Granny Buttons

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.

Viking afloat on the Calder & Hebble Navigation

Studying my photos of the Calder & Hebble trip in June, I came across this snatched photo. Not only does the Calder & Hebble Navigation Society trip boat have colours resembling Viking Afloat boats but there's even a Viking afloat in the boat!

Supplement, 6th Oct 2004: A couple of hits today from Sweden, searching for 'Viking Afloat', and I was tickled that this post is No. 2 on Google for this term! I forgot to mention last time that popular slang for the Viking Afloat boats is 'Prunes & Custard'.

Scott Haefner's Kite Aerial Photography

Scott Haefner has produced some stunning aerial images using kites and radio controlled digital cameras. His Kite Aerial Photography site contains some magnificent examples, including a trip through Scotland last June, and some splendid aerial views of the Falkirk Wheel.

Want to see something really spectacular? Have a look at these 360 degree aerial panoramas (requires Quicktime, and probably broadband). For maximum effect, choose 'Full Screen Version'.

All this works not simply for the novelty, but because the standard of Scott's photography is so high. He includes full details in PDF format of the 'rig' he's built, and the camera is a nothing-special 5mp Nikon Coolpix (presumably so it doesn't cost too much if it crashes to the ground) but as with all photography, the equipment is only the half of it.

Blogs finally about to reach mainstream?

The New York Times magazine today has a cover story on blogs, and the blogging bloggers who blog them. (Bear with me, this is relevant to us). The NY Times story is actually focused on the new breed of American political commentators who rant and rave, so if you read it your eyes will probably cross with boredom before you reach the bottom of their first screen.

If you skip to page 3 (registration required, but it's free) you can read about the blonde, pretty and amusing Ana Marie Cox.

[She] has peachy cream skin and eyes of a very bright blue, strawberry blond hair and a filthy mind; she likes to analyze our nation's leaders in their most private, ah, parts. She has been talking this way all her life.

Note how the magazine cover picture (right) shows her in her undies, while two of America's most respected, grizzled old newsmen look on (probably not at the screen!). This is picture shorthand to show that many journalists are now publishing to the web before they even get dressed in the morning - and often, last thing at night.

To the point: what's significant for the waterweb is that this seems to be the first story on weblogs that is actually on the front page of a general colour supplement, instead of relegating it to technology pages. Is this the moment it's about to go all mainstream? Can I soon stop having to explain why blogs are different from conventional websites?

Camboaters and Cam Conservators truce for a year.

The Camboaters report that the Cam Conservators have backtracked on their 'moorings ban' decision. The Conservators have postponed the decision for a year, and I guess - like any face-off, from Bagshot to Baghdad - it's portrayed by both sides as a personal victory, not a decision postponed.

Rowing stamps its mark on the Cam, as this triumphalist bridge graffito shows, but more and more people in Cambridge will demand to live afloat.

And I'm not surprised; housing costs aside, it's a wonderful lifestyle and not simply a refuge from homelessness. I don't know what policy exists to accomodate the liveaboards clustering there, but it would be nice to see some sort of mooring development plans downriver. Mooring on the Cam surely can't continue to be free (except for the coming year) and it's inevitable boaters will have to pay for it, just as it's part of life that city car-parking must be paid for.

Yet, if congestion for rowers is the problem, this link suggests that the Cambridge Rowing Association considers - hmm - local anglers a bigger nuisance than the Camboaters.

Tiny motors pull full size butty on the Wey & Arun

What a curious Lilliputian feat! Last Saturday four model tugboats pulled the Wey & Arun Canal Trust's trip boat Zachariah Keppel from Brewhurst Lock to the Onslow Arms landing stage in Loxwood, "under the command of Alan Woodroffe".

Well, it was only a couple of hundred yards if the map is correct, and we won't see model tugboat acting as a motor for a butty just yet. But like Samuel Johnson, I'm surprised to find it done at all.

It's surprising we don't see more model boats on the canals. Last May I tied up at Barlaston, on the Trent & Mersey canal, and had a chat with the manager of Big Boyz Toyz, a model shop. I asked; but no, they'd never heard of a working model narrowboat. They did have a couple of speedboats, but the manager said he'd never thought of using them on the canal. Mind you they'd probably break BW's 4mph speed limit in a couple of seconds.

Supplement: I notice that Matt Keens, of the 'Jannock' family, has a 1/24th-scale (3ft) radio-controlled model narrowboat.