Granny Buttons

Keeping track of boating blogs? No problem!

Keeping track on your fellow bloggers is pretty confusing work when it's just a tall list of links, like wot most of us have got.  And as it gets longer it gets harder to remember which is which and who's who.

Sue on No Problem has a really nice solution - a separate page listing her favourite Boaters' Blogs, divided into:

• Blogging narrowboat friends I have met.
• Blogging narrowboat friends I have yet to meet.

What's especially cool about it is the little image of each blog, showing its home page, and reminding you who's indeed who (or whom).  Luckily for me, Sue's not yet got a section marked: 

Blogging narrowboaters I hope I never meet.

I think I shall have to do this too, if I can find the time.  And not just for other blogs, but for general websites - I've not had the space before for those - and for all those other links lists such as Amazon links to books I've read.

I'm not sure how Sue does the thumbnails, but one way of getting a thumbnail is via Thumbalizr.   With this tool, you can quickly get either a fixed size thumb (like Sue's, for neatness) or the full length of the page.  Unfortunately they aren't 'live link's; that is, if the original site changes, the image doesn't.

On a blog the full length of of a page can be pretty long, and if you try to 'thumb' too long a page, Thumbalizr will choke on it.  Pictured here (above left) is a single post on GrannyB.  Wow, look at that list of Amazon books.  I must trim it down.

Warrior with boots on

NB Warrior at IWA Festival, St. Ives, Aug 25th 2007.  Whose boots? 

Ezrin's fantastic canal weekend

Ezrin has written on his blog that he's just had a fantastic weekend with his family on Little Gem from Rose Narrowboats.   He's doing an MA in automotive journalism, so I suppose the fact that there was an engine he could control beneath his feet influenced his decision to go canal boating instead of sailing:

On Friday, 24th August 2007, I swapped my comfortable, air-conditioned, 115mph, 5 seats, petrol Fiat Stilo for a wobbly, non-air-conditioned, 7 mph, 4 berth, diesel barge!  Also known as a narrow boat or canal boat.

... The last time I swapped my Stilo for something else was for a Ferrari F355 around Silverstone.  However, I can promise you that no gun was pointing at my head when I said, 'let’s get on a barge for our next family holiday.'

... If I had to rate my holiday experiences, I would say that it would be in my top 5 best holidays ever.  I would most definitely recommend it to all, young and old.

This is great PR for British Waterways and UK tourism in general.  Well done Ezrin.

He says he got to Coventry in 3 hours, but, to be frank, that's almost 13 miles by canal and at that rate he would have exceeded the official canal speed limit of 4mph.  And anyway he's being a shade optimistic in assuming Little Gem could ever reach 7mph, except downstream on a river.

So - like Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hamster before him - we'll assume he was just in 'top gear', rather than breaking the law! 

So, farewell then, Eugene

Eugene Baston is stepping down after nine years as Customer Relations Manager at British Waterways, to many encomiums.  I wouldn't have mentioned it, except that BW's PR director Simon Salem has already emailed everybody to announce who's going to replace him. 

The answer seems to be three people (and 'some vacancies'):

Media Relations & Corporate Affairs – Ed Fox (currently Corporate Affairs Manager for BW in London) - "his first priority will be to recruit a new team since we currently have some vacancies!"   

Complaints – Jonathan Bryant (currently Head of Customer Service).  Liz Horne "who is currently administering complaints nationally (as maternity cover) will report to him".

User group relations – Jonathan Bryant, "working closely with [Simon Salem] will take responsibility for this except in the area of inland marine trade relations, which Sally Ash will look after".

Hmm, there seems to be nobody covering 'Praise for BW'.

What amazes me is how the departure of one man has upended a whole department.  I would feel very smug and satisfied if I could have that effect by quitting my job.

What will he do next?  Aside from changing nappies during paternity leave, I mean. He doesn't seem to have lined up anything else yet.  Was he jumped on, or did he push too hard?

Mud and glory

Festival’s soggy start - Hunts Post

This is the first newspaper report online of the IWA Festival at St. Ives.

But I think Sarah on Warrior made the first first-hand organiser's/boaters report at the end of the festival.

Bring your boat to an IWA Festival and you'll inevitably have to moor 4, 5 or even 6 abreast.  At St Ives, the river was wide and space was in demand.

Sarah's report told of a boat which booked early to ensure a bankside mooring, but didn't arrive until the day of the festival. Nevertheless, it insisted on pushing out five other boats to get its allotted bankside space!

By the way, I got to look aboard Warrior.  Sarah and Jim have done a lovely job on it, especially in the engine room, but the solid-fuel stove in the saloon is, I think, the glory of this boat.  Wish I'd had the courage to photograph it, but I'm bashful about photographing private areas.  Sarah's already done it, though.

Naughty passage through Standedge Tunnel

A group of daredevil spelunkers from the UK Urban Exploration Forums have not only just made an illicit midnight trip through Standedge Tunnel, but have also written it up, complete with photos as witness. 

It took them a little under 3 hours, including stops in each of the adits (passages linking the canal tunnel to the parallel rail tunnel).

I daresay BW will now be looking at making the tunnel gates more 'dinghy-proof'.

While one has to (officially) frown on the souls who made this passage - and BW will probably pursue them - I can't help but admire their daring.  Well done, chaps! 

But it's a different kind of daring compared with the old days. Back in 1948 Tom Rolt, Robert Aickman, James Sutherland and Elizabeth Jane Howard made a much braver attempt in the leaky Ailsa Craig, when the tunnel was in unknown condition.  (An excerpt from Aickman's biography describing the passage is here)

The tunnel's in determinedly better shape now and the latest venturers took a pair of dinghies in case of emergencies.  And, why, the wusses in these pictures were even wearing safety helmets!

In fact, their biggest risk was probably in trespassing, being detected by the infra-red motion sensors in the tunnel, and getting caught and fined.  (Oh, and NOT WEARING LIFEJACKETS.  That was probably their biggest crime in BW's eyes).  Their greatest success was in writing up the trip before anyone cottoned on. In short, cocking a snook at authority.  Well done, chaps!

I think I'll match their bravado by using their photos without their permission, and see if they can catch me at it.

[via Andrew Instone-Cowie on uk.rec.waterways]

Simply Wet Wet Wet

Rain rain rain this year.  Keith on Quidditch says:

As we gather our thoughts on this years summer tour, which we intend to post shortly, I can't help but feel that the summer of 07 will become known as 'the summer that never was'.

Understandable, but not sure I entirely agree.  We can all understand the disastrous floods this year, but in the light of horrendous forest fires in Greece and stonking temperatures in the rest of the Med, I think the UK had a simply milder summer, simply wetter.

If you'd lived in 1816 you'd have called that particular year "The Year Without A Summer" [says an anonymous person, with absolutely no credibility, on Wikipedia] and they relate some horrendous tales, including frozen canals in north America in July, and crop failures worldwide.

I'd call 2007 "The year in the UK without a frost, drought or heatwave". 

But then, I can afford to be dismissive.  Granny Buttons was on the Ashby Canal during June and July, where water levels rose or fell perhaps three or four inches in total, and my beloved boat barely noticed, even while so many other people were suffering.

In July someone official from British Waterways wrote to me:  "Looking forward to seeing your flood photos".  I had to confess that I'd not seen any floods, not firsthand anyway.  Gypsy Rover (e.g. "The lifting of NB Hertford") and many other bloggers witnessed and did some good reporting, but not me. 

Even my weekend at the cancelled Saul Canal Festival was dry.  But it did give me a wonderful picture of the festival camping field close to Whitminster Church.   Five days before I took the photo below, the field had been submerged in water.  The angry clouds lingered, but they'd long since dumped their constipated load. If this had been Glastonbury, the scene would have been predominantly brown - from mud, not drought.

Dog and Doublet, Curdworth flight

Dog & Doublet, 11.30pm, Sunday Aug 26th 2007.

Dammit, I forgot my tripod last weekend.  And there was the moon, shining so invitingly full above the Dog & Doublet pub, three locks up from the bottom of the Curdworth flight on the B&F Canal.

With the tripod I could have positioned my camera properly so as to capture the profile of the pub better in the moonlight.  But I had to be content with a piece of canalside furniture to stand the camera on, and it wasn't the right position. 

I managed to get the landlord to turn off the canalside floodlight, but then I realised the lights on the pub sign were still on.  I couldn't wait for those to go off, and didn't like to go back inside and ask him for another favour. 

Photographed from a different angle, with the pub-sign floodlight off and with perhaps a couple more upstairs window lights on, this could have looked marvellous. But the hardest part of the job is often making a nuisance of myself to to people, just for the sake of the photograph.

Full moon is the best time to photograph skylines and rooftops.  You get a lovely atmosphere, especially when, as here, the houses are far from streetlights.

River Lee pub closed and close to being lost

Last orders for the traditional boozer - Hornsey & Crouch End Journal

... as pubs are left to rot, demolished or converted into flats and lavish restaurants - with faithful locals left to search for the next nearest drinking hole they can afford.  More than 500 pubs in the capital have been lost in the last three years alone - 89 demolished, 170 converted to flats or shops and 251 closed and awaiting their fate,

Nothing canal-related about this story.  Except that one of the pubs being lamented is 'The Narrow Boat' in Reedham Close, N17, on the Lee riverside. [Here's the Google Maps location] .  

The Narrow Boat is/was being advertised for sale here, and CAMRA's North London branch currently reports that it is "closed and boarded up - subject to an application to convert to residential." 

Has anyone ever done a census of all pubs with historic waterways connections? 

Granny's button bows

It's two years old and it's seen better days - the 2-way turk's head knots are slipping, for instance - but Granny's bow button is holding up and providing a good cushion against forward bumps.

Victoria and Richard of The Fender Boat will be glad to see their work is still in good shape.  They didn't particularly recommend the double turk's head for durability - they simply did it on their own boat to show what was possible.

Maffi sets a new example

Maffi is now doing his cruising log with one post per day, instead of sandwiching a whole week's worth of cruising into one long multi-screen entry. 

Attaboy Maffi!  It's much better that way, I think.  Fred on J-Omega does (did?) it the same way.

With a week's worth of entries in a single blog post, it's harder to link to individual items. 

For example, I loved his 'instant karma/bad karma' entry for Sat August 18th; it was a great read - amusing, interesting and useful - and because it's got its own entry I can link to it here, independently of other items.

Bacn

I've never seen a word catch on so fast.  Coined barely a week ago, 'Bacn' is all the automatically-sent email that you agreed to sign up for - search alerts, news headlines, subscription newsletters, that sort of stuff - but that you haven't got time to read.

And that you can't work out how to cancel.

The name's a clever reworking; unlike spam, bacn is 'real'. Real in the sense that you genuinely did give them permission to email it to you in the first place, even if you regret it now.

You get bacn too, huh?

Granny beats up a Merc

Pete of Whaley Wails today pointed me to this feisty granny.

Nic's time-lapses and Julie's talent

A couple of months ago I mentioned TheBoatersTV, an online American video podcast about matters afloat. 

I forgot to mention earlier, but a month ago they had a short snippet about blogger Nic Chilton of Silhouette and his time-lapse movies.  It was tacked on to the end of this episode, just a minute or less. Well, the show didn't say much about Nic's raison d'etre, but it doesn't matter, because you can always catch up with his clips on www.narrowboat.org.uk.

More distracting is the personable presenter Julie Perry, she's so pert you might not spend much time listening to what she's saying (if you get my drift). 

I found the 'blue-screened' background a bit distracting and anyway you already know I dislike modern jumpy fast-cut TV techniques. I could concentrate more on what she had to say, rather than how she was saying it, if only she focused on one subject and wasn't so comely.

It must be frustrating for her, all that experience on boats and skills in presenting, and there we are watching her for her - er, gifts and talents instead.  But then, the show isn't really aimed at canal boaters.

What she really needs is to do entire programs on one particular theme, rather than just a minute here and there.  If she needs a script and video content for a full ten minute program on England's waterways, I and many other canal boaters would certainly be happy to give her one.