A gift from dad.
He's got the parent, around ten columns like this one, which broke off and has been rooted.
I can only describe it as nasty, the spines are like tiny hypodermic needles and embed themselves in you enmass as the slightest touch.
Painful, itchy and difficult to remove
And sharp.
Never thought of this as a 'nasty' plant in fact it's really quite benign.
I'd call my parodia leninghausii benign, that can be stroked like a cat. The Saguaro also benign, although I wouldn't want to land on it. Even the fishhooked mammillaria, that snags a careless finger is fairly benign and does no lasting damage.
However, I classify anything that fills me with needle spines that feel like fibre glass at the slightest touch nasty.
Get yourself an Opuntia tunicata if you really want to experience nasty...requires serious effort to remove its spines (if you have more than one embedded at any one time then its very hard to remove on your own) ditto any of its cousins. All best treated with maximum respect but are interesting none the less.
As Ian says as long as you understand that the spines of the strausii run in one direction its no problem.
Mike
PS If I stroke our cat in the wrong direction it can also be quite vicious...
As for the pussy 