Treece Lore

NO! That Is Not A Typo

It's an hilarious pun, hilarious I tell you and the beginning of the Intro is to prove to you how hilarious it is, and it's the Remote Nuclear Tormentor if there's no laughter.  Art!

Remote, nuclear and, above all, tormentory

     ANYWAY we will be getting onto Tree Law later on, this intro to the Intro is by way of getting there, tangentially, eventually.

     SO!  Let us begin with Art!

     If you say 'Treece' quickly it sounds like 'Trees', hence today's title.  The 'Lore' part comes from young Conrad having that box set as a much, much younger version of himself.  It got read ragged, and I can still recall parts of the prose and the illustrations within it.  The Trilogy consists of 'Viking Dawn', 'The Road To Miklagard' and 'Viking Sunset', which concern the life of Harald Sigurdsun.  The tale follows him as a young - you may be ahead of me here - Viking, then into adulthood and finally as an old - but still dangerous - man.  I can still recall Hen's dedication at the front of the first novel - 'For Gary Fashaw, who told me of the longship prow'.  Art!

     There are Viking settlements in South Canada, yes indeedy Ally Sheedy, BUT no longship prow has ever been discovered.  Dunno what young Gary had been smoking, though it did give us a splendid final novel in the trilogy.

     Enough of Treece Lore, time for TREE LAW!  Which is what you came for.  Hopefully.  If not, please skip the entire Intro.

     Now, you and I are aficionadoes of Tree Law, canny in the ways that the law works, but for many hapless incumbents the disastrous felling of timber is their first encounter with TL.  As with this first tale.  Art!

From 'Markee's Youtube channel

     Okay, to set the scene, Mournful Arboreal Newbie, hereafter MAN, lived behind what he calls a 'development', meaning a lot of cookie-cutter houses being built on a large plot of land.  Art! 

A development in Massachusets

     Not the nicest vista to wake up to.  Fortunately his back yard had two large mature trees that blocked his views of 'Builder's Cleft', as the polite term has it.   A four PROUD IMPERIAL FOOT stone wall separated his property from the building site, and take note of that since it's not a notional or enfeebled partition.  

     Another relevant factor that brought MAN to Reddit and then Youtube was his status as a first-time houseowner, with no previous experience of Tree Law.

     Whilst at work he got a call from his girlfriend, who was at his home, bright, breezy and worryingly concerned about the builders who had crossed over the boundary wall, then cut down both of his screening trees.  Art!

     She, being bright and breezy as aforementioned, had filmed and photographed the felling being carried out.  Conrad, cynical realist that he is, reckons the tree-killers noticed her being all evidential, since they then left an apologetic voicemail confessing to chopping both trees down 'thinking they were part of the development'.

     MAN outlined the above and asked for advice from Reddit.  He got it.  No, not in a nasty way, just good solid advice.

     1)  Save the voicemails.  These are an admission of guilt that can be used to hammer the developers o'er the head with.

     2)  Save the videos and pictures.  Save them in duplicate at least, in case of accidental corruption or deletion.

     3)  Source any pictures of the trees before felling as evidence they actually existed in this condition. Art!

Akin to this

     4)  Search the county records office for the exact location of your boundary lines, in order to determine that the developers really were trespassing and the trees were indeed yours.

     5)  Get a professional arborist to assess the value of the trees, and what the cost of replacing them with those of equivalent size, age and species would be.

     6)  Approach your state's Law Board and request the details of lawyers who specialise in property law, or arboreal law, if possible.  Art!

This guy if you can afford him

     The advice ends with a caution that MAN is very likely entitled to money, although the amount will vary dependent on the trees themselves - how old they were, how slowly they grow and how scarce they are.

     What they omit to say is that the events take place in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Conrad, your resident pedantic hair-splitter, checked on that state's statutes and YES! they invoke triple damages for tree law cases.  Thus if an arborist estimates at $10,000 per tree to replace, the developer is out $60,000.  Art!

     The other factor is the developer themselves.  As a legal entity they are bound to have insurance protection against accidents and mishaps such as this, which means the insurers coughing up compensation, rather than MAN having to sue a shady cowboy operation with two men and a pick-up truck.

     Given that this vlog is 6 years old with no Updates, we cannot, sadly, know what the eventual outcome was <sad face>.

A Higher Form Of Shilling

I mean a person being a 'shill', that is, pretending to be independent and unbiased and neutral, when in fact they are as partisan as can be.  Not a piece of pre-decimal currency, either.  Just to be clear.  

     What am I yarking on about now?  O I thought you'd never ask - Art!

Nice view of Europe

     Another attempt of Ol' Brucie (Pennington), that I've shamelessly lifted from the Youtube channel 'Sci-Fi Art', to persuade the buying public that the works of Nostradamus were credible.  Well, they are plainly not and I'm not brooking any dissent here.  The artwork is wonderful, mind, although heaven only knows what fearful guff Brucie is promoting.  Art!

    Hmmmm.  An asteroid, meteor or comet impact?  It's a rather sparse painting.  No coral churches, nor flying craft receding into the background, nor mystery skeletons.  I've not embiggened it as I'm not that struck with it.  Unlike Planet Earth.  Ha! Do you see - O you do.

Back To More 20th Century Classics

Another Ruffian festival of laughter in print.  NO!  Only joking.  The only Ruffian of classical literature that ever cracked a smile was Anton Chekhov, before he graduated from Star Fleet Academy (it says here).  Art!

     I actually started reading this and gave up perhaps a fifth of the way in.  It concerns a serial killer with an axe and a grudge, and stolen money, all the typical tropes of life in Mordorvia since 1587 onward.  One to wallow in when you're depressed, since after finishing it everything will look wonderfully rosy by comparison.  You could try the Ruffian Literature Drinking Game, where you take a shot every time you read a depressing sentence, but your liver will protest.  Was there a film?

I Left You Hanging With This Question

Because I'm horrid that way.  Also you have had time to ask ChatGPTFL or whatever about it, or Google madly for answers.  Art!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

     I shall explicate.  Art!

     That unprepossessing looking tin is the Condenser Can.  You can see a screwed-in plug on the gun's water jacket, directly behind the muzzle and normally a pipe would go into there, leading to the CC.  Steam coming off the water jacket would expand into the CC, cool, and be sucked back into the water jacket by the vacuum left there.  It thus saved water, always an issue in the desert, and prevented a cloud of steam giving the gun's position away.  Art!

     The sights are down flat, not erect with a range selected, which means the Teutons are a mere three feet away - or they didn't think to make it look realistic.  Art!

How it's done

     Art!

     A good thirty rounds fired, yet there are no expended bullet cases present.  It's almost as if the whole thing were staged as a publicity shot.  Art!

     With this shot you can see the pipe connected to the Condenser Can, the sights upright and a lot of expended brass lying around.  This is the way.

Finally -

David Pakman had an hilarious clip of King Piggy falling asleep - standing up!  He was presiding over an event for the Artemis II lunar fly-by, so any speeches given were full of science and long words he didn't understand, and if the spotlight isn't on The Nodfather, he dozes off.  Doing it upright is another level, though.  Art!

Sadly, he woke up

What You Don't See -

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.

Why Endure Haute Couture

Face It, Conrad Is A Slob

You will only see him in a suit at weddings or when in court, as his preferred plumage is very much t-shirt and jeans, and, if it's raining, that tatty red coat which desperately needs a wash.  I am also guessing at the pronunciation of 'Couture' as we are strangers, that word and I.  

     Why am I yarking on about clothing?  O I thought you'd never ask.  Art!

THIS!  THIS IS WHY!

     Forsooth, we are now onto the fourth heading from 'How To Not Die's vlog titled 'Everything Zombie Films Get Wrong About Survival' and yes, this one is about clothing.  Hence my subtle lead-in.  Subtle for me, anyway.  Art!

     Here's one trope that HTND gets absolutely right, and it peeves me no end.  They cite 'that guy', which I will translate as 'that chap', whom turns up in the survivor group wearing a tactical vest, loaded down with ballistic plates, molle pouches, grenades, a walkie-talkie, ammunition clips LEAVING HIS BARE FOREARMS TO BE BITTEN.  HTND go further and detail that wearing such equipment adds another 15 to 40 pounds mass to whatever else that chap is carrying.  Nor do tactical vests protect one's neck, face, hands or shins.  Take a look at those pikers above from 'Army Of The Dead', not a long-sleeved shirt amongst them.  Art!

     How can she be less suitably dressed - apart from being in a bikini which you slobbering perverts are not going to get - with the whole of both arms exposed?  Nor is that all that offends me about the clutch of clueless.  Art!

     Here's Dave Bautista showing off his biceps in his skimpy t-shirt, as well as his macho tattoos LOOK AT ALL THAT BARE FLESH! just asking to be bitten.  Bah!

     HTND is on much shakier ground when they allege that Tactical Vest Twod suffers from reduced mobility by a factor of 15% to 25% WHERE ARE THE SOURCES!  They also mention Terry The Tactical Vest Twod having difficulty climbing, which strikes me as curious; I don't think survivors of the Zombie Apocalypse are going to want to ascend Half Dome in their spare time, in spite of the lovely scenic views.  Art!

     We then move onto the subject of 'bite-proof clothing', where HTND exceed on the side of caution, and then some.  Art!

     Here is one of their suggested clothing fabrics: reinforced with strips of Kevlar.  Blimey! that would bend yer dentures some.  Definitely 'puncture-proof' as advertised.  They then suggest the frankly barmy option of chain-mail, since it's a lot lighter than plate armour and allows mobility whilst only weighing 8 pounds at most.  Art!

     Presumably modern-day chain-mail?  Art!

     ANYWAY AGAIN they state that 'bite penetration' is reduced by 60% - 85%  WHERE IS THE SOURCE! but Conrad thinks this is ridiculously over-thinking a solution, given that human bite strength is pretty feeble in the first place.  Don't forget that zombies do not practice good dental hygiene and their pegs are going to be loose in their gums or actively falling out.  If you doubt me, try wrapping a beef joint in a t-shirt and biting through it; have some soothing linctus present to ease the pain afterwards.  Art!

     They got back in my good graces when they praised Negan's flexible, forearm-vocering leather jacket as being very effective at foiling zed biting activity, even if their calculation of it reducing bite strength by 30% to 40% WHERE IS THE SOURCE! is waaay off target.  Repeat that beef joint experiment with it wrapped in a leather jacket and see if you can gnaw your way through in less than fifteen minutes.  Art!

You see, Dave, you can do it if you really try

     Yes, it's Dave Bautista again, as Sapper Morton in 'Blade Runner 2049' with nary a zombie in sight.  Why is he here?   O I thought you'd never ask!  Because he's wearing the most suitable clothing for roistering around during a Zombie Apocalypse; a boilersuit.  Art!

     There you go, full-length coverage for legs and arms, in a stout fabric that will not only resist zombie bites but repel oil and grease.  While HTND also rather  excessively recommended you wear snakebite-proof gloves, a bit over the top if you ask me.  Your average zomboid does not have needle-sharp fangs.  A stout pair of leather gloves will suffice.  You're welcome.  

     SO! Another heading covered, and one that irks Your Humble Scribe most gallingly.  

Bite me!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

     An illo put up on Twitter, asserting that this is a Vickers gun team in action before the battle of El Alamein.

     I shall allow you to study and we'll come back to it.

Pennington Again

Gosh, we're over a third of the way though this slideshow from 'Sci-Fi Art', a Youtube channel about walnuts.

     No! only testing.  Science fiction art, pretty obviously, and we'll go with another brace of Brucie's.  Art!

     Hmmmm.  Not sure what to make of this.  A man in a giant cocoon that's seen better days?  Definitely of the future as Bruce has included a futuristic city in the background to tip we, the audience, off.  Ah.  I had a little dig and the Silkies are part-human, part-fish and part-spaceship, all at the same time.  A bit hard for Bruce to portray that, so he's gone for the ratty cocoon.  Art!

     Well, no need to read the novel now that I've scanned the blurb on the back cover.  I have to say that's an awful lot of cats, or Hrrubans.  One wonders if Ol' Brucie didn't simply create a pattern and repeat it backwards into infinity.  Or did he paint every single one individually?  Madness!  The story seems to be of the order of Humans And Aliens Clash, but it does show the 'Barbara Cartland Of Sci-Fi' had more than one string to her bow.  Art!

Continuing The Literary Theme

We return to novels that are similar to 'Greybeard', Art!

     Including this here since the author 'James Tiptree Jr' was actually a woman (gasp! shock! egad!) called Alice Sheldon, who occasionally went by 'Racoona Sheldon' which is an wholly obvious pseudonym, and deceived readers for 10 years until the secret came out in 1977.  This revelation produced several very red faces amongst other sci-fi authors and editors who insisted that Jimmy could only be a man.  The book's a collection of short stories, so there.  Probably arch-miserablist in nature (the webpage admits that they're 'bleak' so I think I guessed correctly), given that 'Greybeard' itself is about the long, slow death of Hom. Sap.

     Wowsers, buzzkill.  We need a light and frothy item!

Bus-ted

No, I am not talking about the group, whom might have driven off a cliff five years ago - allow me to check - yes, they are still together and making music, although taking a break from touring.  Art!

     My ears are Busted-free so far these 65 years and shall remain so.  

     No, we are going to be observing a Public Service Vehicle, better known as a 'Bus', get what it richly deserves for being late or missing so many times.  Bear in mind that a Chieftain tank tips the scales at 55 tons.  Art!

     No, the Chieftain hasn't fired; that's engine smoke from them revving up the rotors.  Note, too, that the turret is reversed, as the driver doesn't want to risk messing things up by having the barrel impact bus first.  Art!

Take that, 409!

     Shame they didn't have a camera on the other side of the 409*.  55 tons of armour winning the argument.  Art!

     Argument over.  Art!

     Chieftain 1 Bus 0

     Or perhaps it's Chieftain 1 Bus 2 x 0.5

Finally -

Dog Buns, a 9-hour day and I pick up a call at 16:51! thus doing 13 minutes overtime.  At least it wasn't a translator call, they can take over an hour to resolve.  Now for that ginger beer.

*  Look, I KNOW it's not the 409.  Allow a man to dream.