Granny Buttons

Loughborough des.res. apartments

Loughborough canalside, Sunday 12th Nov 2006.
There's a lot of attractive new building springing up canalside in the Realm, and much of it really comes to life at dusk, when the lights come on.

No doubt you could find a hundred local residents who'd consider this small block of des.res. apartments a carbuncle, but it appeals to me.

Pawnstar's Canal Mania

Pawnstar, a "gamer who works in his spare time", wrote last week of the games he's played in October.   Amongst the most memorable was a couple of games of Canal Mania, the board game launched by the Ragnar Brothers earlier this year.  Pawnstar says:

Once again, despite investing in the much-hallowed Birmingham-Worcester I did not win the game - and I am evermore certain there has to be a specific chain of events in order for this to become near-unbeatable ... I look forward to playing it again with the same people, I had such an engrossing experience.  I think Canal Mania is well on the way to becoming my Game of the Year.

He's got a photo of it here on the blog post.  Canal Mania was limited to 1,000 sets, and they've all been sold (at £35 apiece).  Ragnar Brother (and game designer) Gary Dicken has some interesting notes on the game here.   He says he's almost certain to produce a second edition next year.  It'll be on my wish list.

Hawkesbury Junction

Sutton Stop, Sunday Nov 26th 2006. 
The protesters had departed by the time I arrived at 3pm, leaving behind this lonely sign.

Misty Lady shows pure emotion

Jo Lodge, who blogs on Life Afloat, has just published her first book of poetry - Pure Emotion.  She's using self-publisher Lulu, which I think is a very modern, very 'Web 2.0' way of doing it. 

You don't have to buy it in the dead-tree version - you can download it as a PDF instead, and save a few twigs and a few quid too.  I wish I could write a book.  I'd probably publish it this way too.

Time was, when you wanted to be a journalist, you sought a job on a magazine or newspaper.  Now, you can simply start a blog.  And if you've written a book you don't need to endure years of agonising and humiliating doorknocking to find a publisher - you simply go to Lulu.

Self-publishing is not a route to riches, of course, but few big-publisher books are either.

David Miliband blog

Environment Secretary (and canals-funding decisionmaker) David Miliband might not be on any canallers' Christmas card list this year, but he ought to be.  He's a damn good blogger.  How many of you are reading the David Miliband blog?  How many of you are commenting? 

And he says he's listening:

I will read and, as often as I can, respond to people's comments on my posts. So please use this site as a noticeboard for new thoughts... You'll notice that the first 50 or so posts on this blog had no comments on them.  This is because I blogged for a few months within my previous department before this went live...

I don't know of a similar experiment - so let's see how it goes.

Whether you signed any of the waterways petitions, I'll tell you something:  I believe that one thoughtful, measured, calm public comment on his blog would be at least as effective at influencing him as a thousand street-collected signatures.

Snipe and Taurus back together in business

I wrote last April that one of the best-known and most elegant pairs of hotel narrowboats - Taurus & Snipe - were for sale separately.

This week I learned that Taurus & Snipe are still together, under new ownership - and taking bookings for next year, on their website Canal Voyagers.  Not only that, but new proprietors Neil and Corinne Thomsett (pictured) are blogging too!  Here's the blog feed.

There's more:  They have a Flickr account - www.flickr.com/photos/canalvoyagers -  so you will be able to see their photos as they make their way around the system.

Corinnne and Neil are wintering at Long Itchington, but plan a grand relaunch in central Birmingham next March.   "We hope it will be quite a 'do'", they add, "with a gathering of friends, previous guests and everyone who has helped us along the way."

They are clearly more internet-savvy than any other hotel boat operators I've met.  At one stage Neil was  an IT consultant and, like me, wondering about wi-fi on the canals.  If they can equip Taurus & Snipe with a web link (probably by 3G phone), then guests could write up their own travelogs and post their photos as they go along, to keep friends at home informed. Well, it's no worse than staring at a TV on a wet summer evening, is it?

Pie are squared - a free lunch

I love a small meat pie, pastry top & bottom, preferably hand-held.  It's one of my guilty, secret  pleasures, like listening to old Radio 2 (Desmond Carrington, The Organist Entertains, Friday Night is Music Night, the ones before Radio 2 tried to be cool).   

I've just received a flyer from the Square Pie Company in London (har har, pie are squared, geddit?). 

We’re opening a new shop next week in Russell Square and want to get some practice first so we’re inviting a few lucky pie eaters to have a meal on us this week.  Please see this flyer for details.  Email [email protected] and we’ll get back to you if you’re one of the first 50 each session and send you an invite (1 meal per invite). 

Wed 29th Nov - Lunch
Thurs 3oth Nov - Evening
Fri 1st Dec  - Breakfast (ahem - pie at breakfast?)

Are there any boaters who want to test the thesis that there's no such thing as  free lunch? 

What's this got to do with canals?  Well, I've been meaning to write a story about savoury pies for some time. 

I meant to do it when Granny was at Raynsway Marina, because Leicester is Pukka Pie territory - the Pukka factory is just around the corner at Syston.  Almost every other takeaway shop in Leicestershire seems to sport the garish orange Pukka emblem and to put up its mock-elegant posters on tiled walls.

My sister made a wonderful snake and pygmy pie for my birthday last month. Here she is with it, fresh out of Granny's oven.  She's promised the recipe and I'll post it when it arrives.  It's probably already lurking in one of her books. 

Incidentally (sis in her modesty probably won't thank me for this nudge of recognition) but there was an interesting Financial Times article from earlier this year about the nature of some of those cookery books that sport her name on the cover.

Protesting boat looks almost like an illustration

Protesting boat, Foxton Locks, 3pm 25th November 2006.

SOW news report

Mykaskin has posted a snippet to YouTube from Saturday's BBC TV news about the Manchester protests.   He also put up an excerpt from the Politics Show, but that seems to have come down again quickly.  Possibly because of copyright concerns? 

You can watch the Politics Show again (for a few days) here.  I'm recording it (for my own use only, constable, honest) for posterity.  And to lend to friends of course.

SOW at Banbury

Below is the noisy Banbury canal protest yesterday lunchtime, posted on YouTube by ChaRleyTroniC.  For some reason YouTube's rotated it sideways (or failed to rotate it upright) but you can see (and hear) the general principle. 

Unfortunately the sound is a bit faint, so you'll need to ensure your speakers are turned up full before you press the play buttons.

When you've finished fingering out the wax from your ear, also check out CharLeyTronic's video of a busking dog in Exeter - priceless!

Splendid SOW

I am always suspicious of protests, but I was pleasantly surprised about the canalwide protests last weekend for the Save Our Waterways campaign - I think they were splendid. 

I don't see 'the cuts' as a disaster, at least not if they are a one-off.  But if we are not careful they could reverse the momentum of restoration that has built up over the last ten years.  I'm not a signer or a joiner by nature, and I haven't signed - won't sign - any of the petitions.  I take all street petitions with my daily pinch of salt.  I reckon you can persuade passers-by to sign almost anything, and that ruins their believability for me. 

But the protest that blocked central Birmingham at Salvage Turn yesterday awed and impressed me, with its suspensful, murmuring quiet, the atmospheric fog of diesel fumes and its brief, tumultuous cacophony.  The clever choice of location - right outside the BBC Midlands headquarters at the Mailbox - made it impossible for the Beeb to ignore it.  Well done to all concerned!

The lunchtime show had live coverage, including an interview with Lord Rooker and John Fletcher, IWA Chairman.  I didn't realise it was live until I got Mr Fletcher flustered by asking him to pose for a photo - not realising that he was about to be called to camera - but he seemed to recover by the time he was live to the nation seconds later. 

I sneaked my camera under the cameraman's legs, and they all posed admirably as the reporter spake to the nation - thanks!  (The exposure was awful, sorry. ) 

By the way, who's the gentleman who's staring down at me disapprovingly?

I'll post a bunch of photos to Flickr and I'll make an extra effort to draw attention to all the web links I find on the subject.  I've also created a category of Save Our Waterways; click on this and you'll see Granny restricted to posts on this subject and you won't be bored with other subjects.

Dave Pokhan (currently preoccupied with helping restore NB Emerald) kindly supplied me with the three other photos in this post, all of angles I hadn't covered.  Including the superb one of the bearded fellow with his horn.  That one really sums it all up for me.  Thanks, Dave!

Mailbox blockade astonishes

'Salvage Turn' at The Mailbox, Birmingham, 26th November 2006.

Golly, what an amazing sight the blockade at the Mailbox was yesterday. I'm very disappointed with the technical quality of my photos, though.  Need to get my camera checked out .

Linking the Broads to the canals

On The Norfolk Broads Forum Terry Clarke has started a lively thread of discussion about the prospect of linking The Broads to the main canal network. 

It's pie in the sky, but then  much of reality started as pie in the sky.  This idea has occasionally been floated idly by canal boaters.  What I found interesting in the thread was seeing it from a 'Broader' perspective, so to speak. 

Loughborough - to Loughborough

Cruising log, 7pm-8pm, Saturday 25th Nov 2006:
Winded at Loughborough Junction, moved Granny to the visitor moorings outside the Boat Inn at Loughborough.  Scarcely a mile.

I'd intended to take Granny north from Loughborough this weekend, but the opportunity to photograph the 'Save Our Wateways' protests seemed too good to miss.  So Granny stayed in Loughborough.  On Saturday I drove to Thurmaston and then Foxton to photograph the protests there.

And on Sunday I drove to Birmingham to witness the lunchtime protest at the Mailbox.  Then drove to Hawkesbury Junction, only to find the protest there had been the day before. 

Not much of a cruising log, sorry.