Granny Buttons

Holt Fleet to near Kinver

Txtmsg cruising log post no. 2 from Charles:

Idyllic spot near Kinver, OS ref SO853844. Weather kind today, a little rain, a little sun and moderate temp. Charlie

I think that's Hyde Lock, if my map's right.  Multimap says Granny is here tonight.  Waterscape says it's here.  Canalplan, in its idiosyncratic, detailed and good ole' homespun way says it's here.

Whatever it is, there's a local Kinver village website that could offer advice on what to do when are there.  The more of these the better.  I forsee a time when everwhere Granny stops there'll be a local village website that boaters can draw on for information. 

Booking for the National Waterways Festival

I've been gaily writing about going up to the National Waterways Festival .  I talk as if I'm one of the family, welcome to tip up at any time, bed always waiting.  Actually I'm more like one of those hordes of 'fans without tickets' you get turning up uninvited at football matches.

In football, they are generally urged to stay at home.  But boaters are a little more welcoming to each other.  So I've just called Pat Barton, the waterspace organiser.  Today, a month before the festival, over 430 boats are booked in, she says.  They'll probably be moored two or three abreast, and even then I'm looking at a long, long walk to the festival site from any mooring they'll give me.  Well, the walk'll do me good.

Folding bike speciaist AS Bikes, who show at many of the major festivals, should do roaring sales at Preston Brook from unprepared fools like me.

Happy Birthday to Harold Potter

One of my rare non-waterways posts.  JK Rowling is 40 years old today, and Harry Potter is 15, having been born/conceived on a train to Kings Cross on this day in 1990.  My, how time flies like a broomstick.

Gloucester to Holt Fleet

Granny is on her way up the Severn, in the careful hands of Charles & Barbara, as I can't be there this weekend, and I'm behind schedule to reach 'The National' at the end of this month.  They've done well.  Tonight he sent me a txt msg:

Good overnight moorings at Holt Fleet n. of Worcester.  Interesting choice of pubs.

I think this is the first-ever entry in my cruising blog that's been sent by SMS. 

Tenders the size of narrowboats

I was thinking today of Colin Edmondson's coracle, which I wrote about last weekend, and how it was the 'tender' to his narrowboat Lothlorian.   And then I stumbled across the world's largest private 'yacht', which at 414ft long is really more of a ship.

'Octopus', commissioned and owned by Microsoft squillionaire Paul Allen, is almost half the size of the Titanic and rather larger than the SS Great Britain, the world's first modern (iron hull, propellor-driven) ship.

Here's the fact damned lie statistic that made me draw breath:  Its ship-to-shore tender is - at over 59ft long - almost the same length as Granny Buttons. Good grief. (I daresay it's not as narrow as Granny, which is a point in Granny's favour)  I don't know how big the onboard submarine is.

Shuffle (in your polythene blue unsuede shoes) through the latest posh narrowboats at shows like Crick and 'The National', and you'll ogle at the luxury boatbuilders can shoehorn into what are, effectively, floating corridors.  Boatbuilders like Kingsground and Stowe Hill and Reading Marine have taken narrowboats to new dimensions (in luxury, not in length or width, mind you) but I suspect even they are still bumping along the bottom of what's possible, given the budget.

I wonder who will be the first narrowboat builder to join the Superyacht Society?  Persuade Octopus's creator, Espen Øino, to design it and he'd be the Willard Wigan of naval architects. Never mind a quart into a pint pot, he'd be shrinking a gallon into a droplet.

Here's a night-time closeup of that glamorous monstrosity. What makes it so awesome to me is that it's the personal fiefdom of one man.  We are really in James Bond Villain territory here, but it's hard to imagine über-nerd Paul Allen as a villain.  Perhaps it's Austin Powers Villain territory instead.

Dintarmah paints extra-rosy picture

There's an article in Boston Today (that's Lincs, not Massachussetts) today about a couple who've taken the liveaboard plunge, based on the River Witham.  Dave and Lynn Irving paint an extraordinarily rosy picture of the get-away-from-it-all lifestyle.  I hope it doesn't inspire too many people to a hopeless enthusiasm.

Their boat is called Dintarmah, which the article says is 'their surname in Elvish' (the Lord of the Rings language).  I didn't know that! I always thought the surname 'Irving', translated into Elvish, was 'Irving'.  Certainly my surname translated into Elvish (and any other language) is 'Denny', but I guess they're right.

The article concludes:  "Their long-term ambition is to sail along the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct near Llangollen, Wales, which stands more than 1,000ft off the ground." 

Here I'm on firmer ground.  That's rubbish.  It's only about 120ft high; at least the journalist got the spelling of the Pontywotsit right, which is more than I usually do. 

Come to think of it, parse their last sentence again.  Much of Wales stands more than 1,000ft off the ground (or at least 'Sea Level'), so perhaps they are right after all.

TravelVideo.TV writes about the Mon & Brec Canal

TravelVideo TV ('the world on the web') is a site that offers travel videos from around the world.  I think that's what it does, anyway.  Seems to be a vehicle for travel writer and voiceover artiste Bea Brody Connolly.

I'd not heard of it before, but it popped in my radar today with a pretty good consumer-level article about a canal trip on the Mon & Brec Canal. 

But that's only the written article.  This is 'TravelVideo TV', yet I can't find a video associated with the story.  The story's only published today, so perhaps they finish the video a long while after writing the story.  Or perhaps they pick and choose the video subjects, and a video doesn't necessarily result.

Continuous cruising on the marketing vehicle and business

I've been researching the background to the 'continuous cruising' issue (to follow).  One thing that surprised me is that the subject won't draw blood on Waterscape.  If you type 'continuous' into Waterscape's search box, it comes up with 'not found', and hunting for 'cruiser' or 'cruising' comes up only with a list of boat hire companies.

Perhaps I should learn to take a hint.  Waterscape is, in the words of the BW Annual Report, it's a 'marketing vehicle and business').  My translation: It's there for selling and promoting, rather than informing. 

The information I want is actually there on www.britishwaterways.co.uk instead, albeit you'll have to hunt through the search results.  Even if you have the gumption to go to the official BW site, it tries to swerve you over to Waterscape anyway - by saying "please click [through to Waterscape] for boating..." 

Yet what is continuous cruising but boating without the mooring?  And (ahem) 'mooring' doesn't come up in a Waterscape search either.)

There's no concomitant caveat on Waterscape's home page that you ought to click through to British Waterways. Perhaps there ought to be (see left for my suggestion).

Hey, 'concomitant caveat' is a Googlewhack!  Well, OK, not quite, since a true Googlewhack needs to be two words, not a phrase.  But close enough to amuse me. 

Waterscape's team are going to be furious with me.   They recently relaunched the site after a complete 'open source' makeover, and Richard told me about all the wonderful things it can now do.  And I said I'd blog about it, and I haven't yet.  Here I am nitpicking about the search results.  But I'm worried about this boat licensing issue, so BW and Waterscape are both getting the blunt end of my stick.

Pontcysllte Aqueduct on track to be listed as a World Heritage Site.

Story here on the BBC today of the progress to get the Pontcysllte Aqueduct listed as a World Heritage Site.

Pontcysyllte was first identified by Unesco as a potential candidate in 1999.  Wrexham Council is jointly co-ordinating the bid with British Waterways, the structure's owners, the Welsh historic monuments body Cadw and the Royal Commission for Ancient Historic Monuments (Wales).

'London bombers' arrested near the GU in Birmingham

Hot developments in the hunt for the 'London Bombers':  An arrest this morning at a house in Heybarnes Road, Hay Mills, near the Grand Union canal's terminus at Tyseley (close by a mosque) and another not far away at Washwood Heath. 

It's interesting; you can cruise this section of the canal, and see little but dereliction and chavs - which I guess amounts to the same thing - but rarely anything of the otherwise prominent local Asian community.

It's a reminder of how intricately the canals can sew and weave a path through the modern, multicultural side of Britain, and yet still remain resolutely Anglo-Saxon.  You'll see the occasional turbaned or kufi skull-capped bearded Asian man gongoozling from a bridge, or wandering the towpath, perhaps, but they are still a rarity, even when you spot a mosque minaret nearby.  When I see these darker faces in the city I feel more reassured and safer than when I see a knot of burberry-capped white youths loitering near my boat.  And long may it continue that way, each of us ethnically distinct and peaceful in our distinctions.

BW's Annual Report isn't exciting (luckily)

A lady from British Waterways emailed me out of the blue last week for my address.  She wanted to send me a copy of their latest Annual Report.  I was flattered she'd make the effort - perhaps someone there thinks it might temper my posts and disabuse my wilder notions - and a copy of the report duly arrived over the weekend. 

It's a weighty volume but surprisingly readable as these things go, and a very good summary of what's happening on the UK waterways.  Unlike most company reports you don't have to spin like a top yourself to counter the organisation's own spin, although there's (inevitably) a shortage of devil's advocacy.

There's a good selection of lively waterways photographs, but no credit as to who took them.  I think this is a missed opportunity to showcase the work of the best of amateur waterways photographers. Perhaps next year BW can include winners from the various photo competitions they sponsor, and proper credit of each photo. 

I'm running through a page or two each bedtime, and it's already replaced my old stack of Escorts and Razzles which became redundant after a recent heart operation rendered me near-impotent. 

There are many interesting points in the latest Annual Report, which I hope to blog about on days of otherwise quiet news.  As I've said before in a related context, Escort and Razzle are exciting but not interesting, whereas BW's Annual Report is interesting but not exciting. And unlike Escort and Razzle you can download it as a PDF (here). But it's hard to read a PDF in bed, even for only ten minutes.

Terry Wogan bangs the drum for Granny Buttons

The other day, I stumbled upon a reference by Newcastle TV reviewer Viv Hardwick to the Moldovan granny in the Eurovision song contest as 'Granny Buttons'. Was that was a rip-off of my post I thought, and I asked him.  He answered:

As far as I remember, she was nicknamed Granny Buttons by the media covering the event (I first spotted it in The Guardian) and it kind of stuck.  Terry Wogan referred to it on air, so it was a bit of a gift for someone like me writing tongue-in-cheek pieces about TV.

Terry Wogan referred to it on air?   I didn't know!  I don't recall the Guardian mentioning it - although they did give this blog a namecheck last year - but I recall a flurry of hits on my blog post about Moldova's Granny just before the show.   And as far as I can tell, there was no reason to think of her as a Granny 'buttons'.  So did Tel's name for the Moldovan babushka come unwittingly from my post?  I like to think so.

Granny Google

Search the web as if you were me. 

Or do your own.

Brentford mooring to rent

Someone is offering a 'rare opportunity' to rent a mooring at Brentford, £3,000/year, "with possible 'pied a terre' use".   Sounds to me exactly like one of the new Brentford Lock moorings, except it's a bit cheaper. 

But the price I was quoted for Brentford Lock didn't say how long the boat could be, and this ad doesn't either.  Is it possible to sign up for a mooring, then turn around and pass on the mooring to someone else, turning a profit?  Well, no.  But that won't stop some people from trying, I guess.