If Only Ol' Tolky Had Spoken True

I Refer, Obviously - Of Course! - To J.R.R. Tolkein

Ol' Tolky, to encumber him with BOOJUM!'s distressingly colloquial nickname, had quite the imagination.  You'll find his inspirations amongst the literature of Nordic nations and languages, which is why he was hot stuff on different alphabets and tongues amongst Middle Earth.  These are either pre- or post-Roman alphabet, which is why Conrad has such a fascination with those of the Caucasus.  Art!

     That's one iteration of Treebeard, one of the Ents, who might best be described as dendrogens, or anthropomorthic trees, who acted as shepherds for all the other trees who couldn't move or speak but who made excellent firewood.  

    Why do I lead into this Intro with such a reverence for tree shepherds?  O I thought you'd never ask!

     Because Devin Stone, 'Legal Eagle' over on Youtube, has brought up a genuine legal case for 'Tree Law', which he serenaded with a ticker-tape parade down Main Street with a mariachi band and fireworks.  Art!

     If the Ents were real, none of the following would ever have happened.  Art!

     ANYWAY, for those of you who live in the Outer Darkness and are unfamiliar with TL, let me explain.  It is EXTRAORDINARILY costly to interfere with, violate, de-branch or <shudders in horror> cut down trees in South Canada.  You can end up on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars PER TREE.  Yes, really. We have covered this in the past on the blog, and the costs of replacing a White Oak that you cut down in a drunken chainsaw session can mean selling your house to pay compensation.  This is probably better than having an Ent turn up and destroy your house with you inside it, but not by much.  Art!

     These are Ficus trees on the pavement ('sidewalk' for our South Canadian readers) outside Universal Studios.  The picture to port is where they are untrimmed and that at starboard is after the studio had given them a bit of a snip, which is where the issue occurs, as these trees' shade was where union pickets were taking shelter from the ferocious Californian sun.  

     At this point Devin proves his legal chops by explaining the background of pavement trees in Los Angeles.  There is a Bureau Of Street Services in LA, whom are responsible for maintaining the pavements, and one of their subdivisions is the 'Urban Forestry Division', who are responsible for - gasp! - trees.  Art!

     

     Conrad is willing to bet that 100% of his non-South Canadian audience had never heard of this organisation, and that 99% of his South Canadian audience hadn't heard of them, either.  They deal with a portfolio of trees that include street trees, park trees, residential trees and native trees - to the tune of 700,000 trees total.  This is the largest urban forest in South Canada, and possibly globally, and a prime example of hiding in plain sight, because who associates the tree on the street corner with 699,999 others?  Art!

     We will allow them the mis-spelling of 'Neighbourhoods' for the moment.

     ANYWAY Universal claimed that they need to trim trees in July, because this is ahead of the stormy season where trees are vulnerable to high winds, at which the LA office responsible called a foul and fined them -

     $250.

     This is the fine for a first offender.  It might go as high as $1,000 on subsequent fines.  The problem is that the Universal Ficus' are not heritage trees, being instead only mere mundane everyday 'Parkway' trees.  This is bad.  This is VERY bad, because LA is a signatory to the American National Standards Institute's Pruning Standards, which is why there's a $250 fine in there.  Because you cannot idly carry out Topping, Lion's Tailing or Rooster Tailing without consequences, baby.  Art!

     Inevitably, Devin takes advantage to throw out bad puns, which we will not devolve to, as we are oak so much better than him.

     Excuse me!  I need to go shift a ton of cardboard that is surplus to requirements.  The aftermath of 'Cut Price Barry's'.

     There, one load of soggy paper pulp re-positioned.

"The War Illustrated"

Allow me to illuminate here.  TWI was a fortnightly publication that put forward the Allied version of the Second Unpleasantness, bigging-up their successes and either downplaying or ignoring their failures.  For one thing, the desperate condition of the Allies at Anzio had been completely ignored, with only a few photo shoots being published.

     This charming young lady is one of the Partisans waging war on behalf of Tito, who was the far-left Bolshevik supported by the Allies.  They had sampled how the Mihailovic paramilitaries favoured the Teutons, and went for Tito. This led to embarrassing circumstances when Tito vanished to go chat to Stalin, but it also meant that the Yugoslavs liberated their own homeland absent Sinister 'help; and they remembered who their friends were. 

Conrad's Corneas Counsel Caution

Or, perhsps, Eye Eye Eye.  One of the pluses of having Netflix is being able to re-play old sci-fi shows, which includes "Star Trek", an old Greek-cum-Boer title if ever there was one.  Your Humble Scribe re-watched "The Naked Time" last night, which featured the image of Mister Sulu 'Sweating like a brine mussel", upon this appellation he picks up an epeé and threatens everyone one within range.  Art!

    Hmmmm yes.  

    I mean no.  NO!

     If a nutter like this suddenly appeared in the corridors of an interstellar starship, do you seriously think they wouldn't Tazer him into a coma within seconds?

"City In The Sky"

One's favourite peripatetic time-traveller is getting a worm's-eye view of the workings of Arcology One, the premier Bernal Sphere in Earth orbit

     Five minutes walk brought their gentle meandering to an enormous pond, that the Doctor knew would be relatively shallow thanks to the restrictions of the sphere’s construction.  A nearly transparent film suspended on ribs set into the pond’s perimeter hung over it.  Mysterious small ripples broke the tranquil surface.

     ‘We have a small fish stock in the major ponds, Doctor Smith.’

     ‘Oh.  Any other animals?’

     ‘If you look over there - ’ and she pointed at a diagonal ‘ – that’s where the cows and chickens are located.  Dairy and egg basics.’

     He pointed at the pond.

     ‘The aerial film is to restrict evapouration?’

     Virginia nodded emphatically.  Thanks to the sheer size of the sphere, unwanted internal weather conditions that included cloud formation might take place if allowed.  There were dew collectors grooved into the inner walls of the sphere to cope with condensation, which was as much as the crew wanted to happen, and air-conditioning plant to monitor and control the amount of vapour in the air. 

     The Doctor discovered a bench made of extruded polystyrene foam facing the pond and sat, leaning forward in that characteristic pose he had, both hands resting on the handle of his vertical umbrella, his chin resting on his hands.  Virginia, slightly taken aback, sat down next to him.  She’d not seen an umbrella for years and nearly laughed at it – when you didn’t have weather, who needed personal rain protection?

     ‘Don’t you want to carry on with the look-and-see?  There’s our embryo bank, Infrastructure, and the seed vault -’

     A silent shake of the head was the only answer, at first.

     Here, you see the Doctor not being coy.  Or <ahem> McCoy.

Finally -

Better get taping those boxes together, Conrad's Mancave contents aren't going to put themselves into cardboard containers!