Australians long thought their geography guarded them from international terrorism.
It was, he said, an informal alliance that traded in embarrassing personal stories about politicians while guarding them from publication.
It's where, the story goes, local residents once beseeched the city to erect a wall to guard them from a tidal surge.
As a result, males spend virtually all their time within a few metres of fertile females, guarding them from other breeding males in the group.
Instead, the report said, commission detectives spent their mornings parked in the commissioners' designated parking spots in Lower Manhattan, guarding them from interlopers.
"People assume that the world is carefully regulated and that there are benign institutions guarding them from making any kind of errors.
Down on the street, a barely clad man squatted by a cardboard box with cigarettes lined up on top of it, as though he were guarding them from some invisible peril.
In traditions that endure among Christians and Muslims alike, the recently deceased, if properly buried, are believed to be able to watch out for their kinfolk and guard them from catastrophe.
There's nobody watching the New York City police to guard them from overreaching.
