logic prevail over so many units of measurement, some clever bugger still thinks it necessary to count 360 different points of a circle.

The 24 hour day and the 360 degree circle are no more logical than the twelve inch foot or the 16 ounce pound and if I had the authority to say that at 10:00, the final hour of the day, an about turn had a numerical value of fifty, you better believe I’d do it.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Stu Pod

Photography by Nun Since

No. You’re wrong.

By no means should it ever be considered a small world. How could it be? It’s over 14,000 kilometres through – how could anybody be so simple as to maintain that it’s a small world? – that’s over 44,000 kilometres around, without taking into account undulations.

Fact. Whichever way the phrase is turned, there is utterly no merit in that hackneyed idiom used by the mindless maudlin while gushing over news that a close relative crossed paths with an old school friend then had lunch at his cousin’s restaurant who just happens to be your niece’s husband, or similarly unlikely occurrence…

You see, as much as some of us like to claim otherwise, coincidence is a legitimate phenomenon. Further to that, a fair bit of what takes place that we like to refer to as ‘coincidence’ is less the coinciding of incidences and in fact is rather more akin to ‘unexpected’ with a flavouring of ‘unusual’; perhaps ‘ironic’ with a smattering of ‘premeditated’, or just plain ‘nonsensical’ with a whole lot of ‘silly’. It is this misuse of our beloved ‘coincidence’ which is likely the leading cause of our unwillingness to regard it as a genuine thing.

Regarding small worlds, in New Zealand at least, a better phrase to describe somebody’s encountering someone who has already met that somebody and has always been good friends with their mother’s daughter who is married to their uncle is, ‘it’s a small country’, because of population, this much is fact.

The other day in an attempt to stymie what I recognised as the inexorable onset of mental fatigue, I rose from my computer and, for the first time this year having thrown down a number of bets on the greyhounds to run in my absence, made my brisk way to the garage to collect my post. En route I passed a residence where, as usual, the woman of the house was outside busying herself with something which, as usual, I was unable to identify at a glance; as usual her two dogs bounded towards me as I passed; as usual I acknowledged the woman with a friendly wave and “Mornin’”; as usual I turned leftward and afforded her dogs a similar greeting.

Unusually however, her one brown and one golden Labrador appeared to have since become one brown Labrador, and one…

I halted, and at the same time heard the woman attempting to extend my perfunctory greeting with further small-talk, eliciting a look of glee at someone actually stopping to discuss the recent changeable weather patterns.

“…how long have you had the greyhound?” I inquired, hoping that I had placed sufficient emphasis on ‘the’ to illustrate that it was greyhound racing, not the emaciated creatures themselves that interested me.

“Oh, yes,” said the woman, “we’re looking after him for a friend who trains them – he’s blind in one eye.”

Assuming the vision impairment related to the dog and not the trainer I added: “Right, yeah, I’m an avid fan of the greyhounds – what’s this trainer’s name, per chance?”

“Oh, ah … McInerney, my dau…”

“John McInerney,” I concluded. “The pinnacle of greyhound racing in Canterbury.”

“Oh, you know him then..?”

“I know his dogs.”

“Oh yes, well did you know my daughter’s marrying his son?”

“Oh really?” I said, really not caring at all. “How about that?” I said, wrestling with the urge to drop a classic, ‘Wow, small world’. “You have a nice day then,” I said finally, resuming my stride.

The next ten minutes of that stroll was spent going over in my head – thought/mumbling about – what an amazing sequence had just taken place: for the first time in months placing a few electronic bets on McInerney’s dogs then heading out for a walk only to meet one of McInerney’s dogs and meeting also the mother of the girl who is soon to become John McInerney’s daughter-in-law.

Mind you, that doesn’t actually make the world any smaller than it was yesterday and once those initial ten minutes of consideration had passed, I realised that it was scarcely even a coincidence: perhaps my inexplicable desire to rekindle an old vice was, but anybody involved in the gambling fraternity would be familiar with the name ‘John McInerney’. Moreover Canterbury is a relatively small place; many people know many people. The odds, therefore, for one Cantabrian to know a family member of the fiance of another Cantabrian, are not huge. Then there’s the fact that this woman possibly has multiple daughters just as McInerney likely has numerous sons, meaning the network of possibility becomes greater still.

That right there divides the odds again until the situation becomes that it’s more unusual to not know someone in the family of the person who your acquaintance is engaged to wed.

Not a small world; not even truly a coincidence. Just basic arithmetic.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Whirl Des Nought-Small

Photography by Du Domass

It happened again.

The first time, I let it slide. I thought somebody must’ve made a comical mistake or something; I even had a chuckle. It just seemed so outrageously self-important, so very self-indulgent; so utterly self-aggrandising.

Then it happened again. Then again. Then another time. Then another one after that. Then I started to worry. I could appreciate that we as a nation were coming off arrogant. I understood that this ostentatious show of national pride needed to be dialled back somewhat, lest our perceived slogan should become, ‘New Zealand, the Pompous Nation’.

I have mentioned it before and it looks as though I’m saying it again: the NZRFU’s pre-match ritual is out of control.

With a national anthem comprising two verses of Te Reo along with two verses of English followed by a Maori Haka, that’s over five minutes of national pride; other countries scarcely need one.

It wouldn’t be so bad either if we restricted this prolonged pride show to home games and used a shorter, perhaps two versed anthem, overseas, but we don’t, do we?

No, we don’t. We take our national saga of pride everywhere; we watch in anticipation as with perfect enunciation the two-versed Te Reo anthem is sung; we watch with boredom and growing agitation as the words are basically repeated in English; we watch from a sense of obligation as the opposing nation – the home team – sings their brief anthem and finally, we’re ready to go. We watch as the two teams fall into formation…

Wait, wait, wait. That’s not the start of the game at all. Despite being visitors in another nation, our team and by implication, our nation, makes their nation stand to attention while we spend the best part of another minute yelling and screaming in their faces and if they fail to respect our display of native culture, well, somebody’s head might just end up on a pike.

Honestly, do we consider this respecting of their nation, of their people, of their culture? Let’s be fair, Maori Hakas are not friendly. They are war dances and as declarations of war go, they are intimidating; especially if the recipient doesn’t fully understand the meaning of the exhibit. Even so we like to perform them as often as possible, at any opportunity – welcomes, farewells, victories, deaths, challenges, remembrances, celebrations…

Only a few weeks back David Cunliffe thought he was having his presence celebrated by a lone Maori man who lunged across his path and appeared to burst into a Haka of some sort; as is the fashion, Mr Cunfille stood his ground in a show of respect to the man.

Yeah, turns out the little Maori dude was cussing him out.

Don’t for a second think that I am forsaking my homeland, I most certainly am not. I take no issue with people wanting to embrace their native culture, but despite what many seem to think, New Zealand’s culture is really no more remarkable than the culture of any other country around the world.

Perhaps we need to stop acting like it is.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Ngaire Spect

Photography by Tony Bach

Days on from what was possibly the most enthralling election in New Zealand memory, I still find myself giddy with excitement in the wake of an outcome which even I, a hot-tempered right-wing realist, could not have imagined better.

John Key is back in power. Not just the watered down, weak as piss MMP version of power either, oh no – should he have chosen it, Prime Minister Key and his team of cronies won a sufficiently commanding majority to effect total control of the nation. Yeah, turns out that if Mr Key was at all disposed to fascism we could now have a dictatorship on our hands. That’s just how much trust we placed in one man.

Fortunately our incumbent Prime Minister is not a crazed megalomaniac from Germany with nothing more on his mind than the absolute control of a nation directly resulting in his own personal gains regardless of consequence…

Kim Dotcom is gone. Departing with him is another mentally questionable political radical, Hone Harawira. Curious that after being unceremoniously dumped from the Maori party for his frenetic behaviour some years ago, Harawira was able to quickly push through parliament another political party, Mana, which by its second year of existence, despite having strikingly similar policies to his old haunt, was eliciting more support than the Maori party; showcasing if nothing else, the mightily fickle nature of politics.

Interesting to note also that while the well known minor parties were busy earning their 1.2, 1.7, or the most pitiful, their 0.7 percents, Colin Craig’s heavily mocked and very much maligned Conservative Party won more votes than all those minor parties combined; still, at 4.5%, it was too little to break through that staunch parliamentary threshold.

Sorry, who said democracy was fair?

Russell Norman’s party was literally decimated – by which I mean one in ten NZers voted for them. I have zero sympathy for this man, with all of his criticisms but with no adequate solutions; with all of his arguments but with no willingness to compromise; with all of his fiscal plans but with no financial knowledge; with all of his ideas for a brighter future but with no pragmatic forethought into the prosperity of the nation.

What about Winnie though? Who can recall, several elections ago, having lead his party to humiliating defeat, Winston Peters, ever so graciously and with all the dignity of a lifetime politician, fledgling alcoholic and pack a day smoker, bowed out of politics altogether? Of course it wasn’t long before he was back, stirring up acrimony among his contemporaries and unrest in the public arena, slandering those who didn’t share his views and of course, making reckless allegations about things of which he had little knowledge.

Speaking of little knowledge, with the election result officially recorded for another term, all talk among environmental lobbyists appears to have swung back to Climate Change. They’re teaming up in their thousands, equipped with multicoloured banners and pun-tastic catchphrases, walking through cities around the world, all chanting in unison, just chanting, chanting, chanting about how somebody needs to put an end to climate change…

I would have thought they of all people should have understood that any sort of impassioned chanting promotes excessive emission of carbon dioxide – the leading gas responsible for this supposed climate permutation.

How about shutting your bloody mouths and instead of complaining, try doing something productive..?

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Polly Tishan

Photography by Nash Nahl

It is important to acknowledge, and as the election draws nearer certainly, we all have a voice.

Better yet, some of us are endowed with more than one voice – some of us have a veritable array of voices…

The oral voice, the voice that comes from betwixt my lips or is channelled through the first three digits of my right hand and which indubitably showers people with regular onslaughts of pompous vocabulary, extraneous description, recklessly excessive levels of opinion, passion and volume, also some saliva, is the most congruous and indeed, the only truly coherent voice in direct connection with my brain.

The others, oh God, the others, these guys do more or less as they please. They are loud, they are vehement, they scarcely show regard for any kind of controlling force and with even less frequency do they ever completely stop talking.

They don’t talk to me as such, they talk, or more accurately, they yell, at me. It’s not abusive at all; I do actually think they’re trying to assist me in some way, perhaps help me navigate this convoluted debacle that is life and if they exhibited proper conversation etiquette, if they gave a damn about showing courtesy or in the least, common decency towards their fellow voices, well, I’d probably give serious consideration to heeding some of their advice.

They don’t though, do they? This multitude of voices in my head appear to not know the first bloody thing about the accepted way to hold a discussion and that riles me to the point of combustion, to say nothing of elevated stress levels.

With most every significant decision I make or action I take, I hear the subsequent cacophony of opinions who think they know better. Not one opinion at a time, as is regarded as the most effective way to put across a point, but all at once, as is regarded as the most puerile thus ineffectual way to convey thoughts.

Firstly we have the voice of reason, which unlike a typical, rational voice of reason, is actually a voice. On the plus side and I suppose true to form, it is the most intelligible, also vociferous, therefore easiest to make out; hence my generally logical disposition. It is this voice, hand in hand with my actual, verbal voice, that comprises my salient voice.

Then we have the others. These are an eclectic bunch. From the most garbled to the most haunting, when they’re all going at once, it’s as if I’m standing two metres from a passing freight train. Suffice to say it can be intense.

The voice of compassion is a bitch – that or just a man with an effeminate and nagging tone, I’m unsure. Gender notwithstanding I generally do my best to shut out this voice altogether.

The voice of empathy is similarly tiresome because it likes to try and deduce the feelings of practically everyone I encounter, which would be fine, if it didn’t yell them in my ear while I was focused on initiating conversation with this person.

The voice of reality, which should really be part of ‘reason’ but for some reason is a separate voice, is constantly deriding my voice of delusion, presumably to keep me real and possibly to prevent my travelling the remainder of the way into dreamland.

The voice of hope started life as its own voice but with time became increasingly akin to my voice of delusion, which only began its existence in recent years after I realised that much of the world’s hardship didn’t actually require a logical outcome, and so I often don’t bother distinguishing delusion from hope and just accept them as one blissful entity.

The voice of delusion, my beloved voice of delusion, perhaps ironically, is the only thing that keeps me sane. ‘Delusion’ provides the impetus to keep pushing. It keeps me hopeful that one day, things just might be better. It brings a lovely, mellifluous and reassuring tone, and faced with a devastating or similarly unfortunate situation, my voice of delusion likes to talk about and to offer up a range of plausible, however unlikely, positive outcomes that just might happen to take place sometime in the near or distant future.

This of course starts my voice of reason shouting, its voice reverberating around my skull, assuring me that the voice of delusion is full of shit and by paying it attention I’m only encouraging it so if I ever want to live permanently in the real world I need pull my head in; then just when I’ve managed to subdue ‘reason’, bloody ‘reality’ starts having a go at ‘delusion’, too.

In a recent showcase of the aforementioned calamity, I was making my way back from the local garage having just collected my mail, on foot and striding out the final stretch, perspiration prickling as it had been for the last seven kilometres, vision increasingly blurred as a result of heat’s inner suffocation, my voice of reason yelling at me as it had been since shortly after departing the garage that penance is for fools who don’t know any better and I should have taken the shorter route home, when I make out a humanoid figure in the distance.

I am conscious of my voice of hope utter in a wistful tone, “Wonder if it’s a woman..?”

My voice of reason shoots back sardonically, “Well there’s a 50/50 shot, dickhead.”

My voice of reality then adds, “Yeah, so you might as well go ahead and apply the 50/50/90 rule to that one.”

As the figure drew closer I could tell by the posture that it was in fact, a woman.

My voice of hope was at it again: “Wonder if she’s pretty..?

Reason: “If she is she’ll be married, dickhead.”

Reality: “Yes and by implication, fat.”

As the gap between us grew smaller still, despite my blurriness I could see that this slim, attractive and youthful woman was smiling at me; this set the cacophony in full swing.

Compassion: “Pretty girl, pretty smile, pretty…”

Empathy: “Yeah, wonder what she’s thinking..?”

Reality: “Probably thinking about her husband…”

Hope: “Yeah but what if she’s not though…”

Reason: “If she were single…”

Compassion: “…eyes, pretty pretty.”

Empathy: “She’s looking into our eyes…”

Hope: “Oh wow, she’s really…”

Reality: “Shame you can’t look into hers.”

Reason: “…she wouldn’t have a house…”

Empathy: “…her eyes are wonderful…”

Hope: “…beautiful.”

Reality: “You can’t see her eyes, dickhead.”

Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”

Reason: “…in this district.”

Empathy: “She looks so peaceful.”

Hope: “That smile is just for me…”

Reality: “Don’t be daft, dickhead…”

Hope: “…and nobody else.”

Reality: “…she probably smiles like that…”

Delusion: “She and I could start a life together…”

Empathy: “Smile back man…”

Reality: “…at everyone she doesn’t know.”

Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”

Reason: “Don’t waste your time smiling at her…”

Delusion: “…it would be perfect…”

Hope: “So let’s get to know her..?”

Empathy: “…she wants you to smile back…”

Reality: “Why are we scowling?”

Hope: “She’s into us, eh.”

Reason: “…her husband’s probably at home…”

Delusion: “…just imagine it…”

Reality: “Oh, face isn’t cooperating today…”

Empathy: “…but oh, she’s looking away…”

Delusion: “…house in the countryside…”

Reason: “…having just made sweet love to her…”

Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”

Delusion: “…she just has to be a cat person…”

Empathy: “…and she doesn’t look like a cat person…”

Hope: “She is so into us.”

Reality: “…so yeah, smiling seems to be out…”

Delusion: “…she’d make a great wife…”

Empathy: “…she just looks creeped out…”

Reason: “…and we know we can’t offer her…”

Empathy “…look away, look away…”

Reality: “…just give her a casual wave…”

Delusion: “…to our kids…”

Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”

Reason: “…even half of what he’s bringing…”

Empathy: “…what are we doing…”

Reality: “…as we pass – I said casual, dick…”

Hope: “Bet her husband’s a fat douche-bag…”

Delusion: “…we’d be so happy together…”

Reason: “…he’s probably a builder or something…”

Empathy: “…that was too obvious…”

Hope: “…probably treats her like dirt…”

Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”

Reality: “…head, wave, don’t salute.”

Delusion: “…yeah, she’s thinking the same thing…”

Hope: “…she deserves so much better.

Reason: “…so just give it up.”

Empathy: “…now she thinks you’re a douche.”

Compassion: “She’s even a sweetheart from the back.”

Reality: “Nice one, dickhead.”

Delusion: “…shit. Missed it.”

Tell you what, my voice of delusion must have some mightily robust self esteem because it’s always there when I need it, irrespective of how much it’s been downtrodden by logic and told it’s full of shit; showing me that maybe, just maybe there is a scenario that’s not as bleak as the world sometimes seems to be and no matter how shitty things become, it will always be there, my beloved voice of delusion, to whisper reassurance in my ear while casting its glorious cloak of effervescent illumination, so much like the sparkle of early morning dew on a freshly trimmed lawn, the world, momentarily at least, will appear that much more beautiful.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Carmen Voice

Photography by Dee Lou Shinn