Granny Buttons

Aqua Narrowboat Hire and novices

Aqua Narrowboat Hire has written about the prizewinners of its 'name the boat' competition, who claimed their free weekend trip a couple of weeks ago. 

(The new boat's called Aqua Vita.  My suggestions - which I wrote about here - didn't win.)

Justin of Aqua says that while the winning couple had planned to go north to Great Haywood, they were completely new to narrowboats so he took them southerly - down to Fradley Junction, to do their first locks and then turn:

I do this with all novices as our nearest lock going north is around 3 1/2 hours cruise away and a very long walk back for me!

What would be really useful for the hire industry would be a network of volunteer trainers at the first locks on set-out days, to save the hire company people time and worry. 

They'd need to be lightly qualified, and perhaps receive a token payment from the main hire companies in the area - maybe expenses and refreshment money. 

A lot of people with expertise would quite enjoy spending, say, an afternoon a week doing this.  Teenagers wouldn't take much training and it would allow them to get involved in the waterways.   

Indeed it could be extended to a national system - including in bandit-country lock flights such as on the Ashton or Rochdale canals, sort of like the Guardian Angels, but with a waterways education element too.

Ben Harp on NB 4Evermoore

This spring I've been following the build of NB 4Evermoore, the optimistically named boat of Kevin and Ann, which they have been blogging.

A month ago Kevin says the planned handover date is May 16th - this coming weekend.   The boat is then due to cruise to the Crick Boat Show for the following weekend.

The Sunday before last, I cruised past and snapped builder Ben Harp hard at work finishing the boat.  He raised his eyebrows in recognition and posed briefly for me, before scurrying back inside.

Kevin's blog has pictures of some very nice work inside.  I couldn't see much as I puttered past, but I was very impressed with quality of the cratchboard, which looks more like cabinetry than simple woodwork. I liked the inlaid 'diamond', an echo of the traditional colourful lozenge pattern on the bowcheeks.

Ben fits out the boats canalside, alongside the marina.  When I was still in the marina, boaters nearby apologised to me for the noise of his generator running as he worked.  Well, it's something I'd get used to if I was there permanently, and I don't suppose he has much choice. I'm sure he'd rent a shoreline off the adjacent marina if he could.

Great Haywood Marina itself still has no mains electricity, eight months after opening, and relies on a larger generator behind the main marina office. 

Not their fault, I suspect. Pillings Lock Marina (near Loughborough) was like that too, when it opened last year.  It was only last February that it finally was able to dispense with the generator - despite sitting right underneath a veritable parade of huge electricity pylons. 

It looks like having electricity laid on is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in opening a new canal basin.

Jim and Michelle and eating the English lotus

Jim and Michelle Lambton live a gypsy life on a 36ft sailboat, between the Bahamas and Lake Ontario, Canada.  Michelle blogs about it, on The Adventures of S.Y. Chelonidae.

But they are jaded with The Life American Aquatic, and want to sell Chelonidae and buy a boat to live afloat in Britain for a while, and then Europe.  Jim asks:

Are the best of English waterways only accessible if you have a narrow canal barge?

What would be a good way to go about arriving in UK and quickly finding a suitable and inexpensive boat with which to live on and travel inland waterways. 

I am a shipwright, so a winter spent fixing up a good but neglected boat is an option.  Cost of accommodation while finding a boat could kill our budget.  What would be a good area of England to base ourselves to look for such a boat?

What sort of boat would give some modest liveaboard comfort and capability?   Would love a BIG broad beam barge - but we couldn't afford that. 

Jim, your budget and your expectations will quickly collide, and one of them will vanish in a second in a quiet puff of dust.

Photographers Direct and the reinvention of the magazine cover

Photographers Direct is a web site where people or periodicals looking to buy images can ask photographers if they've got suitable images to use.

For example (hypothetically), an editor might ask

I need a wintery-looking photograph of Bugsworth Canal Basin from an unusual angle, showing the water, a bridge and some of the brickwork, but not one of the usual boring pictures you get of the Basin. 

There isn't such a picture, of course.  This is a hypothetical case.  But if perchance you had such a picture, he might pay you well.  (Assuming he wanted one in landscape format)

Photographers Direct makes its money by charging photographers a subscription (£217/yr) or commission (20%) on sales.

Yesterday on Photographers Direct someone pleaded for a photo of the Ponty Aqueduct:

I need a summery, high quality image of a walker crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Llangollen Canal, Wales, preferably with a boat in shot too.  Needs to be dramatic, good light, sense of height and movement.  For a front cover.  As soon as you can please - deadline Wednesday! Many thanks...

Colour images ONLY

Format : Portrait (vertical)

Use : Editorial, cover,  full page

Budget : UK£400

Notes on Budget : 107,000 print run magazine in UK only.

Lesson 1:  Portrait (vertical) pictures are probably worth the most money, because they suit cover pictures. 

Lesson 2:  Portrait is in demand probably because magazine design itself is sclerotic. 

Why do editors feel compelled to have full-page vertical format photos and streams of text on magazine covers?  There's no reason a magazine needs a full pic and a bunch of teaser text on the cover.  There's no reason it needs any text at all. The whole magazine world is ripe for reinvention.

Lesson 3: I need to start taking a lot more photos in portrait, because Granny Buttons is never going to change the magazine world. Not without starting her own magazine.  And she won't get around to it, much as she'd like to. 

Unless a publisher would like to persuade her.

[Thanks to Rob Hudson for inspiring this post]

NABO throws its substantial weight behind continuously cruising canal boaters

Simon Robbins of NABO says:

WHO SAYS NABO DOES NOT REPRESENT CONTINUOUS CRUISERS?

Sorry but you are just plain WRONG when you claim NABO doesn't represent Continuous Cruisers' interests (as well as those of other boaters).

Simon, I am delighted to acknowledge that NABO represent the interests of continuous cruisers.  I sincerely apologise!  

So it's good to hear that NABO will stand up for Continuous Cruisers and disavow those NABO members who disagree with them. 

BW, too, have told me they represent Continuous Cruisers.  Now I come to think of it, I recall IWA saying they also represent CCers.

Are there any other organisations representing continuous cruisers?

As I've said before, Granny herself remains neutral.

Kirkless Hall Inn 'empty and vandalised'

Not many people have written of the Kirkless Hall Inn on the Wigan flight of locks.

So my last post about it - two years ago - attracted a lot of comments and rage, because there was nowhere else for anyone to comment on it.

Yesterday Chris emailed:

Just thought I'd let you know the above pub at the top of the Wigan flight is now empty and as of yesterday vandalised.

Sad, as it used to be very busy with decent beer and plain but reasonable food a few years ago.

NBW tracks down the miscreants on restricted moorings

I just got a namecheck and photo from Tom Crossley of Narrowboat World.  Thanks, Tom!  That's kind of you.

But I don't understand; you say that Granny is 'going nowhere on restricted moorings', but I thought I'd been pretty good about following the BW guidelines for continuous cruising, moving on every 7-10 days on a genuine voyage, and not just hovering in the area. 

I'm not bridge-hopping; I'm England-hopping.

And I wasn't on restricted moorings - certainly not where he pictured me, near Weston, near Stone, a couple of weeks back.

CCers that were moored at Weston when I arrived were still there when I left, so perhaps you think I need to keep better company.  Except, one of them went out of his way to help me extraordinarily when I had my flat battery, and I'm really grateful.  The waterways need more kind people like him.

Last month BW issued a draft document on proposals to tackle (alleged) miscreants like me.  Sally Ash, BW's boating czar, suggests a £25-a-day surcharge. 

I really like that.  It would be a 'charge', and not a 'fine'.  There's too much law around these days and not enough commerce.

Charging £25/day works out about about £9,125 a year, which I think is quite a reasonable fee for the privilege of mooring where the hell you like.  It's effectively a Club Class.

But as usual, Narrowboat World misses the real story - my licence is still out of date!  I haven't sorted out with BW about my lost boat safety certificate, and they won't direct debit the licence fee until I've got a replacement.

(Sorry for the formatting of the NBW screengrab above, but NBW doesn't like my hi-res screen and I can't link directly to the article concerned.  Tom, your website design really is antedeluvian - sack your webmaster!  Also, please feel free to ask if you want a decent photo of Granny Buttons.  I'll be sure to moor alongside a 24hr mooring sign next time)

Empty moorings to sub-let for a few days

Ownerships moorings at Great Haywood Marina  (Kinver in foreground, GrannyB in background) - May 4th 2008

I spent the night of 3-4th May at Great Haywood Marina, tying up alongside The Robber Button, and in one of a half-dozen empty Ownerships moorings.

I paid £7.50 for the night and a pound for electricity to ensure the batteries were charged.  And it did feel good and secure (albeit that the marina isn't yet finished and is lacking in facilities.

I presume the mooring fee was pin money for the marina, because it's not money that BW is expecting - their fee to the marina is based on the annual rental charged to the Ownerships boats, and they presumably won't claim a lien on any extra money that the marina charge. 

These gaping, empty moorings are potentially lucrative extra income for marinas - they can rent them out while the Ownerships boats are out continuously cruising from Saturday-Friday (or longer).

When the issue of charging continuous cruisers extra is raised at the next BWAF meeting, I wonder if it'll mention this potential extra income for marinas, or how much the marinas are missing out by not sub-letting their mooring space their users' moorings.  Think of all those empty spaces across the country that passing boaters could use when they are far from their own home moorings.

Indeed, marinas could have two classes of mooring - a cheaper non-BW-taxable anywhere-that's-free mooring, and a more expensive, BW-surchargeable private, permanent mooring space.

The land-locked admirable coalboat Dusty

Cabbages and Kings - Oxford Mail

He is known as Dusty from Isis Lock to Cropredy, the man on the narrowboat of that name which supplies diesel, gas and coal to land-locked admirals who chug along the Oxford Canal, or have made their home in what we space-hungry landlubbers see as a floating Tardis.

Mark Boardman heaves gas bottles around like a weightlifter and tosses sacks of fuel with the ease rarely seen since the demise of the neighbourhood coalman. I offer my hand. He apologies for the dirt, a humbling gesture for someone whose workplace grime was restricted to faulty typewriter ribbons in pre-computer days.

I get a kick out of that expression, 'land-locked admirals'.

Other coal and diesel boats are available.

The BWAF meeting tomorrow (or Thursday?)

According to the BW website there's a meeting on Thursday 16th May of the British Waterways Advisory Forum (BWAF).  (NABO suggests that the meeting is tomorrow, Monday 12th May - who's right?)

(The BWAF is where affected people and organisations - horrid word, 'stakeholders' - can sit around a table and discuss matters that are hot about the canals.) 

This time it looks like boat licence fees are very hot topics.  I understand that James Griffin of Wyvern Shipping (did you know that the Griffin and the Wyvern were just about the only two creatures of classical mythology who didn't appear in the Harry Potter books?) will be proposing that:

1. Continuous cruisers should pay a surcharge for not having a permanent mooring.
2. Wide boats should pay a 'fat tax'.

BW currently charges a tax of 9% on all marina mooring spaces.  According to p10 of their their Marina Investment Guide, marinas must pay BW 9% of their moorings space capacity charges (whether or not they let it out).

Granny and other continuous cruisers aren't represented at the BWAF.   There isn't a 'Continuous Cruisers Association'.  NABO doesn't represent them, nor the RBOA.  And if the IWA does, it doesn't even know of the BWAF (it's not in their 'secret code list').

Here's Granny's own assorted (separate/complementary) suggestions for the BWAF meeting: 

1. Treat the CCer as having a permanent mooring on the waterways (albeit having to move every 14 days, as now) and charge him 9% more on his boat licence, to reflect the amount marina moorers pay to BW.
2. Treat the CCer as a 'knight of the waterways', charge him a lot more, and give him greater privileges.
3. Remove the moorings tax from marinas, and allow them to compete more equitably for business, including offering cheaper overnight moorings from continuous cruisers, who'd appreciate facilities such as electric shorelines, clubhouse facilities and wifi (luddite marina operators will need a period of grace to understand its incredible potential!).
4. Force BW to cede their 'online mooring' business in some way - either to a single national non-BW business that will support the moorers' interests or to local communities.
5. Leave the situation as it is.  I'm not sure this one will hold.
6. Charge fat boats more, on the basis that the more they are encouraged, the more likely the canals are to clog up.  I've got a photos somewhere of a couple of fat boats near Tring, trying to pass each other, and they really do highlight that even many wide-lock canals were actually built for narrowboats.
7. Set up a scheme for using exchange or 'mobile' moorings, so that genuine continuous cruisers can pay for a national mooring, using whichever one is most convenient and available.  This could be like the 'Gold licence'.   

This last point is very interesting. A couple of marina groups  offer this scheme, but only for their own group - it's not really practical unless it's truly national and universal.  Perhaps that's the fatal flaw in the BW private marina scheme - there's no incentive for genuine continuous cruisers to pay a mooring charge for their licence unless they are getting some benefits in return.

A short film about Britain's canals and rivers

There's a hidden opportunity on your doorstep.
It's not just a canal
It's not just a river
It's a precious resource
It's a wildlife documentary
It's commuter heaven
It's a proper lunchbreak
It's a few feet from the real world
It's a million miles from the real world
It's an investment opportunity
It's got a captive audience
It's regenerating Britain's communities
It's always open for business
Be part of it.

It's a professionally produced short 2-minute video produced by BW to promote the waterways (WMV format). 

It's called 'A short film about Britain's canals and rivers', but it's really about canals, and most sharply about urban canals - as the 'Commuter Heaven' implies.

It's not much of a script, and doesn't mention boats at all - although there's a couple of brief glimpses from the bow of one narrowboat and a couple more boats (e.g. above) have walk-on roles.

It's been filmed mostly in a few spots around London - Little Venice, the Regent's Canal and the River Lee.  And mostly outside BW's London HQ at Paddington Basin.

It's well made, positive, upbeat, evangelistic about the waterways. 

It's not from a boater's perspective, and it ought to be.  Someone else ought to have a go.   

When I first wrote about this video it had been posted it on YouTube, but by the time my blog post appeared, it had mysteriously been withdrawn.  Perhaps copyright issues with the music? 

That's a pity, because hidden away on the BW website it's not likely to be watched by the people it's intended to reach. So I've completely rewritten this post.

Blogger now allows advance posts - objection overruled

If you use Blogger you can now do posts in advance.  Details here.

Hooray, that's one huge advance.  In the past that's probably been my biggest objection to Blogger.  Objection overruled, as judges say in US TV law programs.

Prominent Blogger canal blogs include No Problem, Maffi, Mortimer Bones and Warrior.   (Other blogs are available)

It's no secret that this 'posting in advance' thing is something I've been doing for ages.   This is how I post things at noon every day without getting into trouble with my boss (for blogging in during working hours).

And it's why I can write about things in arrears and still sound up-to-date, as happens with a lot of my cruising-log posts.

The biggest bonus of advance posting is that you can now put your will online.  All you need to do is set it to publish a few months in advance, and remember to postpone it each month.  (Could get tricky if you forget and it accidentally appears when you are still alive)

Waterside property flood insurance

Alone against the floods:  A true tale of the riverbank - The Observer

There's a good article in the papers today about a darker side to living beside water.  Excerpt:

The deluge that struck large areas of the country last summer, forcing the insurance industry to pay out £3bn, is the type of event that climate experts - and insurers - are betting will become more frequent.

... Not surprisingly, some insurers are now refusing to cover new customers, or charging steep premiums.  And some owners are faced with excesses of tens of thousands of pounds on their policies.

So is buying a property next to a waterway a wise move?  Developers certainly think so: the tranquillity of many of Britain's canals and rivers has been greatly disrupted of late, as brownfield sites are ploughed up to make way for new apartment blocks and warehouses and mills are converted into flats.  It has yet to be seen whether the sagging housing market will dent this enthusiasm, but at the last count the country's waterside areas were awash with some £15bn of investment, according to British Waterways.

Buying a waterside property?  This article doesn't distinguish between canal and river, nor between rural and urban.

Living in a river valley will always carry a risk, even on a narrow canal,as those on the South Oxford Canal between Fenny Compton and Oxford found in mid-July last year.   Bloggers caught up in the flood included Gypsy Rover,  and someone at Banbury (I forget whom, sorry). 

Yet flooding is much rarer on the artificial cuts fed by reservoirs and far from rivers.  Last year, during the big July flood, Granny was on the lock-free river-free Ashby Canal, near Hinckley, and the canal barely rose three inches.  It would be interesting to see a map of where these 'safer' canalside areas are.

The Observer article mentions the British Flood Forum, which I'd not heard of before.  I got the initial impression that the BFFF is a charitable and free self-help group, but the website asked me to 'buy a report' before it would give me any information - and wouldn't say in advance what that report would cost.  The terms and conditions excluded it from any responsibility for wrong information, and its FAQ was a bad link. Oh dear.

I don't know why you need to buy a report to find out your risk of being flooded.  Surely simply getting a few free insurance quotes for your postcode and a few others nearby will tell you that?

Update:  Margaret comments that you can get the flood risk information from the Environment Agency here - for free!

I'll declare my interest (and give a free advertisement):  I work for a PR agency that represents Adrian Flux, who have specialist household flood insurance and will ring you back for free if you click on their Callback button (during office hours).  I tried it twice without telling them of my work connection, and both times got a callback within a minute.

Snooping narrow dog dog dog dog dog

Thanks to Martin for drawing my attention to the new Dogs On Tour blog:

A gentle travelblog recording the adventures and peregrinations of two humans and their five canine companions, utilising various modes of transport including a narrowboat, a motorhome and a people/dog carrier.

... says the description. It's a great but abortive start - just seven posts at the end of March, and then silence.  

I presume 'Greygal' is a gal with five greyhounds, rather than a man with five grey hairs.   Her blog will be a very good read if she starts again and tells us about life afloat with five big (albeit narrow) dogs.

Good grief, five dogs on a narrowboat?  She must have a very sharp an eye to be able to watch on the towpath for all their poop

As you know, I'm an awful snooper, and it's fun snooping around for clues, trying identifying people who go incognito in their blogs.  But in this case it ought not to be hard.  How many people walk the towpath surrounded by a posse of (narrow dog) greyhounds?  In that canine company you couldn't help but look like a style-obsessed rap artiste.

I'd assume Greygal's boat is based at the new Swanley Bridge Marina, judging by evidence in the seven posts on her blog, and she must stand out from the other moorers, not least for sheer style. 

NB Communicator

Another candidate for an 'odd boats' album. 

'Rich Bowker' (not this one surely?) has put up a short video clip of Communicator, which appears to be a pastiche of trad boat style. 

It's got a forward cabin, a mid cabin in traditional working boat 'cloth' style, and a longer rear section than a traditional boat.  I'm not sure the effect is anywhere near 'authentic', but it's pretty striking.

Truculent recovered, precedent set

Well, Truculent - stolen on Monday from Sawley Marina, was recovered quickly.

Narrowboats are stolen occasionally, and if you follow the story - and if you aren't personally involved - you have to admit, they do make amusing stories.

Here's a story from almost four years ago, when PC Plod chased a boat near Nuneaton.  Goodness, how time flies.  As indeed did the police, on that occasion.

Here's another story, from the River Lee a mere two years ago, where PC Plod yet again got his chopper out in order to follow a narrowboat.  But on that occasion it was a false alarm.

And the tale of Truculent could be just as amusing, I'm sure.  All it needs is someone to write and photograph that tale.  How I wish I was there.

Mile Straight on BBC Radio Leicester

Roger Hutchinson will be talking about his new river history book, The Mile Straight on BBC Radio Leicester next weekend. 

Est. time is Sunday 11th May,  3pm - 4pm. 

As is the scheme of things in the radio world, they'll wait until the moment you decide to go to the loo before they flip the 'broadcast' switch. I'm not sure if there's a play-again feature.

Radio Leicester Sunday schedule here.

The Moon Over Water

Radford Bridge, May 4th 2008, 7.30pm

Here, a discerning man on Teddesley Boat Jacqueline salutes Granny Buttons as he goes past.  Click on the picture to enlarge and see the girls' priceless expression - they obviously don't know Granny as he does.

I hate to see good caviar wasted on the general, so if you didn't get the joke in the title of this blog post, it's an allusion to this. 

Incidentally, clearly there's no need of a pumpout tank on Jacqueline!

NB Truculent, <del>stolen</del> recovered

Good lord, another stolen narrowboat. 

According to the Waterlily blog, NB Truculent was taken from Sawley Marina on Monday morning.

Truculent was apparently on sale by brokerage at the time (here's the sale details), so it must have been easier to thieve than a boat which was occupied. 

But if I was a tea leaf I'd steer clear of a boat with such an infelicitous name, and I'll be surprised if it's not found nearby in a couple of days.

I'd not be so hot on it if I was a buyer, either, come to think of it.  Looks like a lovely boat, but the name sounds so grumpy, like it sort of wants to be stolen. When it's finally recovered and sold, a name change would be in order.

Teddesley shirt salute

Radford Bank, Staffs & Worcs Canal, May 4th 2008.

What's that modern phenomenon called, where blokes who aren't as young as they used to be lift their football shirts to display their beer consumption?  Dunno, but I'll call it a 'shirt salute'.

I like getting away from it all on GrannyB and being alone with my thoughts.  But sometimes I do wish I was part of a group having a great time.

Tomorrow I'll show you what happened when the guy on Jacqueline seems to have recognised me and decided to salute me properly.

Cavalcades galore

London blogger Diamond Geezer walked the entire length of the Regent's Canal last weekend, ending up at the Canalway Cavalcade, and he wrote about it on Sunday.

I barely gave the Cavalcade a thought this year, although I've been with Granny Buttons twice (or was it thrice?), most recently in 2005.

I was otherwise engaged, near Stafford. 

The Cavalcade wasn't the only canalside jolly over last weekend.  Other festivals are available.

What's needed is an online canal festival calendar.

A boat-friendly food processor

Here's a brand-new way-cool boat-friendly power-free food-processor:  the SwizzzProzzz.

It's a Swiss device, and it's a crazy name which might well change before it reaches the UK market. Or at least perhaps the spelling might change.

But it looks a terrific device.  Basically, it's like a conventional food processor, but powered by a lawn-mower-style cord.  You pull the cord, it spins the blades, the cord retracts, it chops the veggies.

Repeat as required, depending on the food you are chopping and how pureed your teeth need the food to be.

The attractions for narrowboats is obvious - it doesn't suck up valuable onboard battery power or demand that you run your engine or inverter.   

Plus it's pretty small really.  Space is at a premium aboard a narrowboat, and it doubles as an airtight food container or vented microwave bowl.

I saw it demonstrated at a trade conference a couple of weeks back by catering equipment distributor Gilberts Food Equipment.  They expect to be selling it from June onwards, approx price £60 inc VAT.

Gilbert's model is aimed at professional chefs and looks far tougher than its plastic construction might suggest. 

There's a consumer model too, later this year - probably too late to appear at the IWA Festival, but which should sell by the lorry-load to boaters next year.  I love those gadget stands, don't you?   

I asked MD Richard Gilbert how the pro version will differ from the consumer model.  He said: 

Our commercial version will be stronger and slightly larger, be supplied with 4 bowls (3 for storage with sealable vented lids for use in microwave) and a 3-bladed rotary blade instead of 2 blades for the domestic version.

Declared interest: the guy pulling the cord in the pic above is my boss, and I was photographing the show for CESA.  But it was my idea to write about this and I'm not getting paid for it; I love clever kitchen gadgets.  I've still got my Boerner V-Slicer from 15 years ago.

Got Moo? Khayamanzi has.

Andy of NB Khayamanzi has got Moo Cards.   

I wrote about them a couple of weeks ago and he went and ordered some and he's as impressed as I am.

Moo is a good example of a simple idea that succeeds because it underpromises and overdelivers. 

The weak spot of Moo Cards is possibly the simple six lines of text, with little flexibility in their layout.  Not eye-grabbing, and the small text will make the grannies amongst you reach for your reading glasses.

But they do the job of simply transferring information, especially for boats that pass in the night.

Andy doesn't show examples of his cards, or how many pictures he uses, but he says they are:

... glorious full colour images of NB Khayamanzi on one side, (borderless for greater graphic effect) and my name and contact details on the other.

Look out for my Moo cards left on a boat near you and let the cry go up, "You've been mooed"!!

Meantime, Moo (the company) is asking you to vote for it in the Webby Awards.

In which I return to a flat battery bank on Granny and am amused (by a stuffed dog on Topping)

What a depressing start to a bank holiday weekend!

Last night I returned to Granny B at Weston after ten days away, to find the boat's batteries flat.  Completely.  I think I'd left the inverter on.

Unfortunately the starter battery was also flat, so I couldn't start the engine to get power.  My boat was dead in the water.   When arriving from a 170 mile car journey, at 1am, that's a depressing experience.  Of course, not as miserable as my cabin diesel leak of two years ago.

Long story short: 

It was fixed quickly by Claymoore Navigation, who sent an engineer down on a Saturday afternoon almost immediately.  Great service.

The biggest amusement of the day was seeing this wonderful stuffed bassett hound on top of NB Topping (above, close-up below).  It quite took away my misery.  I've been told I should get a dog, but I worry about the need to look after it.  Topping has the best of both worlds.

Ledgard Bridge lays it on with a trowel

I forgot to mention that Ledgard Bridge started the Ledgard Bridge News Blog in January.  Gary Peacock here sets a very good example for other boatbuilders.

Last week he laid on flattery with a trowel and I can hardly forget it now.  Granny, he says, avoids the drawbacks of:

... some of those bloody awful cruise log type websites that delight in informing you "Today we stopped at Asda to replenish our stocks of baked beans and later tonight we will be stopping for fish & chips etc"

Blush.  But there are no 'bloody awful' cruising blogs as far as I'm concerned, in the same way as no granny has bloody awful grandchildren.  The point of blogs is not to be best, but to be you.  Whatever you are good or bad at, in your blog you should be yourself.  And everyone is best at something. 

Pepys wrote about himself, but he was hopeless at writing about you.  You'll be much better at that.

Two tips I'd give those who do cruising blogs:

1. Keep blog posts short.   500 words max, 300 words or less preferably (this post is about 300 words and a bit too long, I think), and keep paragraphs short too. 
2. If you've got a lot to say, try to put separate subjects in different posts. 
3. Put each single day in its own post.  Or even break up one day into different events.   
4. Er, count the number of bullet points in advance. 

Other than that, by all means tell us you stopped at Asda to replenish your stocks.  Or even about Tesco delivering to your boat - it's very useful information for readers, as Sue and others have shown.

Indeed, almost every day one of the canal blogs draws my attention to something new and interesting.

Oh, that reminds me:  Last month the Ledgard Bridge News Blog had an interesting story about a wide dog to Carcassonne.  I could have got a great headline from it when writing my assorted Narrow Dog posts.

Of ugly boats and skips

Remove ugly boats or face legal action - Maidenhead Advertiser

The threat of legal action looms for the owners of ugly boats which the Royal Borough [of Windsor] wants removed from Maidenhead Riverside.

The boats are moored at a council-owned Thames island and Cllr Jesse Grey [council member for community safety, leisure and culture] argues they have become a blot on this idyllic landscape.

A letter was sent from the Royal Borough demanding the company remove the unsightly boats, however six months on and not one of them has been taken away.

What are these 'ugly boats'?  Underneath this story LK Richardson comments: 

Ugly boats? The Lady Molly was built at Southampton in 1901 of Oak and Teak and has been on the river for 25 years. I bet she would have been a pretty sight to the troops awaiting rescue from Dunkirk. Where would Cllr Grey have her removed to?

Motor Boat Monthly picked up this story and added:

Here at MBM we love our ugly boats, and here you can see May's entry into our ongoing Ugly Boat Competition ... There's no winner as such, just a joyous revelling in all things ugly.

But the MBM 'ugly' boat is not actually ugly.  In fact it looks cared-for and quite elegant.  It's simply odd, and quite suitable for my Odd Boats Gallery (which I've not updated for three years, to my shame).

I called Councillor Grey and asked him more of the story, and he says they've misrepresented it.  He's not complaining about the boats looking 'ugly'.  His beef is that the boats are tatty and appear to be moored alongside land that looks like becoming a rubbish dump or scrapyard.

I can see where he's coming from.  On the canals, too, ancient boats can seem to be quaint and characterful, even when they are slowly settling at their moorings, and look part of the landscape.  But many an ancient boat seems to attract canalside detritus, as if passers-by (and even the owners) can't tell the difference between a narrowboat and a skip. 

It's especially ironic when the boat is a cargo boat with an empty hold that could probably carry all the towpath junk and more.

I'm looking for an example of one of those mysterious old boats with piles of rubbish beside them.  I've written about and photographed them them before, but I can't find one right now.

Meantime, as a placeholder, here's my own ugly boat (rhyming slang), in the process of eating the last of the pies.

I haven't seen the site (or sight) that offends Cllr Grey, near Boulters Lock on the Thames.  Anyone got a picture of it to replace my own photo?

When is a boat not a boat?  When it's not a skip but ought to be.

Granny Buttons plays Twenty Questions

Granny Buttons features in the new June issue of Canal Boat, out today at all good chandleries.   

When they asked me if I'd do Canal Boat's regular back-page '20 Questions' feature, I didn't know what to say. 

I hesitated, deviated and repeated myself for over a minute before I said 'my word, yes'. 

When you see my answers to their questions, you'll probably think that, quote, I haven't a clue, unquote.

The Mile Straight, Leicester - an illustrated history

Leicester artist and local historian Roger Hutchinson has produced a lovely history of the artificial Victorian ruler-straight section of the River Soar through Leicester.

It's called The Mile Straight: The fate of the Soar in the centre of Leicester.

'Fate' is presumably used in its true meaning: meaning an outcome or history; not in any tragedic sense.

It's a 40-page illustrated A4 publication in magazine style, rather than a book, and thus can be dipped into at will rather than read in a single stretch.  (I read my copy over the last couple of weeks on my narrow dog reading table, and really enjoyed it!)

I'm not sure whether to call it a book, or a magazine.  Roger has produced something quite unusual, even remarkable, in local history terms. 

It's packed with historic illustrations, photos. stories, vignettes and maps, has a sprinkling of more modern pictures, and several of Roger's own illustrations, including the one pictured below, based on an old Victorian photo of the long-vanished Swan Mill Lock and Toll House. 

Swan Mill Lock was originally somewhere a few yards west of the Mile Straight, about a quarter-mile downstream from Freeman's Lock. (click to enlarge)  Now it exists only in a couple of scant old postcards and Roger's new illustration.

The book/magazine is in monochrome, which lends it a slightly homespun old-fashioned look. But treasure that old-fashioned look because you'll be brought abruptly to the present by the text, which liberally uses (ouch) gas-meter measures:   

A "terrible summer storm in 1880 inundated Braunstone Gate to the depth of a metre"...

... is something that would have mystified the locals, and even today, to me, sounds foreign and dangerous.  For measuring depth, fathoms are fathomable but - as far as Granny is concerned - 'metres' are measureless.

Still, this book is a rare treat, and if you are cruising through Leicester, it's well worth reading before you go.  And during too.  Try reading it overnight when (like Granny - pictured right, click to enlarge)  you are moored overnight at Castle Gardens in central Leicester.  You'll look out on the Mile Straight in the morning with new eyes.

Roger says he has given copies to "all city libraries, all the city schools and colleges, relevant council officers and councillors and local PM's".   [Does he mean 'MPs'?] 

He says it's also on sale (at £6) at the Tourist Information Shop in Every Street, Tin Drum Books, Kings Lock Tea Rooms, and Leicester Museums. 

Or you can buy by post, sending a cheque for £6.50 (inc p&p, payable to Mac Associates (Leicester) Ltd) to 39 Hazel Street, Leicester, LE2 7JN.

That's a fair bit for a magazine, but there's no advertising and he's produced it all himself, from the research, writing, illustration and picture reproduction through to the printing.

I think Roger should consider selling it as a PDF download, probably for a pound or so.  I think he'd sell hundreds, or even thousands, for no production costs.

Last year he produced an accompanying book/magazine about the nearby Aylestone Meadows.   He writes:

A third book later this year has the working title of 'Frog Island to Belgrave Boathouse'.

In the longer term I intend to unify the three books into a single volume in full colour, including all the new information that the books are already stimulating, entitled 'Navigation Leicester'.

Phat Granny and the Urban Dictionary

I love the Urban Dictionary, where you can post neologisms that you've stumbled on (or invented yourself) and others can vote on them. The more 'up votes', the more accurate or cool the definition. 

Someone asked me today what 'phat' meant, and along the way I stumbled on phat boat:

1 up, 3 down
House where old people live
I'm puttin you in a phat boat, Granny!

Once, canal boating was for young, adventurous people in narrowboats.  Now it's terminally uncool, and the boats are designed for phat old people.  When did the switch come?

What's your own favourite Urban Dictionary definition?  Boating-related, preferably.