Granny Buttons

Fabricant joins the list

I've just come back from a splendid day at the Huddlesford Boat Gathering, where local MP Michael Fabricant ceremonially unveiled a new 'finger' signpost pointing towards the Lichfield Canal.

In my post on Thursday I pulled the MP's leg about the word 'boating' not appearing on his website. He was quick to point out that it does. In my defence, m'lud, it wasn't my fault. The picture of the 'search' result on his website was genuine - it clearly hadn't indexed his whole site.

Michael Fabricant MP has been boating about twice a year, and in recent times he's done the Grand Union, the Warwickshire Ring, the Llangollen Canal and (most recently) the 'Mon & Brec'. He sent me this picture of himself on a recent Warwickshire Ring trip. He's not got a boat himself; rather, he rents. No bad thing - the more people who support the hireboat industry the better. And it's fresh and breezy to find an MP spending his holiday time in our own beautiful Kingdom, rather than some foreign republic.

I wonder how many other MPs have canals in their consituencies, or better still, have canal restoration projects to support. Is there a league table of how they support the waterways? I'm a little sceptical of those pols who are only ever seen sitting on the fronts of canal boats at political photo opportunities.

Preparing to leave Granny for a while.

Didn't go to the second day of the Huddlesford Gathering. Instead, I spent the morning tidying up Granny's interior, before leaving for luncheon with my brother-in-law at Sugnall, and returning to Norfolk.

Granny Buttons hasn't been cruising much in September - just Burton to Streethay - and won't be doing much in October. She's just spent a couple of days out of the water, having the rudder fixed. I think she must have got caught on a sill or settled on the bottom at some time without my realising it.

And now Streethay will be looking at the rattle of the engine, and generally tidying her up. The old girl needs it. I've neglected her in recent months. I'll return in a fortnight or two, when I shall resume my continuous cruise. This is a little melancholy for me. I'll be away from Granny Buttons for the longest period yet, since I acquired the boat in late-February 1999.

What's all this about 'Trackback'?

If you've observed the word 'Trackbacks' at the bottom of these posts and wondered what that meant, here's a fairly good explanation.

But let me try to explain myself. You can leave a comment on most of my posts by just clicking on the word 'comment', and typing in your name and email address and comment. And your comment will appear straight away, without asking me. This is useful for when you think I am speaking balls and want to correct it immediately.

However, by taking the trackback address of my entry, and putting it into the 'send a trackback' box in your own blog post, then your own post not only appears on your blog, but also is a part of my own post, complete with an incestuous link. This forms an invisible but powerful link between our two posts, a bit like the bond between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, or between Harry Potter and Voldemort. Search engines, especially, love this link, and make your Trackback reply much more prominent than it otherwise might be.

But I'm sure that link above explains it better.

Huddlesford weekend

This weekend I'm using Granny Buttons as a weekend billet while I attend the Huddlesford Canal Gathering. Unlike the Greyhound Boat Club Gathering of three weeks ago, it's well-attended. And not just by boatowners and 'floating cottages', but also by old working boats, visitors, stalls, morris dancers, traders and vendors.

The highlighted photo-opportunity of the weekend was Michael Fabricant's unveiling of the new fingerpost at Huddlesford Junction, pointing to Ogley. 'No access', it says now, but we all live in hope of it saying '7 miles, 30 locks' in maybe ten years. And in five years it might well be halfway there.

But the highlights, for me, were twofold. One was President blowing steam against the Autumn sunlight.

The other was the Lichfield Mobile Belfry. How can you not be delighted by the sheer, English, Pythonesque daffiness of the very idea?

Huddlesford Junction Canal Boat Gathering this weekend boat

The Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust is holding a gathering at Huddlesford Junction this weekend. Granny Buttons, now at Streethay Wharf, will be there. I don't know many people in the 'L&H', but chairman Eric Wood has been so kind and friendly in the past - most recently just a couple of weeks ago at Horninglow, when he was the power behind the Greyhound Boat Club annual gathering.

Although it's a bash organised by the L&H, this weekend's gathering is also part of Celebr18th, a long and gaudy weekend of festivities throughout South Staffordshire, highlighting how the 18th Century in this part of England helped to shape and mould and influence the Industrial Revolution, and indeed the world.

Local MP Michael Fabricant will unveil a new 'finger post' at Huddlesford Junction, pointing towards its sister Junction, Ogley, the 'other end' of the Lichfield Canal. It's fifty years since this stretch of canal closed, but it's on its way to reopening - hopefully not too many years away. Currently Ogley is two days cruising away - 34 miles and 36 locks. But this is the long way round. When the restoration is complete, Ogley will still be a bracing exercise of 30 locks, but achievable in seven miles and one day.

About this weekend's boat gathering, says the Trust's site:

Moorings will be available on the towpath side of the Coventry Canal on both sides of the junction. Boat entry costs £10.00 which includes a commemorative plaque.

Oh no, not again! It was only a fortnight ago, at Horninglow, that Eric Wood stung me for another tenner! Still, I guess it was in a good cause.

Incidentally, the splendidly Viking-haired Michael Fabricant MP lists 'canal boating' amongst his interests. I'll take the opportunity this weekend of finding out if he should take his place on my celebrity boaters list. Possibly not, if this unfortunate image from his website is any guide!

The Oxford Canal, Bellway Homes and the ghosts of Jericho

A couple of months ago, the local boaters around Oxford began to buzz and stir about a canalside development planned by Bellway Homes on land sold to them by British Waterways, the site of the old Alchemy Boatyard.

I missed this story the first time around, And I feel especially shamefaced because author Phillip Pullman is within the controversy. I enjoy his writing so much and I've corresponded with him about Lyra, his canal-boating heroine of Northern Lights. He set a key part of her story in the very boatyard that is under threat, in the shadow of the Romanesque pocket masterpiece of St Barnabas Church, with its distinctive clock chimes of tubular bells. Their charming sounds have woken (early) many a boater, including myself, although I didn't begrudge a moment of lost sleep.

Here's a link to a story on the Guardian, and here's Phillip Pullman's atmospheric essay on the subject.

Narrowboat for rent near Little Venice, handy for muslims

Another hen's tooth on the market, this time for rent only: Someone has available a cute-looking 45-foot tug-style narrowboat near Marylebone on the Regent's Canal.

NB Percy is quite the cute little 'Rosie & Jim'-type, and appears to be based at the canal basin just by Lisson Grove.

The location is not quite as picture-postcard as Little Venice proper but it's very close by, and within walking distance of Marylebone Station. If you are a devout muslim (I've not seen any afloat on the canals yet, perhaps because there are far too many canalside pubs to tempt?) it's just a short stroll to the London Central Mosque.

Unsponsored link: Little Venice, St. John’s Wood High St and Church St antiques market all nearby.

Download the latest 'Towpath Talk'.

Monthly canal newspaper Towpath Talk can now be downloaded free as a PDF: Right-click here, and chose the 'save to disk' option.

It's a 2mb download, and you'll need to have a PDF reader (e.g. Adobe Acrobat) already installed to read it or print it out. The dead-tree version is A3 size - approximately tabloid - but the download is a more printable A4 in format and 24 pages.

Towpath Talk launched last year as a 'freesheet' monthly newspaper, distributed mainly via canalside businesses. Although I welcomed it in my post last March, I was a bit critical of the production values in the the early editions. It's improved a lot in recent months, although I still occasionally itch to run 'Granny's cruel blue pencil' against some of the readers' self-penned articles. It's not surprising I haven't got many friends!

It's an also-ran against the three established paid-for canal magazines. But those ones all pick away at the same market: they are written mainly by experts, for boating enthusiasts.

Towpath Talk takes a different approach: It's a chatty newspaper for everyone on the canals - walkers, anglers and cyclists as much as boaters - and editor Andy Jackson deliberately aims to get as much of it as possible written by the readers themselves, not by canal journalists or professional writers.

He can be pleased that he's broken at least one mould: This is the first conventional canal publication now also available electronically. And I believe I'm the first virtual distributor - I wonder if I'll get listed in next month's list of places where you can pick it up?!

Bee becomes bona fide blogging boater

In only her first month as a narrowboater, Bee Lavender qualifies as a real boating blogger. She's taught me quite a few things with her post on her first full day's cruising. Quite apart from the fact that her husband is six and a half feet tall and thus not constructed to fit naturally in a narrowboat without folding, I also learned about the Upware Republic, something new to me and utterly fascinating.

Bee & family spent Sunday hunting for diesel, a somewhat unromantic process but it's right in the spirit of the serendipity of the waterways, and they seem to have had a great time. In years to come I bet they'll smile fondly at their brave inexperience when they look back on the day:

Last weekend we decided it was time to fill up the boat since it is best to have a full tank of diesel before winter commences. The only trouble is that the nearest fueling depot is three or four hours away on the River Great Ouse. This journey would consequently be a serious endeavor, involving opening two locks. Which we did not know how to do. So off we went to a bookstore, where we purchased guides that served mainly to frighten us, and then early Sunday loaded the boat with children and snacks and set off.

One thought occurred to me: By the time they get back to Cambridge, they might need to fill the tank all over again! Anyway, at the end of their first day, they found themselves unexpectedly at Ely instead of returning to Cambridge by boat, and they had to tie up near the Ship of the Fens and return home by train. Four hours of cruising, ten minutes of return train journey; it's a common experience with inland boating. They were lucky, in the desolation of the fens, to find a train station.

Ely is a delightful place to moor, with plenty of swans to decorate the local riverside pubs. When I was there a couple of years ago, cruel pranksters had spray-painted a couple of them black, with red beaks. I do hope the paint was non-toxic, and organic, and particularly I hope it was fair-trade.

Now that she's told us of her first full day on the English waterways, I think Bee is qualified to be on my boatroll. (I don't know the name of her boat, and after this 'outing' of her outing, I doubt she'll be in a mood to say!) I hope many more boating posts follow. Perhaps she will make it to the Grand Union Canal in due course (it's a week's travel) and once there, make a dash for the narrow canals, the narrowboat's true and spiritual home.

Jannock updates list of police phone numbers for boaters.

Jannock has just updated a very useful list of non-emergency police stations phone numbers around the Kingdom.

Why should we need these? Well, because canal boaters frequently need to call the police for help, and the official 999 emergency number is for - well, for emergencies. Often, it's not a real emergency in the Fire/Police/Ambulance sense; rather, it's a need to report a problem that might develop into an emergency. Or where an emergency has passed, but the police need to be informed. At these times, putting a call through to the emergency services gets them very annoyed.

I remember last year being stoned by kids at Blackburn on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. I called 999 and the lady told me to wait until the police arrived. I told her I wasn't going to wait - that the kids would only return and stone me again, and that I'd keep going to try to leave the area, stopping a mile further down in a safer area. She was indignant, saying that if I wasn't going to be serious, then I was no longer under threat from the kids, and said I should call the local non-emergency number to report them. I asked what the number was, and the now-irritated lady said I should call Directory Enquiries to find out.

And then the little bastardess hung up on me!

I wish I'd had Jannock's police phone number list with me last year. In the end, cruising as I was, it was several days before I was able to find the right number to report the damage to my boat.

Stella, Maria and Tess - the three types of inclement weather

In Paint Your Wagon, Alan J. Lerner gives the atmospheric elements names:

The rain is Tess, the fire's Joe, and they call the wind Maria.

Lerner clearly considers wind the most important of his three elements, as his lyrics focus on her:

Before I knew Maria’s name, and heard her wail and whinin’, I had a boat and she had me, and the sun was always shinin’

An English narrowboat can have a real problem with the wind. Granny Buttons, like all narrowboats, is effectively a long sail at the mercy of Maria. I remember once being stuck against the side of the canal for half an hour by the wind: I was alone and would run up to the front of the boat and push it out - then I'd run to the back and leap aboard ... by which time, the whole boat would have been pushed back to the bank.

I've long said that there are three types of inclemency on the waterways. I'll set aside Joe Fire, leaving him to my nightmares. Instead, to Tess Rain and Maria Wind, let me add Stella Cold. I call her Stella because I always think of cold nights as still, clear, and thus briilliant with stars.

Cold, Wind and Rain. Or rather, Stella, Tess, Maria, because it sounds better that way. Well, OK, it sings better that way.

Etiquette on nicking images from other sites

I mentioned a couple of months back that the Rochdale Observer has a 'mini-website' for the Rochdale Canal. I praised the site. But its map (right) bears an uncanny similarity with the one Martin Clark made for his Pennine Waterways site (below). He reckoned a while back that they nicked it and didn't ask permission, nor credit him.

I haven't a clue about the actual legal status of images nicked from one site for another. However, as far as blogs are concerned, I understand the developing etiquette is that it's OK to 'borrow' a picture from another site provided one's post is about the original page and has a link back to it.

Also that it's also polite to ask, or at least tell the person who created the original that you've borrowed it. I try to do this (although not in this case, and these are screengrabs rather than the original JPEGs anyway). Incidentally, I don't normally credit official photos supplied as part of press announcements if I'm writing about the story, though I notice Tom Crossley of NBW does.

Roland Rivron - Harrison Ford de nos jours.

The Shropshire Star said today that the BBC Holiday TV programme has just left the area after three days of filming.  This included presenter Rowland Rivron and his family taking out the Queen Anne, the very narrowboat hired in July by Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart.

The programme is expected to follow Roland Rivron and his family on the same route through Chirk to Llangollen that Ford and Lockhart took - and which I took Granny Buttons last December.  I presume they got a special reserved place to tie up, because it's darn hard to guarantee yourself a mooring at Llangollen. 

The photo here is nicked from the Shropshire Star website, and captioned "TV presenter Roland Rivron stops off at Jamie Ward's pork business to stock up for his trip."  I would have asked their permission, but in their story they called the Queen Anne a 'barge', and that irritated me, so I got grumpy.  It's a 'narrowboat'.   

Jamie Ward, behind Rivron in the photo, is a leading light of Oswestry Farmer's Market and his stall is apparently a great place to buy high quality sausages.

Updated boat sites

Next week I'm going to cut the 'My top 50 boat sites' down to perhaps half. I'll give priority to those which have been updated recently.