Granny Buttons

Where are the snows of yesteryear?

 
John of NB Alacrity has kindly sent me photos of Granny Buttons in the snow at Hertford last Tuesday. 

It's a rare day that sees snow on the canal these days,  and seemingly rarer when I'm aboard.   And I wasn't in this case - I'm shuttling back and forth to Sussex, trying to sort out my late father's home. 

I bet the canal photographers were out in force, though, filling up their memory cards with next year's Christmas cards and calendar shots to pretend that we still have Dickensian winters.

In the Britain of climate change, snow is HTGT.   Literally. 

Narrowboat Homes

Following my comments on Escape The Rat Race, a business offering private boats for long-term rental, Baz asks if I'd seen Narrowboat Homes, offering a similar service.

If you have a boat, Narrowboat Homes offer to rent it from you for a minimum of four months, renting it out to others.   They make some pretty good, strong promises, including:

• All prospective tenants are fully security and credit checked.
• We pay you regardless of whether your boat is rented or not.
• We take care and pay for the total upkeep of your craft including all license fees.
• If your boat needs a facelift, with prior agreement with you and suitable contract we will undertake any works required to make the boat rentable at no cost to you.
• Your boat will be sat tracked so you can find out where she is at any time.
• We return the boat to you in the same or better condition than we took it over from you.

If you have a boat that you want to keep in the longer term, but want to earn money on in the meantime, is it a good option to rent it out in this manner?  

It sounds like a good arrangement.  But I'd be more confident of Narrowboat Homes if there weren't so many grammatical and spelling errors on its website, if there was a real, physical office you could visit to ask questions, if the FAQ [link] wasn't empty (!) and because of the presence of one glaring, worrying Question & Answer:

Do your boats come with moorings?

Some of our boats come with moorings.  Other boats are classified as continious [sic] cruising please call us on 07728918092 for full details of what this means

So they say you can rent out a boat (with, I presume, a full hireboat licence and properly insured) as a continuous cruiser, without a home mooring.  

Call me cynical, but I groan at the thought of this.  Will this sort of rental really be to someone cruising the wider country on the long term, rather than someone simply looking for a cheap flat for a few months in the London area and who's going to hog visitor moorings?    And in between rentals, where's it going to be based?

Having said all that, there is a place for a business like this.  If you've got a boat on a residential mooring, and you are looking for someone to house-sit while you go away for a few weeks (or even a few short months), it's perhaps reasonable to rent it out while you are gone.

They are currently listing historic GUCCC butty Atalanta as available for rental at £1,200/month on a residential mooring.   

This sounds like a reasonable deal.  A good residential mooring on its own - even before you get the boat - could be £600+ a month.  The mooring I 'borrowed' in King's Cross a couple of weeks ago is costing its owner nearly £800 a month.

Girl has hippy, dippy moment on Regent's Canal in Hackney

This pretty, dark-haired girl was joyously prancing around the canalside near Lock 7, when I arrived with Towpath Ranger Joseph Young on 17th October.  She was doing silly things, like walking on the canal-side of those railings you can see just behind the man talking to her in the picture.

When she reached that particular spot, she sat on the edge, then reached further and dipped her feet in the canal, splashing around.   I was smitten, she looked so carefree, just like the hippy, dippy girls I fell into unrequited love with when I was a student so many years ago.

(Or like Breezy, the girl in the movie of that title.  I thought Kay Lenz was gorgeous in that film.)  

[Location of picture]

Towpath ranger observes graffiti.

Regent's Canal Towpath Ranger Joseph Young looks at fresh graffiti near Sturts Lock, October 17th 2008.

There's not a lot to raise this photo above a thousand other towpath pictures - except the fact that someone 0fficial is paying attention to what's happening on the towpath.  

In which Granny turns informer

BW's Waterscape site now has an interesting little tool called the Online Boat Checker that allows you to find out if a boat has an up-to-date paid licence.

You type in a boat's number, press Enter ('submit sighting') and the Checker tells you if it's got a current (paid) licence. 

I tried it with my own boat number while on the Lee at Stanstead Abbotts, and it replied:

This boat is licensed. The owner might have forgotten to display it.

Harrumph!  I only entered my boat number - they didn't need to insinuate the licence wasn't displayed!

I was trying the checker on my phone, while I was on the boat, and it's not easy to navigate the pages on a phone browser.  I suppose BW expect you to be sitting at a conventional desktop computer while you are reporting an unlicensed boat.  They really need to address this problem.  The system's only going to work properly if it's easy to use by phone.

Later on Sunday afternoon, when I reached Hertford, I spotted a little boat without a visible licence or a name, but with a number.  Bingo!   It said that this boat did not have a licence, and it then asked me to fill in eight text boxes with assorted information, including my email address. 

24 hours later I'd not had an acknowledgement, so I felt a bit of a seedy informer in reporting it. 

I did later exchange private emails with the local licence enforcement officer, who told me they already knew about it.  I don't know what I was expecting - perhaps some sort of reward or congratulations.   Maybe they could offer commission or a prize to the first people to spot a particular unlicensed boat, as an incentive.

The Online Boat Checker only allows you to enter up to six numbers.  This is a problem with those boats whose licence number begins with a letter. 

I also tried entering my boat name into the box.  Interestingly, not only did it say "Our system does not recognise this boat", but it then automatically allocated it the number 991100.   I wonder if this number has some sort of significance in the BW boat database?

Braunston Manor reverse gongoozlers

So there I was photographing the  incredibly picturesque scene (which everyone else photographs too) at Braunston Manor back in August, when a hire boat with a cargo of gongoozlers suddenly barges in front of me - literally.

I wonder - did this group of girls share and compare their photos afterwards?  And if so, who in that group had the better memory of the scene?    I wonder if it was one of the two people in the photo who were actually looking at me? 

I love taking photos of people taking photos.  I call it 'reverse gongoozling'.

Pedal-powered boat at snail's pace but Ferrari price

David Lawrence found my post of last year about sunken boat L'Escargot, and recently commented:

I've read about this pedal-powered boat. Does she still exist, does anyone know?

Doubt it.  Probably fed into a crusher.  Or burned, like Cressy. Who knows what happened to the L'Escargot in that previous blog post. Broken up?

But pedal-powered boats as a genre still exist.  A prototype of one was exhibited at Saul in June. Called Winsome, it's built by Swallow Boats. 

The specs:

• Length:  17ft 6ins
• Beam:  3 ft 7ins
• Weight (fully laden):  160 lbs
• Weight (stripped for transport):  120 lbs
• Maximum speed:  7mph (driven
• Cruising speed:  4mph.

The price:  If you have to ask, you can't afford it.  (£5,500 - which for the speed, features and carrying capacity is to a basic narrowboat as a Ferrari is to a family saloon.)

The morning with the Regent's Canal towpath ranger

Towpath ranger Joeseph Young at Islington visitor moorings, 17th Oct.

First lines are important. Anthony Burgess began Earthly Powers with

It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.

I can never write about my birthday without thinking of that line. 

Last Friday I spent the morning of my fifty-sixth birthday wondering what I'd be doing in twenty-five years time, but I also spent it walking the Regent's Canal towpath with the new 'towpath ranger'. 

See 'Towpath Ranger cycles into London' - Waterscape, or 'Canal towpath walkers and cyclists on collision course' - The Guardian). 

In which I eat Colin The Cephalised Caterpillar on my birthday

 
My birthday was last Friday, although I didn't properly celebrate it until Saturday, when Christine came along for the day. 

As soon as we set off from Battlebridge Basin she presented me with my birthday cake, in the shape of Colin The Caterpillar, a delightful gift for a wizened overgrown teenager like me.

We didn't stop for tea.

At 4:30pm, at Victoria Park, Hackney, she opened the pack and presented it for me to cut.   I was busy steering, so I asked her to do it. 

Head or tail? she asked.  Oh, head, I said, not realising that was the wrong answer.   Eat it from the tail up and it stays alive longer.

The technical term is cephalisation, the asymmetry of an organism that gives it a head and focuses the sensory organs there.

What's the etiquette of eating caterpillars?

Cones on the motorway

My laptop computer screen has been playing up and this week finally failed.

Granny Buttons is a labour of love and takes the place of a proper social life.  Since it's researched and written the evenings, I'm temporarily computerless at home, so there'll be a slow-down here while I look for, order and wait for my new computer.

Apologies to everyone about rash promises of blogging things I've photographed and researched.  I'll try to have something new each day.

It feels like hitting a coned-off section of the motorway.

Granny at Battlebridge Basin

 
Granny has just spent a couple of weeks at Battlebridge Basin.  A big thank you to Martyn of Oothoon (boat and blog), whose berth I usurped while he was up in the Midlands. 

Granny Buttons, for two weeks a cuckoo in his cosy Kings Cross nest, has now flown up to Cheshunt on the River Lee.  As a continuous cruiser, I'm punctilious about not overstaying my allotted 14 days in any one 'neighbourhood'.

It was an interesting experience, being in a residential boat community for a while.  However, I didn't spend enough time aboard to socialise with my neighbours. 

I was alongside Bird-Song, which was a jolly reunification, because we tied up together for a fortnight back in 2002, at Oundle on the River Nene.

The most charming aspect of my stay was seeing the little communal kitchen garden - or is that an allotment? - which the moorers share.  Tomatoes and potatoes were the only fruit/vegetables I noticed, but I'm really not a gardener, so I'm sure I missed many more.

I loved this 'allotment' in the Basin.  Moorings need a domestic element, to prevent them from feeling like 'boat parks'. 

Battlebridge Basin provides this garden in spades.  Literally, in this case.  The Basin 'allotment' is a product of the residents.  Left to British Waterways,  it would probably be simply another urban boat park.

The least charming aspect was finding that a tom cat had walked into my well deck during the night and sprayed his masculinity all over (see above/right). 

Ugh!   Two days later, the smell is still strong, and it's probably gone over my coir doormat, which will need replacing.

The moggy pictured at top couldn't have been the culprit - it's female, and was quick to come aboard and nuzzle up to me.  Perhaps it was the one seen left (and hidden, above, in the grass).

As a mooring Battlebridge Basin isn't cheap - if Granny was to stay here, I'd not get much change out of £700 a month, and that's just to tie up - I'd still need a boat licence.  However, it is secure, a prime mooring, one of the most convenient and best-serviced  in the city, with electricity, cheap pump-out (£7), water and even a telephone line.  

I think I'd chafe at being here permanently.  Nestled tightly amongst other boats I was quickly feeling tied down and claustrophobic.  The view is fixed, without a vista, and I was constantly worried at what the neighbours might think - if my midnight lights or radio were disturbing them, if they could sense my boat rocking as I moved from the bed to the loo during the night, if they could see me wandering about inside, half-naked.

Still, knowing I was just there for a fortnight, I milked the opportunity for all I could.

Webasto BlueCool air-conditioning system

After my 'encounter' with the Webasto inland waterways distributor at the IWA Festival last August (see "Webasto distributor says I still live with my mother ..."), I was inclined to raise a crucifix and crush garlic at any mention of the name Webasto.

Of course, you don't get to be a billion-dollar company unless you've got a billion-dollar product, and Webasto's got a huge product range and an enthusiastic customer base - mainly in the commercial vehicle industry. 

Recently the company introduced an air conditioning system to the truck market.  It's called BlueCool, and it charges the central unit with coldness when the engine is running, and releases the cold when the engine is turned off. 

It works by using a graphite and water mix to hold the coldness generated by an air conditioning system, and a glycol mixture to transfer the coldness to an evaporator in the cabin. 

Webasto says this could keep a small cabin cool for several hours overnight.

The potential in a boat is obvious.  It would allow you to keep the windows closed on hot summer nights, stopping the midges from coming in, and make sleep more comfortable. 

And you wouldn't have to run the engine after you stopped for the day.  Not after 8pm, anyway.

The relevant explanation is here: BlueCool Classic Air Conditioning. 

This should be required reading for builders of posh canal boats, who'll be inevitably asked for air conditioning as global warming advances.

Of course, that's not enough to persuade you to buy a Webasto heating system.  But there's a gap in the market for air conditioning - driven by the energy generated by a day's cruising - and Webasto is clearly well-primed to fill it.

If you wonder why this matters to me, you'll regret you asked.  There's no sensation more pleasurable to me on a hellishly hot night than - when I'm overheated - lying naked on my bed, and having cold air pour over me, head to knees.  It  feels like a welcome death.  La petite mort, as the French say.

In Narrow Dog To Indian River Terry Darlington implies much the same thing a few times about his torment in US Southern nights, but he's never quite as blunt as me. 

BMF launches a 300 quid report saying inland marina industry is worth 500,000 times as much

The British Marine Federation last week launched a report that claimed the inland waterways marina industry is worth over £150m pa to the economy.

Benefits of Inland Marinas in the UK, is summarised in the BMF press release as:

• There are at least 227 inland marinas in the UK, providing 27,700 berths.
• The added value of the provision of core marina berths is £23 million. This is based on the turnover of £47 million for the UK inland marina sector, which directly employs 889 people.
• Every job in this core inland marina sector generates a further 10 jobs in the local economy.  As a total, inland marinas support around 10,000 FTE jobs in local economies across the country, through on-site marina businesses, supply chain and tourism impacts.
• Visitors to inland marinas spend £71 million per annum, supporting an additional 1,775 local tourism jobs.
• The overall economic impact of inland marinas on Gross Value Added (GVA) is estimated to be seven times larger than that of the core inland marina activity.  Therefore, the inland marinas sector is estimated to support around £155 million of GVA in the UK.

It seems to be an extrapolation from studying 16 typical inland marinas. 

Some of the conclusions strike me as a little fanciful.  For example, they say that 'every [marina] job … generates a further 10 jobs in the local economy'.  But who's to say that some of those 10 jobs didn't generate jobs back in the marina in their turn?

The BMF goes on to prove how valuable the inland waterways economy is, by charging the public £300 for each full copy of the report. They even charge their members £30.

It's not doorstop-sized - the press photo shows people at the launch of the report holding it in one hand - so I don't know why it's worth £300. 

At £300, I'd imagine that every copy sold might well generate another ten sales in the printing and publishing industry!  However, they generously give you a 4-page overview for free (pdf download here). 

Personally, I think they'd make more money if they didn't print the report, but simply charged £1 to download it, the way Waterways World sells its articles.  I mean, I'd probably have bought a copy myself.

All the Waterways World latest, all the time - nothing comes near

Waterways World doesn't yet have magazine articles on online.

However, it does allow you to buy PDFs of many of them - £1 per article, and almost the entire index appears to be available, dating back to Jan 1974.  Indeed, there's an article in that issue by the great Robert Aickman, called (appropriately) 'How it all began'.

WW does have one great feature that I use a lot and which saves a lot of time: a news aggregator with an RSS feed. 

This is called 'Waterways World Latest', and it finds all the news about the waterways indexed on the main search engines, and brings it into one handy page, indexed day by day. 

I really like Waterways World Latest and subscribe to it myself.

It doesn't find that much much more than you'd find yourself from creating a Google Alert for the words 'canal' or 'british waterways'.  But it's assembled much more readably and filters out all the dross for you.  Recommended.

It doesn't include Narrowboat World, but that's because NBW - for all its good, lively content - is near-unindexable, hard to read and unreliably evanescent. Which in the world of the web is a link-crime.