Granny Buttons

My BCN Challenge ends, and celebrating CAMRA's ‘Mild Month’

My BCN Challenge came to a premature end. 

The log was a bit hard for me to get my head around, because you weren’t supposed to open it until setting off, and it really needed me to have planned my route in advance, which I hadn’t done.  

There was also an ‘I-Spy’ section, to prove that you’d actually been to the places you claimed. 

Right from the start I spent too much time enjoying the Perry Barr lock flight and the remarkable Tame Valley canal which, although being a long series of straights that crosses and recrosses the M5 and M6 motorways, manages to have the character of a nature reserve in many places.

I didn’t reach the Rushall Canal until 3pm – five hours after starting – a distance that would have taken a fast team only a couple of hours. 

Then a gust of wind blew all my timekeeping/quiz sheets off the cabin and into the canal, and I got rather disheartened. 

As dusk fell, I marvelled at the wonderful character of the winding Wyrley & Essington Canal and simply enjoyed the view and didn’t worry that its shallowness made for slow going.  It’s a marvellous mix of nature and suburb, a ‘siren’ canal that can lure you to distraction, especially on a sunny summer evening.  The locals here are lucky to have such a resource. 

When I arrived at Brownhills at 8pm and discovered a canalside Tesco with excellent moorings, my will crumbled.

And here I stayed.  It’s now Sunday noon, 16 hours after arriving, and I’m about to set off again for the end at Wallsall Basin at 3pm.  But with no real intention of ‘competing’.  It’s enough just to be there for the boat rally.

By the way, May is ‘Mild Month’ says CAMRA, and it’s about to end.  No better way to celebrate the end of Mild Month than by slaking your thirst with this lovely, toasty ale, low in alcohol and chilled to perfection on a hot summer day.  I chose Thwaites - which is currently on promotion for £2.66 for a four-pack in Tesco – and put it in the icebox until chilled to the heart. 

The picture below doesn’t show how cold my beer was, because I like to use plastic glasses.  They are much safer – they float, are excellent insulators to keep in the cold, and there’s no risk of broken glass. 

Thwaites changed the name in the draught version to ‘Nutty Black’, to try to distance themselves from a ‘flat cap and whippet’ image of the drink, but I think that's nutty and pointless.  What they should be doing is encouraging bloggers like me try it and write about it.  I’ll convert you, and you’ll convert the local imam or LDS missionary.  

Thwaites Mild really is marvellously refreshing on a hot sunny day when chilled to the bone – full in the mouth and feeling like half-a-meal, chilling the body better than the heady, but empty, teeth-grinding cold of an iced lager.

Captain’s log supplemental, Sunday night:  Jolly dee, I’m already No.1 in Google for ‘thwaites mild’!

A little more on hull-blacking

Debs of NB Little More sez it’s ‘hull blacking time’, and is asking advice:

Cowroast Marina will do me two coats of bitumen, Grebe Canal Cruises do three …

Which to choose?  Does a third coat really have such a hugely extra-protective effect as to warrant the extra spends and the extra time out of the water? 

Or is the difference minimal?  Just how many coats does Little More's arse really need?

She is a bit rusty round the old waterline mind.  Scruffy little bugger! 

Debs, your answer is probably in your final throwaway comment.  Rusty round the waterline.  Because it’s round the waterline that the problems mostly start. 

The hull always suffers most at the waterline, because of the constant mix of air and water.  I’ve heard of a phenomenon called Accelerated Low Water Corrosion, which throws bacteriological action into the mix, although that’s said to be more a phenomenon of salt-water, such as at docks.   (You can buy a book about AWLC.)

My advice is split the difference between Cowroast and Grebe.  Do a very quick coat just around the waterline as soon as the hull is dry after the pressure wash, and then the two coats.

In fact, Grebe’s ‘three coats’ might only be two coats and a waterline.  Indeed, Cowroast's 'two coats' might only be one and a half.  Check with them first.  Also, check which type of blacking they use, and whether it’s compatible with what’s already plastered on the hull. 

Good grief, all this stuff just came out of my head.  I’m not an expert, but obviously I’ve absorbed a lot in my decade as a narrowboat owner.  And I’ve got the boatyard bills to prove it.

Anyway, here’s Granny’s nose on the slipway last Easter.  The first thing Streethay Wharf did after the hull was washed and dried was to black the waterline.  That was before we decided that the whole of Granny’s hull was a ‘scruffy little bugger’ (© Debs).

The garden shed - or spare bedroom

Some day I must do a post about canal boats which tow ‘tenders’.  I suppose it’s a way for a man to carry his garden shed with him, or perhaps for a woman to have a sewing room or spare bedroom.  (Very useful if they should have an argument.)

Here’s NB Other Way Up at Hemel Hempstead last February 7th, around 2 in the morning.  The canal was iced over, the night was clear. the towpath deep and crisp and even … and yes, it was another full moon.   Who needs daylight?

The BCN Challenge 2009

24-hour canal boat marathon returns – Express and Star

This weekend I’ll be taking part in the revival of the BCNS 24hr Marathon Challenge cruise, the first since 2002.

This is the first event since 2002.  It’s not officially a ‘race’; the object is simply to get round as much of the 100 miles of Birmingham Canals as you can in 24 hours, between 9am on Saturday and 3pm on Sunday, with 6 hours for rest. 

It ends in Walsall Basin on Sunday afternoon with a big boat rally.  40 boats or more are promised.

You score points for the lock-miles you cruise, with extra marks for navigating the lesser-known parts of the system.  The point behind it all  is to encourage use of the BCN backwaters.  Cruise it or lose it.

This event was run for ten years up to 20o2 by Chris and Helen Davey, and I entered it in 1999 and 2001.   In neither year did I really get anywhere – the scoring was complex and  I lost interest in that.  I simply wanted to take part.

In 2001 I stuck a webcam at front and recorded most of the journey in about six timelapse videos, which I uploaded to YouTube about four years ago.  Watch them here, if your life feels too long:  www.youtube.com/user/grannybuttons  

I believe my videos are the first-ever  canal timelapses, certainly long predating Paul Balmer’s high-quality Waterway Routes BCN DVD.   But viewed now, they seem simply a curiosity, like Fox Talbot’s early efforts in photography.

The revival of this event is down to BCNS member Roy Kenn, and he’s done a great job of organising it, with several improvements.  

One improvement is that he’s simplified the scoring system; another is that he’s ending it more centrally, in Walsall.  A third is the secret envelope, which you aren’t supposed to open until you are underway.  How exciting!

The old event used to end in Gas Street Basin (see above and left), which attracted a lot of attention from the public at the finishing line but was out on the edge of the whole BCN system.  This meant that less of the system got cruised, since you had to be back at Gas St Basin in time. 

Anyway, if your Saturday is free, walk along the BCN towpaths and see if you can spot any boats taking part.  Say hello and cheer them on. 

If your Sunday afternoon is free, come to Walsall Town canal basin.

[Many thanks to George of NB Elysium, who, in his own marathon, will today take Granny Buttons from Streethay up to Cuckoo Wharf so that I can join the boat on Friday night and take part in the fun.  He’s not doing it for free, though, and I’ll see he’s suitably rewarded.]

Enjoy the waterways (or else)

Stay safe on canals – [Glasgow] Evening Times

With a scorching summer being predicted, British Waterways is warning visitors about the dangers of Scotland's 137-mile canal network.

While canals provide an ideal location to soak up the sunshine, swimming is strictly prohibited.

A spokesman for the company said any open body of water can be potentially dangerous, particularly for unsupervised children or anyone under the influence of alcohol, so British Waterways Scotland is urging everyone to be careful whilst still enjoying the beauty that canals have to offer.

This is the entire story, as reported in the paper.  I wonder if something got lost in translation?   My mum's family was from Edinburgh, and her old uncle Ronnie once told me that the reason the west coast was so miserable was that the prevailing winds blew all of Glasgow's joy eastwards.

National Geographic article on England's canals, 1974

It’s amazing to think that National Geographic - the ne plus ultra of ethnographic, geographic, scientific magazines (if that's possible) – hasn’t published an article about the UK canals since its July 1974 issue.

There were articles in the NG in 1907, 1922 and 1940 as well.  But July 1974 was the last – and that was almost 35 years ago! 

This is astonishing, considering the impact our English canals had on the development of the Industrial Revolution.  When will the next article be?

Regular GB correspondent and expatriate Brit Eric Wilson recently returned to the UK to buy a canal boat, and as a special greeting he brought me a copy of that old National Geographic article.

And what a treat it is – thanks, Eric!  So I’ve scanned it – all 36 pages - and turned it into a 5mb PDF – download here.

It’s a piece of its time, and charmingly out of date – and the magazine badly needs to commission an update.

It was written by ‘senior editorial staffer’ Bryan Hodgson, and photographed by his wife Linda Bartlett.  Bryan Hodgson is touchingly poetic in places:

We travel at foot speed.  Sometimes on the Trent & Mersey’s open reaches it seems we do not move at all, that England herself turns past us like some patient wheel rimmed with quiet villages, with hills plowed smooth as cats’ backs. 

In deep woods we moor by a quiet amphitheater of rock [I bet this was Bramble Cuttings] , dappled by fallen leaves.  In a village church we watch blithe old men ring changes on bells whose tongues have shouted centuries of England’s joy and sadness.  

I mailed National Geographic and asked what had happened to Bryan and Linda.  Apparently Bryan retired about 12 years ago, and Linda - well, she was a freelance and they last published photos from her about 1985.  NG has lost touch with them, and only has a last-known-address.

Who’ll write/photograph a new article?  I could do either, but probably not both.  I can’t do two things at once, and anyway I need a new camera.  And probably a new word processor – or at least that’s my excuse.

It’s interesting to see the number of people and boats/things mentioned, that are worth being searchable on Google.   

Below, I’ve done an index of them, in order of appearance, on the basis that if you are searching for these people, Google will help find them for you in this article.

• NB Hyperion and butty Pictor, at Stoke Bruerne top lock (pictured displaying a great expertise in opening the bottom gates with their straps).
• Helen Theakston of Swan Line Cruisers at Fradley Junction.
• Doris Collins, aboard NB Belmont at Braunston (full page pic).
• Jack James, founder of Stoke Bruerne museum, mentioning his wife Emma Bray. 
• Rose & Bill Whitlock, NB Lucy
• John James, son of Jack, formerly of NB Jason, now of Napton
• Sidney Feltham, in lockkeeper’s cottage at Cropredy 
• Alan Green of Brummagem Fly (“sandy haired young lecturer at University of Aston”) and partner Barry Stanton.
• Charlie & Marjorie Alldrick, and Mrs Betty Foakes
• Tom Hodgson & Hockley Port Trust.
• David Hutchings and the Upper Avon Navigation restoration.
• William Billington, the Wedgwood pottery.
• Irene Hoult, custodian of the Arnold Bennett home in Burslem.
• Jack Whitaker, Bird in Hand pub, Kent Green.
• George & Edith Belfield, caretakers at Little Moreton Hall.
• Bryan Pearce & David Minter, walkers.
• Mike & Carole Gregory, with children Helen and Mark, at Hindford, Llangollen Canal (Carole Gregory has some cookbooks to her name).
• G.A. Williams, passer-by on the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

Gibo's amazing 'boatman's cabin' van

Granny Buttons was repainted at Streethay Wharf seven years ago, and I still remember the light, dancing-on-air feeling as I took it away that summer.  It felt like having a new boat.

The actual painting was done by Steve Gibson, known to friends as ‘Gibo’ and it was only several months later that I noticed his little ‘Painted at Streethay Wharf Litchfield 2002’ signature in the gas cylinder hatch, (complete with charming misspelling) that made Granny’s repaint feel almost like a  personal artwork. 

Soon after, someone asked me if I’d seen his own van, which he’d done out as a traditional boatman’s cabin in the back – complete with scumbling and stove. 

No!  I was really keen to see it. On returning to the boatyard a few months later to have a look, I was disappointed to find that he’d left Streethay to spend time travelling.

Over the years I wondered what had happened to Steve, so I was delighted to get an email from him out of the blue last year. He’d stumbled on one of my earlier posts about that wonderful repaint, and asked how it was getting on.

This time I was able to ask him about his van, and he said he’d try to get some photos.  

Well, they’ve arrived.  Not sure if this is the same van he had seven years ago – he’s done more than one modified van – but it looks amazing to me. 

(Compare with the Pimp My Ride ‘narrowboat in a van’ of a couple of years ago.  That one had a huge budget thrown at it, but it ended up feeling far less authentic than Gibo's.)

 

 

An embroidered pub crawl

Explore England’s pubs by canal boat …  is the irresistible title of a WIDITH in todays The Times by freelance journalist Terry Ramsey. 

It pretty much does what it says on the beer can.  Terry describes his long weekend with mates on Anglo-Welsh boat Hanbury from Tardebigge, a lock-free trip via Alvechurch onto the Stratford Canal.  He measures out their weekend in pints. 

I’m tempted to say this is hardly travel journalism, more an embroidered pub crawl.

But you can have marvellous times with your mates over the weekend, and that’s what counts when writing about short breaks.   And in this sense Terry’s article is great. The travel pages would be tedious in the extreme if edited by Wilfred Thesiger or Bruce Chatwin.

The definitive version of a great canal weekend, for me, is Twelve On Tern.   I met this very happy dozen near Napton over the August bank holiday weekend in 2006.  They’d rented a boat for a long weekend, but didn’t have a clue as to the route they were taking – and didn’t really care.  They just wanted to be together, afloat.  They weren’t as sniffy as many canal enthusiasts can be. 

Nearly three years on, I still think of these happy dozen people who rented a boat for a good-time Oxford Canal weekend - “one of the best of our lives!” as one of them recalled in a comment on my blog.   In my photo they look SO HAPPY!

Captain’s Log Supplemental, Stardate 26/5/09:

I’ve only just noticed that Terry Ramsey has an additional article - England's five best canal holiday routes – although whether that’s a bolt-0n to the other article or stand-alone, I don’t know.   I haven’t seen the paper; only the Times website.

It’s a matter of opinion, of course, but there’s a lot of sense in what he writes.   His choice, for the ambitious boater:

• The Avon Ring
• The Llangollen Canal
• The Four Counties Ring
• The Leeds-Liverpool Canal (more of a one-way trek than a holiday, in my view)
• The Thames Ring (ditto – and even he suggests three weeks). 

If I was starting out, though, I’d keep returning to his original idea of a there-and-back embroidered pub crawl.

In which Granny gets scabbled

When Granny Buttons came out of the water at Easter, ten years of blacking and collisions and flaking and reblacking had made her hull below the gunwale look rather blotchy and grotty.  The whole shell seemed in good condition, considering it will soon be 15 years old, but a simple pressure wash and blacking would make it look rather rough.

And time was short on the slipway, with other boats lined up behind me, awaiting their turn.

So I agreed that they’d just black up to the waterline, return her to the water, and bring her out again when there was more time, to ‘scabble’ the bit above the waterline, remove all the old blacking, and with a new coat make it look like new again. 

And the job’s now been done. 

It’s my first close encounter with this kind of scabbling gun.  There’s more than one type, apparently, but Streethay uses a pneumatically powered ‘pin gun’ or ‘needle gun’.  This has a couple of dozen metal pins which fire repeatedly at the blacking or paintwork and literally bang it off, fleck by fleck, each pin firing dozens of times a second.

It makes an infernal high-pitched din like an adolescent pneumatic drill, and you won’t want to be inside a narrowboat when it’s happening.

Strewth, it’s like being trapped inside a metal shed during a meteorite shower.  I turned on the tap to make a cup of tea, and then outside Terry started up, and suddenly I thought the water pump was exploding or the sky was falling. 

By the time Terry of Streethay Wharf had finished, the steel was pitted and brown, but at least it was bare and ready for refilling (on the superstructure) or recoating with blacking on the lower hull.  And my ears were ringing, even though I’d only spent a few seconds at a time close up.

The upshot is a bare metal hull which is ready to black, and to look like it just came away from the steelshop or hullmaker.  I found the process riveting – not technically, of course – and wanted to watch it closely.

It looks like a thankless task, this scabbling, and I felt the urge constantly to thank Terry, while being constantly aware that every moment I took him away from this tiring job was a moment that would go on the bill at the end.  It must have been two solid days, both on the slipway and the work pontoon.

I’m not sure of all the correct terms here - there's precious little I can find on the web about this process - so feel free to correct me and add your thoughts.

Cruising the BCN. Because it's there.

Here’s a wonderful verse from John Burman, joyfully summarising the perverse pleasures of cruising the Birmingham Canal Navigations. 

Taken from Echoes from a Canal Travelling Man, a booklet which - as I wrote yesterday - is overdue for a new edition. 

The BCN Navigator

I’m ploughing round the Soho Loop;
  I’m here, because it’s there.
The water’s thick, like Windsor soup.
  I’m here, because it’s there.
There’s weeds and mud at Smethwick Top,
I’ll get to Spon Lane, then I’ll stop
And rake the debris off my ‘prop.
  I’m here, because it’s there.

I’m going up the Crow today.
  I’m here, because it’s there. 
The bottom gates all leak, they say. 
  I’m here, because it’s there.
I’ll work the boat through, pound by pound
To reach the basin; pole her round,
Then shear the wire the ‘prop has wound. 
  I’m here, because it’s there.

I’ve done the Dudley Two, you know.
  I’m here, because it’s there.
And moored at Coombeswood in the snow.
  I’m here, because it’s there.
I’ve slept at Round Oak in the tar,
The noise and stench exceeds, by far,
Even the “Longboat’s” upstairs bar.
  I’m here, because it’s there.

I’ve done the Wyrley in the rain.
  I’m here, because it’s there.
To Anglesey, and back again.
  I’m here, because it’s there.
Past many a butty’s sad remains
I’ve come, at last, to Norton Canes.
They build grand boats at Malcolm Braine’s.
  I’m here, because it’s there.

I vow, before I meet my end;
  (I’m here, because it’s there)
To navigate each final bend.
  I’m here, because it’s there.
And when I get to Heaven’s gate
And see this side-arm, wide and straight,
I’ll tell Saint Peter he can wait.
  I’M HERE BECAUSE IT’S THERE.

John Burman

Thanks, John!

This is timely, because I’ve entered Granny Buttons for next weekend’s BCN 24hr Challenge cruise, and his poem is as good a rehearsal as I’m going to get. 

The other bit of rehearsal is to watch, once again, the high-quality DVD of the entire Birmingham Canal Navigations from Waterway Routes.  I’ve had it for ages, watched it several times, and haven’t yet written it about or said thanks for it.  (Very remiss of me; sorry Paul!)

Echoes of a Canal Travelling Man - J.H. Burman

Regarding my post last month of  John Burman’s waterways poetry:

Well, recently I found a copy of his first volume for sale on eBay, Echoes of a Canal Travelling Man.

I picked it up for the asking price of about £8.50 (no other bidders).  It was privately published in 1981, had no ISBN, and you can't buy it on Amazon.

In short, it’s a treat, and for me even better than the other two – not least because it’s more firmly rooted in the narrrow canals.  Indeed, there’s a fold-out map of the BCN in the back.

The foreword, by Robert Aickman, is somewhat stilted and formal, in the already antiquated language of the mid-century; he refers to the volume as ‘a booklet’, to the author as ‘Mr Burman’, and cheerfully to the IWA and the entire waterways campaign as an ‘escapade’, as if it were a 1920s student jape.  

Despite the hard brown cover I suppose it technically is a booklet.  There are only 11 poems in it, and none are more than two pages long, although each has a separate introduction.   Most are parodies of other poems.  Perhaps they are all parodies; I don’t know enough poetry to recognise.

In his preface John Burman modestly calls it “rhyming, derivative jargon”.  Well, that’s what all parody is, it’s true.   But he’s brilliant at it.  

I once attended a high-powered amateur dramatic performance of a Gilbert & Sullivan ‘biographic musical’, where the life of the composer pair was acted out and sung onstage.  BBC newsreader Richard Baker played the older Sullivan, and the character spoke of his torment that he was never taken 'seriously' as a composer.  “They tell me that The Mikado was my masterpiece," he said sadly. 

In that vein, I wonder if John would be disappointed that I think his silliest poems are, to me, his masterpieces. 

He does a lovely parody of J.W.McCall’s1970s novelty pop hit Convoy,  a passably polished boating parody of Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man, and – almost unbelievably – a completely clean version of a 'rugby song' I still know by heart, over thirty years since education left me behind. 

I don’t know if you know of that rugby song, which he delicately refers to as ‘a very anatomical set of verses’.   (Buy me a pint, and I’ll recite the original).  John’s version warns of the dangers of locks to virgin boat hirers:

The structure called a Lock,
Of which I speak with so much gravity;
Is fashioned with extr’ordinary care.
And what, at first, appears to be a simple brick-lined cavity,
Is really quite an erudite affair.

He also parodies Flanders & Swann, De La Mare, and especially John Masefield:

"I must go down to the boat again; 
  for the bilges welling inside  
Are a clear call for a bale-out,
that may not be denied.

And all I need is a windy day,
with the carpets drying,
And the cut, blue with the diesel spill,
and the Missus crying.

But while the first booklet is almost wall-to-wall parody, a more serious side comes out in the other two volumes.

But I did enjoy his parody of Hiawatha in the second book, celebrating a canoeing trip in Canada, although parodies of Hiawatha are common enough that this one doesn’t stand out. 

Someone ought to republish all three John Burman ‘booklets’ in one.  I would be inclined only to include the English canal poems, but that’s only because I yawn when I think of the continental waterways.  (Funny how a yawn sets off another yawn - I’m yawning now.)  

If I was a canal magazine editor, I’d pay John Burman for the right to publish them all, write an article about them, and issue the book as a special edition, with free copies to everyone who took out a subscription to the magazine.

Boats are the Wright stuff for canals

Bring back the life and soul of the canals – letter to The Times today

Regent’s Canal-side dweller Simon Wright has an interesting letter in the Times today, following up the recent Richard Morrison article. 

He argues that for all the recent waterways development, BW is stripping the canals of boats: 

Over the past 15 years, British Waterways has seen fit to eliminate many groups of boaters, and in cases of waterside development by private companies, has not supported them at all.

… Walking along sections of the canal now you may notice that there are many empty stretches. In the past this was not the case. There were communities of boaters living along the towpath — many were there unofficially, but they lived and worked from these boats.

… The presence of narrowboats along the canal, especially some of the more industrial sections, provides more than interest and colour. As groups of boaters have an interest in safety, security and order for themselves, it also provides a sense of security for walkers and cyclists along the towpath.

I think he’s really talking of the urban canals, and complaining of liveaboards being squeezed out of cities.  There’s hardly a dearth of boats overall.

He’s right as far as it goes.  There’s precious little provision for new basins and new moorings in cities, and often when a new apartment block goes up, ‘no mooring’ signs spring up too, particularly in the London area.    The London canals could accomodate many more mooring rings.

However:  The Times letter doesn’t mention the overcrowding of many visitor moorings in the city by liveaboards who are ‘unofficial’, or the fact that many, many more people want moorings than there are spaces available. 

In my last two passages through London – last winter - I noticed many of the plum visitor moorings were occupied by liveaboards who never really left the London area – even in the winter – and moved on only grudgingly, if at all. 

Hackney’s Victoria Park, outside Islington Tunnel and are notorious examples of towpath squatters, often moored two-abreast  by long-stayers, but the problem is rife almost anywhere in the Greater London area, especially where' there’s free parking or a tube station nearby.  

Bright idea:  Why not make London’s towpath residential moorings for ONE YEAR ONLY, and you had to give it up at the end of the year and return to the back of the queue.  

(Liveaboards who lose their residential mooring are hardly made homeless.   They become simply rootless, which is why most of us wanted to liveaboard in the first place.) 

Tweaking the idea, every stretch of visitor mooring could have at least one of these residential moorings, to give each stretch its own official resident (or two).

That way, more boaters could have a chance to be Londoners, and there’d be more residential boaters spread out through the city. 

Bill de Leie is not an anagram

The author of the grouchy letter to this month’s Canal Boat, complaining about Mortimer Bones’ column, is not an anagram, nor a pseudonym.

In fact, William de Leie is himself a blogger - see Witchcraft’s Blog - and a very good one, I think, except he writes only sporadically. You don’t need to be effusive or long-winded to be a good blogger.  Just open and as concise as possible, and having a distinctive voice.  Being moderately frequent and regular helps too.

Bill started his blog a couple of years ago, and he's got a distinctive voice.  Here’s his first post, May 3rd 2007.

I loved his post from April 3rd, in the same grouchy character of his Canal Boat letter:

The highlight of this month was being thrown out of Great Haywood Marina.  We had booked in for three days and they wouldn't let us in because we had a bike, a canoe and some wood on the roof.  Snobby bastards don't like live-a-boards. Sod 'em.

Warm, cold, warm, cold. I wish the weather would make up it's mind. I've worn my jumper out taking it off and putting it on so many times.

More please, Victor Bill!

Incidentally, having a lot of stuff on your roof is called a 'hippy hutch'.   The marina didn’t turn them away because they were liveaboards, but because they don’t like hippy hutches.  They lower the tone of the neighbourhood, is the usual reason given, although rarely spoken out loud.

I doubt it was the bike that did it, but the canoe and the wood.  I sometimes have stuff on my roof, and I hide it in the front, under the cratch cover, when Hyacinth Bucket comes round. 

I admit it, I get a tremendous sexual charge from satisfying the tidyness urges of older women.  I think it came from growing up under the stern gaze of matron at boarding school.

Jo Bell's pub poetry workshops

Muse over a pint pot – Macclesfield Express

There’s a cool and imaginative photo in this Macclesfield Express article of poet Jo Bell, the last 'Cheshire laureate' and general literature enthusiast.  In it - unusually for a poet - she’s seen looking through a glass brightly.

Jo lives on NB Tinker, based at Macclesfield - although this summer it’s moving slowly around the Four Counties Ring.  She helps to organise National Poetry Day, which presumably is 364 days of hard slog.  And she writes the Bell Jar Blog.

The paper says she’s now doing 'workshops in pubs', which I presume means going from bard to bar to verse.  

They say you can’t find the answers at the bottom of a pint pot.  But a top Macclesfield poet has big plans to challenge that proverb – by waxing lyrical all over the town’s beer mats.

Jo Bell, Cheshire Laureate in 2007 and a Macclesfield Canal narrowboat dweller, is inviting punters to free ‘workshops’ in Sutton and Bollington pubs, and your collaborations could wind up in print and on the tables at your local.

"I’ll just be sat in the corners of the pubs waiting for inspiration – and people!" she said. "I don’t think we’ll produce anything Byronic, it’s more likely to be along the lines of ‘Shall I compare thee to a pint of Guinness?’."

I suppose the local paper meant well, although ‘top Macclesfield poet’ does sound like damning with faint praise.   I wonder what a ‘middling Macclesfield poet’ would be like?

At the Vale Inn, Bollington on Thursday, presumably several middling Macclesfield poets were trying to chat her up in verse. 

There's another chance for middling Macclesfield McGonagalls to serenade her on Wednesday week, June 3rd, at the Church House Inn at Sutton, near Macclesfield.

One great thing about poetry workshops in pubs is that the poetry gets better as the night wears on.  Or at least, it seems to get better.  

Jo was, for a while, doing a regular monthly poetry podcast, which I’d listen to – and enjoy – in the car at weekends, driving back to Granny Buttons.   She seems to have stopped it now, pity.   If she resumes, it’s on http://belljar.mypodcast.com/rss.xml 

Update June 4th:  Aw, I just noticed that in the photo Jo Bell is holding the pint glass like a girlie!   I bet she's really a white wine drinker.