It's No Coincidence That Those Word Create The Acronym H.O.A.
For those of you not living in the heathen benighted shores of South Canada, I shall need to explain, all the more so as we here in the more perfect union of This Sceptred Isle have long been untroubled by HOAs. Still, they say that trends (and drugs) make their way across The Pond over the span of five years, so this is by way of an education. Art!
You might have seen the 'X Files' episode 'Arcadia' where Mulder and Scully fall foul of a Home Owners Association that has made an almost literal deal with the devil in order to enforce neatness and tidiness in their neighbourhood. To many people in a neighbourhood HOA, this is only a slight exaggeration, as they are notoriously nosy, interfering and run by little tin Herr Schickelgrubers.
ANYWAY let us limn the scene, because the Unaffiliated Narrator of this tale was NOT part of the HOA, thanks to his housing plot being so much older than the rest of the neighbourhood, not to mention three times larger. Also present on his land were <drum roll cymbal crash trumpet blare> TREES! GREAT BIG ANCIENT TREES!
You can probably tell where this is heading. Art!
These trees had been around for at least a couple of centuries, and they basically caused the HOA President to have his brains boil in his skull about them, and they were the primary reason he had incessant beefs with UN. At the end of the day, UN wasn't in the HOA, had no intention of ever joining the HOA and wasn't required to give the faintest echo of a gnat passing wind about Prezzy's woes and obsessions. Art!
When UN was away for a couple of days, Prezzy contracted with a tree surgery company to fell one of the oak trees, and UN arrived home to - well, arboreal carnage, frankly. You see, this company seemed to be able to prune rose bushes and sweep up leaves, not cut down giant oak trees. They managed to mis-direct the single tree they cut down, which fell over and hit a second tree, knocking it over. Then, instead of grinding down the stump of the felled tree, which as everyone knows is best practice, they physically winched it out of the ground, creating an enormous hole. Unfortunately it happened that this root system was also entangled in the root system of the last remaining upright tree, which suddenly wasn't upright any more.
Oooops.
Ol' Prezzy had been on the scene of the crime, which must have irked UN. Rather than resorting to fisticuffs, he instantly contacted a tree lawyer, who in turn retained an arboriculturalist to put a cash value on the felled trees. Art!
That's the average per tree. Thus $450,000 in total just for the trees. Suddenly Ol' Prezzy not looking so smug.
It gets worse. For Ol' Prezzy, that is. You see, it's just not possible to replace a 150 year-old tree with another 150-year old tree; nurseries simply don't stock 150-year old trees. In which case, a lot of states in South Canada like to award triple damages. Ol' Prezzy now beginning to sweat.
UN's lawyer, however - first appearance today!- decided to target the tree company first, since the total cost being sued for was now $1,000,000 and the HOA didn't have more than a fraction of that. Surprise surprise, the business agreed to settle out of court in order to avoid any scrutiny of their operations, which belies a guilty conscience, hmmm? Art!
This is a sceptical expression. Apparently.
You may be wondering at this point if the story isn't fake, because - ponying up a million dollars?
Well might you quibble, but Conrad has done a bit of digging of his own, and there is a UK insurance agency called 'Arborisk' who are part of the mighty Aviva insurance group and who specialise in tree surgery and other agricultural lines. Arborisk will provide Public Liability, Professional Indemnity and Legal Expenses. Their Standard Cover is £5 million ($6.5 million) and it can go up to £10 million ($13 million). Just to be clear, Public Liability covers accidental injury or damage to property as a result of the business's actions - as the knocked-over trees would be defined. Legal Expenses are defined under the Health & Safety Act in the UK, so I'm guessing this would be akin to the OSHA in South Canada? Art!
So, settling out of court for a million dollars is quite feasible, unless further down the line Arborisk decide not to pay, tee hee!
There was still the matter of Ol' Prezzy, who was liable for trespass - and forging documents showing that UN's property was part of the HOA - as well as property damage. His defence in court amounted to that the trees were against HOA rules.
He must have skimped on paying for a decent lawyer to mount this defence, because once again for the hard of thinking UN WAS NOT PART OF THE HOA!
The narrative ends at this point, so we don't know about Ol' Prezzy's sentence, only that he was found guilty and either jumped or was pushed from the Prez position as having an indicted criminal running your HOA is a rather bad look.
I bet the HOA trod verrrry carefully after that, not wanting to be lumbered with another million-dollar lawsuit. Do you see wha - O you do.
Wow, that was a bit wordy. Bring on more pictures!
"Invincible"
Onto Episode 6, "All I Can Say Is I'm Sorry" and Conrad, having read the comic books, knows how this one ends.
To set the scene, we have 'Powerplex', who is obsessed with killing Invincible because he passed the port to the right, did away with lickable sealed letters and left a sock in the underwear drawer, that sort of thing. Art!
Ol' Plexy is a bit too handy with blasting things, and notably inaccurate, too. In the 45th minute showdown with Invincible, Ol' Plexy has faked the kidnapping of his wife and son to bait our fave superhero into battle.
Alongside the fake hostages. In a badly-damaged tower block.
What can possibly go wrong?
Okay, just back from making a pot of tea.
"The War Illustrated Edition 205 April 27th 1945"
These photographs are from late March and early April, once again deliberately delayed to avoid giving anything away to the opponent, although by this time there was precious little the Teutons could do about any information thus derived. Art!
Apologies for the less-than-crisp nature of these pictures. And the finger cutting off part of the first one! Let us get rather more detailed and unobscured pictures. Art!
Here the tank crews - you can tell because they're all wearing black berets, no snivelling nonsense about helmets for Britain's hardy sons! - are probably saying very cruel things about Herr Schickelgruber. Note the two chaps to port wearing overalls rather than 'pixie suits'. Art!
This, we are informed, is at Stadlohn as of April 1st. That's a camouflaged Cromwell advancing, and that seems to be a turretless 'Kangaroo' troop-carrier in the background. Art!
And here the Tommies are sheltering behind an overturned stove in Bocholt, part of the Rhineland now echoing to the tramp of Allied feet.
Ask A Leading Question .....
Here's the very definition of a leading question. Art!
What do we think? This is a nation now using horses to travel on and donkeys to move supplies in Ukraine. 25% of homes lack an indoor toilet - which is probably why they stole so many when looting abroad - and then there's Norilsk. Art!
Norilsk town centre The rest of Norilsk
NO is a loud answer.
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