Secret fantasies revealed n° 1.

Peter AND Dan Snow.

There's a troll about.

There's a person masquerading as me, The Aunt, or Aunty Marianne, on Blogger. He has visited Honey and Mutley and left a series of strong-language offensive comments in my name. Luckily Mutley rumbled him and let me know, thank you Mutley. One of the "Aunty Marianne" comments on Mutley's blog led back to a fellow called Hector Munroe, which may be him, or it may be that Hector is someone else he's cloned. I also got an email from Andy Ramblings to tell me that he wasn't the author of the comments under his name in the post below.

Now I think back this person may have been hanging around for a while. I sincerely hope this offensive fellow doesn't visit anyone else and please accept my condolences in advance if he does visit you with objectionable material.

I have changed my passwords and I am going to put comments on moderation for a while.

Support the Dryads 3 - Smoking gun

Yesterday courtesy of Tippler a document came to my attention which pretty much provides the smoking gun in the tale of the tree felling. It's on the STIB's own website, which forbids us to link to it, so here's the URL, http://www.stib.irisnet.be/FR/13100F.htm, n° 13 among the PDF brochures available on that page, the brochure related specifically to the STIB's plans for its tram rolling stock.

You will note that for future trams, planned at 2.65 meters in INTERNAL width, and with a wider axle base, and a wider gap between the trams, 25% of the network still needs to be 'adapted'. The STIB need to gain at least 70 cms overall (35cms on either side), and probably more for the gap between the two sets of rails. The tree-lined avenues of Brussels are unlikely to be offering this additional width. My guess is that's why the Region are helpfully chopping them down for the STIB.

In the light of this brochure, I think you'll agree the STIB's answers below are highly economical with the truth and frankly rather disingenuous.

I wrote to them last night as follows:

Dear Monsieur Glinne,

Merci de votre réponse.
J’avais l’occasion aujourd’hui de visiter le site http://www.stib.irisnet.be/FR/13100F.htm où j’ai pu lire votre PDF N° 13 concernant le renouvellement du matériel roulant de la STIB. C’est ainsi que j’ai constaté que le STIB prévoit d’acheter dans le futur des trams de 2,65m de largeur intérieur, ce qui est plus large que les très beaux nouveaux trams que nous avons aujourd’hui.

Dans ce même PDF je remarque que 75% du réseau étant déjà adapté aux trams de 2.65m, 25% reste à modifier pour acceuillir les trams du futur. Est-ce que vous pouvez me signaler quels zones se trouvent parmi ces 25%. Est-ce que cela comprend les avenues suivantes :

Winston Churchill
Albert
Tervueren (Chaussée et Avenue)
Boulevard du Souverain
Avenue Louise

S’il y a d’autres lignes de tram sertis d’arbres dans les 25% à adapter, est-ce que vous pouvez me signaler quelles sont-elles.

Je vous en remercie d’avance,
Bien à vous

I will be very interested to see what they come up with.

Support the Dryads Part II

Not satisfied with the STIB's glib answer as given below, and inspired by the continued campaign (see new Expatica article) I wrote to the STIB again. I thanked them for the speed of their answer, and then asked for the number of trees on Winston Churchill, the number diagnosed with an illness that makes them dangerous, the number already cut down, and the number that were scheduled for the chop. I asked them to give me all three dimensions for the trams. I asked them for the contact details of the people at the Region of Brussels-Capital responsible for the tree-felling.

This is the letter I got back.

Bonjour,

Nous vous remercions de nous avoir fait parvenir votre message.

Nous ne pouvons malheureusement vous indiquer le nombre exact d'arbres à abattre sur l'avenue Churchill, ce dossier relevant de la compétence de l'Administration des Equipements et Déplacements de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale. Cette administration dépendant du Ministère de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale (MRBC) est joignable au numéro de téléphone: 02 204 21 11.

Par ailleurs, les dimensions des nouveaux trams sont les suivantes:

T3000

largeur: 2,30 m
longueur: 31,85 m
hauteur: 3,40 m

T4000

largeur: 2,30 m
longueur: 43,22 m
hauteur: 3,40 m

hauteur de la caténaire (mesure standard pour le réseau): 9,69 m

En restant à votre disposition,
Cordialement,

Nathanaël GLINNE (Mr.)
STIB - Relations avec la Clientèle
Tél: +32 2 515 23 91
Besoin d'un renseignement? Surfez sur www.stib.be
ou appelez notre Contact Centre au 0900 10 310(0,45€/min).*

"Hello,

Thanks for your message.

Sadly we cannot give you the figures on the exact number of trees to be felled on Avenue Churchill, because the file is being handled by the Administration of Equipment and Removals of the Brussels-Capital Region, which is a dependent body of the Ministry of the Brussels-Capital Region and can be reached by telephone on 02 204 21 11.

The dimensions of the new trams are as follows:

T3000

width: 2,30 m
length: 31,85 m
height: 3,40 m

T4000

width: 2,30 m
length: 43,22 m
height: 3,40 m

height of the catenary (power cable) (standardized across the network): 9,69 m

At your disposal,
Cordially, etc"

Now I think this is a much better answer. It's honest and factual and I have forwarded it to the Marroniers people to do with as they see fit.

In the meantime I had a chinwag with a friend who happens to be a Doctor of Botany. She'd heard about the Churchill kerfuffle and had seen something similar happen near her own house, where a row of trees of which only some were diseased had been slaughtered wholesale. It was her contention that a properly managed avenue of trees has fellings, sometimes culls, and replantings every five years or so, so that there's never an enormous gap and diseased trees are caught early and either treated or felled. Whilst it sounds expensive, in the long run, such a policy of regular expenditure on a smaller scale would undoubtedly be cheaper than having to have a wholesale felling and replanting session. It might also avoid the sort of leaf blight that seems to have hit the baby trees replanted along the Chaussée de Tervuren. Suffice to say that she is also not overly impressed with the Brussels-Capital Region's management of their trees.

Speaking of replanting. Today, I was reading the blog of Eric Sax, one of the councillors of Uccle, the municipality in which Avenue Churchill lies. He's campaigning for the chestnuts too. Towards the end of the comments on that blog, there seemed to be a suggestion that any replanting would not be of chestnuts or other leafy trees, but of conifers, and metasequoias, pictured herewith, at that. Guess what Wiki says about metasequoias. It says "In the late 1980s, it was discovered that many of the second generation trees in cultivation suffered from inbreeding depression (extremely low genetic variability) which could lead to increased susceptibility to disease and reproductive failure. This was because most of the trees were grown from seeds and cuttings derived from as few as three trees that the Arnold Arboretum had used as its source. More widespread seed-collecting expeditions in China in the 1990s sought to resolve this problem and restore genetic diversity to cultivated Metasequoia."

So, out of the frying pan and into the fire, then?

OMG! Small village wiped off map!

What has happened to Beavershott? It seems to have disappeared completely!

Let's ask Gosling; I found him in Marrakesh. He has also taken to using a very familiar picture as his gravatar. I find it hard to believe, but could Oliver Gosling be a direct descendent of the late great Ivan the Terrible?

If you are in Marrakesh, and you see this man, please notify us immediately. He may have stolen an entire West Country village. Whither the romance between Honoria and Modo? Will D.C. Warmington ever get to wear his first prize toupé to a village hall dance? Will the burgeoning affair between Dr E.E. Spinks and the somewhat surprised Bunty Binstock ever attain its apotheosis? Will we ever know?

I can't live with the suspense.

Water, water everywhere

The first inkling I heard of it when I met my colleague S. in the lift. Apparently there'd been a flood overnight in the office cellars and some of our files were soaked. I commiserated politely but had no idea of the misery that was to come. But at 2pm we all received an email saying that the water would be turned off to try and mend the leak. At 2.30pm, some overdressed young men from Vivaqua came and started drilling in the street outside, leaving us all with the impression that a giant dentist was working away at an exceptionally torturous cavity.

Nature calls to everyone sooner or later, and without water, our lovely clean facilities would become extremely unpleasant places to be. However my assessment of the events is that the majority of my colleagues decided to delay the inevitable somewhat rather than face the ignominy, however anonymous, of being the one who fouled the facilities. As the afternoon wore on, faces became somewhat tight, concentration dropped and conversations were conducted in a light, rapid manner. Nobody seemed to want to leave their desks.

At 5.30pm precisely, instead of the usual leisurely multicultural exodus which may end well towards 8pm, a somewhat cross-legged stampede streaked out of the office in the direction either of home bathrooms or the nearest acceptable pub conveniences.

I do hope the water's back on tomorrow...

Support Our Boys

The Spanish Goth and Tippler have entered the Big Blogger House. We should all go and support them. Tippler is particularly in need of the support of close friends, as he packed in a rush and forgot his banana slings. One of you may care to take over on that particular task. I have to go and ... go and.... go and oh, um, rearrange my sock drawer. Immediately.