What Ho!
Today we go back to that most interesting and financially destructive of topics we have covered, and easily one of Conrad's favourite subjects - tree law.
For those who are unfamiliar with this, in both This Sceptred Isle and South Canada, mature trees are very very expensive. Normally we all take trees for granted, because they form part of the landscape, until they fall over or get chopped down. Art!
This is the sycamore tree of Sycamore Gap - now more Sycaless Gap?, cruelly felled by a bottomhole who thought it was a good idea after a crate of Special Brew, which sparked national outrage across the nation. The two wretched miscreants being tried for this offence are on the hook for over - get this - £620,000 pounds of criminal damage.
Now to the meat of the matter for this Intro, which is a dispute between neighbours, the narrator of which is going to be Big Tree Owner (hereafter BTO), the subject of which is going to be Bottomhole Karen (BK).
BTO was the proud owner of a house with a large backyard. Off to one side of the yard, in an awkward position, stood a tree. Art!
I choose to add this image in because BTO neglects to identify the tree until late in the tale. Hoping to create dramatic tension? Whatever. Let Conrad identify it as a 300-year old Sequoia, the height of which is not mentioned but which could conceivably be 150 feet high. These things are enormous, and as BTO belatedly realised after BK pestered about overhanging branches on her property that ought to be trimmed, they are protected by law. No pruning or trimming allowed.
You can probably see where this is going. Trust me, it gets worse.
One objection that BK voiced to her hapless neighbour was the the redwood's branches scraped on her new conservatory. One presumes that this only occurred in high winds, as surely this conservatory wasn't deliberately built directly under the overhanging tree? Art!
This kind of large, expensive, fragile construction. People who live in glass houses should have a privacy screen around their bathroom at the very least.
ANYWAY BTO went away for a week to visit family for Thanksgiving, and returned home to the sound of chainsaws and a huge skip ('Dumpster' for our South Canadian friends) in BK's driveway, full of shattered glass and timbers.
Something had clearly gone down whilst he was away. Literally. Art!
This is what greeted his eyes in the backyard. A mere stump of his 300-year old sequoia, two blokes with chainsaws cutting up the tree itself, a partially-shattered fence and a completely shattered conservatory on the other side of that fence. Reading between the lines was easy: BK had hired a couple of cowboys to cut down the redwood, they had completely bodged the job and instead dropped it squarely on her conservatory, destroying it. Art!
The best AI could come up with
Here an aside. BTO doesn't go into any details about the chainsaw-wielding incompetents, so I shall extrapolate here. There is no mention of them being arborists or tree surgeons or timber specialists, nor any mention of a truck or wagon that they came in. Regular arborists would have rejected any job that required trespassing on another person's property, especially as they would be liable for any ensuing criminal damage. Ergo, this pair were a couple of slackers BK had hired for cash, and she got what she paid for. Art!
Treetards?
BTO's first response was not one I would have come out with: he started laughing. This was the worst possible thing BK could have endured, and she immediately called the police, proving that she had no impulse control as well as poor judgement. All four involved were then taken to the police station to make statements, at which point BTO asked about suing his neighbour, and was told there would be a court hearing in connection with his statement.
This is where BTO lets drop the information that, yes, the tree was a 300-year old redwood - and also that it was under a 'Tree Preservation Order', to which end:
- Cutting down, topping, lopping, uprooting, or otherwise wilful damage
- Cutting roots
So, when the trial came up, BTO stuck around after giving evidence, watching BK get more and more irate, all the while looking at him with daggers in her glances. If looks could kill he'd have been a dead man a dozen times over.
She had to pay BTO damages in order to repair his fence and uproot the redwood stump, as the tree was now extremely dead. BTO doesn't separate this from the overall total so we'll just say $15,000 as a rather high ball-park figure.
She also had to pay fines that totalled $400,000 for destroying the redwood. Art!
An artist's impression from BTO's description of her 'jiggling bulk' as she went demented and tried to attack him - in the middle of the court room. The bailiffs tackled her, brought her to the ground, cuffed her and led her away to the cells, all of which she no doubt blamed on BTO. The judge was, understandably, extremely unimpressed, banging his gavel in an impression of a steam-hammer.
BTO then said he has to attend court again in connection with another case BK is involved in - which I think is coy legally-aware-speak for being a witness to her epic melt-down in court. She is now potentially up for:
imprisonment, fines, restraining orders, community service, and suspended sentences
As I said in judgement before, poor impulse control and no judgement. Apart from that imposed in court. For a fine of that size one suspects her house might need to be re-mortgaged, or all her savings and pension get cashed in, or both, IN ADDITION to whatever sentence is imposed for her court-room chaos.
It would have been much easier to merely listen to the gentle scraping of branches. Art!
Poetic (and fiscal) justice.
Norsk Paerekake
Or, for those of you unfamiliar with Scandinavian tongues, "Norwegian Pear Cake". This used to be a particular favourite at work when I baked and brought it in, and more resembles a sponge pudding than a cake. I used an old recipe dug out with my added corrections to the baking temperature - Gas Mark 5 NOT Mark 6 as the original recipe called for - and 20 minutes longer with a foil cover added for this extra time. Then one has to invert the cake and put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes to dry out the base. Art!
The first
That's Sal handling her resin frog. Don't ask me, it was Wonder Wifey's idea. The cake went down well but then everything does with Sal, who is the very opposite of a fussy picky eater. We raised her well.
Nice to know the old baking ability has not been lost. All I have to do now is space out eating each remaining piece of cake for 10 days. No problem. Will of iron. Tooth of sweet, though.
"The War Illustrated Edition 203 29th March 1945"
Conrad unsure if he took a picture of the 'Nazi Sandwich' from this edition or not. Let me have a quick check through the accumulated pictures.
The map is somewhat out of date as Cologne had already fallen by the time it was published. Note the line marked with zig-zags: that was (very much past tense) the Teuton's 'Siegfried Line', now rendered completely useless in the north and centre of the Allied line. I mentioned 'sandwich' because the Sinisters were also closing in from the East but just to spite the Ruffians I'm not going to display their advance nor their map. Tee hee!
Heart Heart, The Dogs Do Barf
Let me illustrate an odd event, or lack of event, taking place with the stock value of the Orange Land Whale's DJT shares. Art!
The rationale of people buying this meme stock was that, when Donold got elected, the share price would soar, they could sell off the stock and make coin immeasurable. So far that hasn't happened; the stock is bumping along at about $30 per share, way down from their post-election high of $50 per share.
The performance of their parent company, TMTG, might have something to do with this, as they released their annual financial details on the 14th of February. They don't look very good, even to a non-economist like Conrad. Art!
They claim to have $776 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, neither of which latter are cash and are very probably difficult and time-consuming to realise as cash, so not very liquid at all.
Then they admit to have $9.6 million as debt, and then the hits (in a bad way) keep on coming. Income is down from $4.1 to $3.6 million or 12% in net terms. Not the best way to grow a business! What they call 'Operating expenses' ate up another $49 million. These are differentiated from 'General and administrative expenses', which dwarf the former at $130 million.
At this rate it would take 52 years for income to balance the debt, which, on the other hand, would wipe out all the 'cash' reserves in 3 years. Art!
Bring on the buckets of popcorn!
Finally -
Instead of the usual 'Chuck everything in the pot' Sunday Stew, I am going to be using a recipe for Goulash from by diabetic cookbook, so I need to get cracking on that.
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