May Be As Important As What You Do
Don't worry, we're not going to be kicking off this Intro with variations on 'What's Wrong With This Picture?' when it's Dog Buns! obvious, it stars John Travolta.
No! what I meant is that if you're crossing the road looking at your mobile phone and get run over by the 409 bus - totally unexpected because it's not due for another 13 minutes - you obviously - of course! - never saw it coming.
A rather strained analogy. Art!
"The Snark was a Boojum -'
In that modern epic 'The Hunting Of The Snark' the placid and amiable Snark actually turns out to be the totally inimical and dangerous Boojum. The mere sight of which is enough to instantaneously disintegrate the viewer. Was it semi-invisible as well? I shall have to re-read it and find out.
ANYWAY I wanted to go over a vlog from 'Markee's Youtube channel that immediately caught my eye, as it celebrates TREE LAW. Art!
Here is where things get rather odd. Conrad read the first story, and was a bit put out, as there is very little Tree Law present in the tale, just a lot of background establishing, the Dirty Deed and then WHAMMO BLAMMO judicial punishment happens, The End. More Tree Lore than Tree Law, you might say.
Then, today, I came back to the 'Watch Later' vlog above and - said story had vanished. Instead there were 10 other tales. Art!
One of whom featured a Pink Dogwood, as above. Now, it's quite conceivable that Your Humble Scribe deleted the vlog with the original story and added another one into 'Watch Later', and forgot, for gin and old age have addled my wits. Yes, very plausible, except -
There's no trace of the original when I searched Youtube for it. Like a cut-price version of those films where the protagonist searches for a vital computer file, only for every trace of it having disappeared. "But, Julie, it was right here! You have to believe me!"*
We need to understand the bare bones of The Original, or as much of it as I can remember, since rum and senility have taken their toll. Art!
Sequoia Owning Neighbour, hereafter SON, owned a 300-year old sequoia tree, which butted up against the fence between his property and that of Karen, his EXtremely Objectionable Neighbour, hereafter EXON. Karen was the kind of woman who would come out of her house with a steak knife and stab any ball that landed in her backyard. Her hobbies likely included drowning puppies and setting orphanages alight. Art!
Her pride and joy: a conservatory. Acres and acres of very expensive double-glazing and timber.
EXON hated hated hated SON's sequoia, which was none of her business as it stood on his yard behind his fence and his property line. This mattered not one whit to her as she was firmly convinced that laws and statutes and rules didn't apply to her.
So she waited until SON was away for a couple of days, and hired a couple of cowboys to cut his tree down.
What could possibly go wrong? Art!
This. This could go wrong.
Because she cheapened out and hired a clutch of idiots instead of proper arborists, they managed to topple the tree directly into her conservatory, utterly destroying it. What you might call an 'Ooops' moment.
SON sought legal redress, and so did the local legal authorities, since cutting down a healthy mature Sequioa broke umpteen local laws. We are then told that between SON's suit for trespass and criminal damage, and the x3 fines imposed by the court, she had to shell out $415,000.
This is where the story ends, rather disappointingly. No further news of how EXON coped with an enormous sum to pony up, nor how much SON was apportioned, nor of the fate of the conservatory. Also, I deserve a medal for recalling all that detail. Art!
"The Snark was a Boojum -'
Like nearly all such tales on Reddit and Youtube, SON is careful to avoid mentioning anything like a physical location or even what state the tale is supposed to occur in. However, one can still search for 'conservatory' and 'Sequoia' and most especially '$415,000', none of which located any such case anywhere across South Canada. Here I begin to suspect that the tale is, in fact, complete fiction that is either made up from whole cloth or is so embellished that it bears 0.1% similarity with real life. Did it get removed from Youtube thanks to being utter guff? and how coincidental that such a removal happened mere days after I had been reading.
Blimey. This was supposed to be one-third of an Intro dealing with Tree Law, and I'm going to have to cut and run lest the whole blog be naught but Tree Law. Art!
Back To Books!
Not that we were ever very far from them. So - Art!
20 essential classics that continue to inspire readers
O Boy do I have a doozy for you. Art!
This novel is an example of why Mordorvia will never be entirely lost to the vices it practices - one is minded of <long dull recounting from 'Lord Of The Rings' excised courtesy Mister Hand> the King will return.
ANYWAY AGAIN yes, Conrad has read this work, several times in fact, and I feel cheeky enough having done so to criticise Ol' Lev. Art!
'Bondarchuk', lest ye be unaware, is a Ukrainian surname. I like to keep you informed.
ANYWAY ANYWAY Ol' Lev has the artistic approach that huge Napoleonic combined-arms, infantry-heavy battles are completely out of the control of their commanders, a conceit that underlies the whole novel and which Conrad violently disagrees with. On the other hand, it is so well-written from the perspectives of so many people that you can forgive Ol' Tolly.
Yes, I've seen the 1966 film version, which is enormously long, but decades ago. So long that I may need to see if the DVD is going cheap anywhere <wallet squeaks in anguish> and if Abebooks has a cheap copy of the paperback on offer. Art!
NO! Not Ethan Hawke. Leo Tolstoy, serving as an artillery office in the Crimean War, nineteenth-century iteration. A whole other blog for several different kitchens.
Continuing With The Literary Theme
In the sense that he illustrated novel and magazine covers, yes, we are back to Bruce Pennington, as featured in a slideshow on Youtube from the 'Sci-Fi Art' channel, and are now <checks> 03:03 minutes into a 7-minute slideshow. Art!
Hmmmmmmm. The aspect ratio of the artwork here makes me wonder, given the 1976 date, if this is not an album cover of the era. It's certainly not - shooting down our original paragraph! - the cover of a book or magazine. Let me dig a little -
Well, not at all accurate. Seemingly, this was a book of artwork that Bruce put out himself, attempting to illustrate the scamming fraudster SORRY future prognosticator Nostradamus. Well, Bruce, I hope you made a lot of money from it. I wonder - does Abebooks have a cheap copy of the paperback on sale?
Get Thee Behind Me, Stan
Conrad is unaware of how he can defeat, defer or deflect the algorithm in Youtube that keeps pimping 'Abebooks', becayse believe you me Vulnavia, this is one site that I do NOT need pimping about. Art!
They have, or used to have, an online tool that allowed you to determine exactly how much you had spent there over the years. IT CAN NEVER BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN!
Too much of a temptation of a website to ever really be ignored, mind.
Finally -
I am typing this out at 22:40 on 2/09/2026, and am almost at the end of the whole blog, so just letting you know that we will be working on annotating and screenshotting the last 26th episode of 'The Great War'. QUIVER WITH FEAR! for you are going to get the benefit of the 40+ pages of A4 notes and 399 screenhots. I bet you - etc. etc.
* It was, of course - obviously! - the gremlins at work. Treacherous little beggars.