Granny Buttons

The Willage

I've been silent for three or four days on this blog, because I've been moving. 

I rented a van from Advanced Van Rental in Norwich, and it was a dream - lovely service, good price, etc - except that when I was told it was a 'long wheel base', it turned out to be sort of medium.  A bit like a small Starbucks coffee is a 'tall', while you need a 'grande' for a mouthful, or a 'venti' for a full measure.

The upshot was that it took me 2 days to move my stuff the 150 miles from Aylsham, Norfolk, to my new house at Willington.  I've been driving for eight hours each day in three days of shuttling back and forth, and my new house looks like a cluttered, unsorted bric-a-brac shop.  AND I'M EXHAUSTED.

But I'm now officially a resident of Willington.  Council tax and all.  Here's a picture of the popular Willington visitor moorings.

The side news is that Granny is now in the nearby Mercia Marina - which shares the same postcode, DE65 6DW and is only 5 minutes walk away - so it's almost like having my boat in a garage.  I've been pretty impressed with Mercia Marina (about which more later).  

More generally, I'm charmed by Willington, a village which seems to have everything.  Aside from the canal (and it's a perfect stop for canal boaters) it's got pretty much everything you could ask from an English country village.

Train station, hourly bus service to Derby (right outside my house), post office, three good pubs, a range of shops, public loos and free car park, excellent road links - 10 mins by dual carriageway to the M1 - and just up the road a 24 hr service area  where I was able to buy a pint of milk after 2am when I returned from Norfolk for the last time last night.  Etc.

Plus there's one of England's largest car factories up the road, for when I need another job desperately.  Local word is that Toyota's Burnaston plant is apparently one of the few not to have been on short time during the recession.  You can see it from outside my house, shining like a 21st century castle on a hill.

So pleased am I by this location, and so long have I kept on talking about it that Christine has dubbed it The Willage.  It was just her way of remembering the name, but I suppose you can take it as homage to 'The Village', the gilded-cage of the 1960s TV Series The Prisoner.    Except that I'm not trying to escape. 

But I've still got a lot of unpacking and sorting to do.  Plus, I'm still tied up with my PR day job, and will find it hard to keep up Granny Buttons.   So you might find a few 'filler' photos and the occasional inconsequential, rambling post, just to reassure you I'm still alive.

Ikea's wonderful UK at Home £1 bargain

I just love  Ikea, for all sorts of reasons, but especially when I catch an unexpected bargain or special offer.

Last week in the Nottingham Ikea I was fishing for those little bits and pieces - the living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom accoutrements - that they can provide and that work and are cheap and that turn a new house into an old home.

At their 'bargain corner' at the checkout they had a pile of remaindered coffee table books.

And when I flipped through UK AT HOME:  A celebration of where we live and love,I just HAD to buy a copy.   It was only £1 ... and it was gorgeous! 

UK at Home is a beautifully photographed coffee table book showing a huge cross section of British people in their daily home lives.  The book has been sponsored by Ikea, which perhaps explains their generosity in selling it for £1 (or £2, if you choose the price sticker on the other side - it had two stickers on it).  Or perhaps it's simply been remaindered rather more quickly than the publishers intended.

Apart from the 200 or so pages of beautiful photojournalism, there are seven essays on the theme of 'home' by noted authors:

• The Mystery of Home - Alexander McCall Smith
• The Trinkets of Expatriate Life - Simon Winchester
• The Idea of Home - Alain de Botton
• Home and Memory - Blake Morrison
• The Unlikely Home - Jackie Kay
• Leaving Home - Jeanette Winterson
• Homebound - Will Self

I was disappointed that only two (single) people were shown living on boats.  No families, no cruising retired couples, and not much of the waterways.

Mike Goldwater photographs South Dock Marina in London (including a riveting double-page spread  of a lady hanging out washing to dry on her old navy boat, and my interest has absolutely nothing to do with her sensational figure; oh all right, it does.)

Meanwhile Thomas Brandi photographed Fernley Tancock (now, there's a one-of-a-kind name) on his 'houseboat' [sic] at the top of Foxton Locks.   Not a very representative selection of life afloat.

At £1 (or £2 - I didn't check on the bill which price I was charged) it's worth going to your local Ikea for this book alone.

I especially loved the dustjacket.  It's a double front cover, each one upside down to the other, and sporting radically different concepts of home life.

One side shows a cheerful mother wheelbarrowing her sons through her rural garden, while the other one - upside down - has a picture of "Tinky and Twinkle Troughton, sisters in a punk band called The Fairies... known throughout London for randomly granting wishes to complete strangers." 

I take my hat off to the publishers for creating a dust jacket appealing to all sorts.  On the one hand the book will win over the sort of homebodies whose ideal of home life is to play with your children in the garden.

On the other hand, just turn it over and it'll appeal to those whose idea of home is lying back on their red duvet, with preternaturally beautiful fairies in party frocks kneeling astride them, granting their wishes. 

Those wishes, incidentally, cannot include the fairies themselves, but that's fine by me.  My wish would be to live on a boat and have a woman hanging out my washing to dry. We all have different ideas of what makes a perfect home.

Halfie's empty picture breaks the rule of thirds and sets me thinking about composition

I don't like to 'critique' the pictures of others.  But a couple of weeks ago Halfie asked for comments about a picture on his blog, and it really set me thinking. 

He writes:  'I'm really NOT angling for compliments, be as harsh as you like'. 

His own take:

• Nothing of interest in the foreground
• Nothing really happening anywhere
• Horizon in the middle (breaking "thirds" rule)
• No detail in the blacks

A picture isn't worth a thousand words.  I like to invert that old saying.  I say three hundred words is worth a picture. What matters isn't the image, but your rationale for it, and that shouldn't need more than, say, 300 words.  If you don't have words to describe your picture, then it's someone else's picture, not yours.

In Halfie's picture, the first thing is, yes, get details in the blacks. Use an image editor to raise the detail in the shadows. 

Done that?  Right, let's continue. 

Overall, I agree, there's nothing really happening anywhere in the picture. 

But that's not a bad thing.  In this picture there's potentially a lot in the foreground, only it's not there yet. 

What does that mean?  Well, look closely at the pool of light in the front: Isn't it just itching for a duck or moorhen to come along and shine in the sun?  I suspect that this pool of light is what caught Halfie's eye in the first place.

A more manageable thing to do is to place a boat or a person or dog there.  That's what I mean by 'picture furniture'.  The moveable items.   The things you can insert or wait for.  Without the furniture, it's what I call an 'empty picture'. 

Then there's 'The Rule Of Thirds'.  Well, I say there are no rules in composition; only guidelines. In this case I think a horizon in the middle is fine.

Why?  Because, while in Halfie's picture the horizon is central, the balance of the picture is still in thirds.  The whole weight  of the composition is weighted down with the water in the lower half, which reflects the sky that's mostly obscured above. 

Put another way, two-thirds of the visible sky is reflected below the horizon. It's not lines but weight that matters in composition.

(Incidentally, this critique also obeys a rule of thirds, in its way.  Halfie's picture are perhaps only one-third of the space taken, while his words and mine together (about 300 words) are two-thirds.  The picture doesn't exist on its own.)

Below is a picture of my own that breaks The Rule Of Thirds.  There's lots wrong with it - exposure, colour balance, cloud position, the 'moment' - but NOT composition. 

It's an empty picture (the cloud on the right is missing, and where is the dog and his pretty mistress, or the tractor on the horizon?) but it's composed as I wanted it.

 
Canalside between Blisworth and Gayton Junction, October 2006.

Summary of my terms:

Furniture: The movable items in a composition that you can wait for; the ones that will make a difference.  In a canal photo, for example, the people and dogs walking past, ducks, or the things you can hold or position yourself; these are 'furniture'. 

Words are worth the picture: The opposite of 'A picture's worth a thousand words'.  I mean that the feedback from the photographer to the person looking at it is vital.  The picture is neutral. Words help to convey the photographer's meaning.  It's part of photojournalism.

The moment:  The point where things come together in the composition.  The appropriate time to press the button (not the same as the time when you do press the button).

Emptiness: The lack of the furniture that you wish was there.  (My own picture above is rather empty)

Itching:  The impact the scene has on you, the photographer.

Weight:  The balance of composition.  It's more to do with the impact of particular sections, and nothing to do with the actual measurement of lines.

The Rule Of Thirds Is Rubbish:  If it wasn't rubbish, the Union Jack would be considered bad composition.

This discourse on composition is a work in progress. It's subject to change, and I may turn it into an essay some time. 

I'm sure a lot of people will disagree.  But I do feel that a lot that's conventionally spoken about composition is accepted too uncritically, and the rules - guidelines - need rewriting.

Mercia Marina webcam

Mercia Marina has a webcam outside the main office.  In the main picture it's the one with the little 'monkey/robot' face (seen at the top of the picture, on the left).

[link to Mercia Marina webcam]

And here on the right is me, taken by the webcam moments before (or after) I took the photo above.

Webcams are still a novelty for most people, so any old view will keep them happy.  But I think webcams need to actually show something - perhaps reassuring you with security, or entertaining you in a more sophisticated way. 

Or better still, to promote or 'sell' stuff. 

Perhaps they could have a webcam above the servery counter in the marina's Willow Tree Tea Room, showing the latest plate of food or dish of the day special to be served. 

Alternatively, a webcam focused on a special chandlery offer of the day in the Trad 'n' Post Shop.

Or maybe each day they could set up wireless webcams inside the New & Used Boat Company's Latest Arrivals Boats.

Mercia's current webcam shows that it's in a marina, sure.  But it shows little else, and nothing actually useful.  It's just a novelty.  I think it needs repositioning.  It probably shouldn't show a horizon -  that makes the picture very high-contrast.

(On the right is the original image.  I tweaked it above to straighten the fisheye effect, simply to show you how clever I am.)

You can have great fun with reflections in windows, and they can easily demonstrate a view with little extra imagination. 

Below's an extra view of Mercia Marina, one you don't see in the brochure, using the reflection in the office window.  It shows the marina and the office, all in one.  

If I was doing this professionally, I'd have the marina managers inside and close up to the window, gazing out into the distance.  That would make a nice PR photo.

In which I finally move in to my new house

I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to move into my new house at Willington, after taking possession in early August. 

One thing after another has stymied the actual move, not least a fitted-carpet order from Allied Carpets that was punctuated by their going into administration after I'd paid the deposit, and then (over a month later) the carpet fitter arrived last week and said he couldn't fit them to the beaded skirting board - something the measurer should have spotted.  So at short notice I found someone to strip out the beading, fill the skirting and repaint it.  

And I took the opportunity of repainting the bedrooms, replacing the reeking effluvium of cigarette smoke (it's even embedded in the wallpaper) with the scent of drying emulsion. 

(How come you can't buy air-freshener cans of fresh carpet and drying paint scent?) 

A big thanks to Kevin of NB Martin Pecheur for helping out with the skirting at such short notice last week, and to Rob Clarke, carpet fitter of Lichfield, who fitted the wool berber carpet on Monday.  Both did a superb job.

On Tuesday I had a new bed delivered.  I'm now in the process of moving personal effects from Norfolk, and this weekend I'll finally settle in.

Officially Granny's overstaying on the 14-day rule for a few more days (sorry, BW!).  I meant to sort out a temporary mooring with Mercia Marina, but my hands are full with moving my stuff from Norfolk this week.  I'll sort it out this coming weekend, promise.

However, I was careful not to overstay on the 48hr moorings in the very centre of Willington, where I note other boats are abusing this popular 'honeypot' location.  Come on chaps, if you are going to overstay, don't do it on popular visitor moorings.

Christine charmingly summed up my new address, in that sideways manner she has, neatly summing up what I like about the village:

The cupboard under the stairs
Andrew's house
Small village with lots of pubs
Near a station
Not far from a marina
D'arbyshire

One thing I've noticed about Willington - it really is Canaltime territory.  The number of Canaltimers and Hireacanalboats that go past my window (both boat and house)  is huge.

Flags of our brothers - my god, the Australian one is full of stars!

I mentioned in the Erie Canal post a couple of days ago about how Canadians love to fly the flag on narrowboats in the UK so that you don't mistake them for Yanks.  (That's my theory, anyway.)

It reminds me that there's another couple of nations who do it a lot so that English boaters can tell the difference between them.  Australians and New Zealanders. 

It takes a sharp ear to hear the difference in accents between these two 'down-under' accents.  (I have a tip, if you want to hear it.)

And both Australians and New Zealanders get irritated being mistaken for each other, but in my experience they are less chippy and more resigned (about being mistaken for each other) than the Canadians I've met on the cut. 

Yet telling the Australasian accents apart is nothing compared with telling the flags apart.  Both Aus and NZ still use the Union Jack in what's technically called a 'defaced Blue Ensign', with stars of the southern hemisphere on the blue section.

The only difference is that while NZ has the four stars of the Southern Cross, Australia adds a couple more.  At a glance it looks a bit messier, less symmetrical.  Like in 2001 A Space Odyssey, my god, the Australian flag is full of stars!

One of the keenest of the New Zealand flag-flyers is (are) Derek & Dot Canvin of NB Gypsy Rover.  They've  been continuously cruising (and writing about it) for three years, in what's turned out to be one of the best and most informative boating blogs: nzgypsyrover.blogspot.com. 

Look carefully at their New Zealand flags - the traditional one, and one of the new 'logo-style' flags that stops you from thinking they are Australians.  The fern is increasingly used, in the same way that the 'Maple Leaf' flag is embraced by Canadians to preempt you from thinking they are Americans. 

(There's a story behind that new, unofficial, New Zealand 'fern' design, here.   It looks like catching on. although it'll be a sad day for me when the children of the British Empire finally all grow up and leave home.)

Anyway, here are Canadians Australians New Zealanders Derek and Dot from when I met them last April.  Derek is holding Granny by the mid-rope, while Dot takes my photo.  (You can see Dot's picture here.)

Telegraph property article is all about mooring, not boating

Narrow boats with moorings: a home afloat - Daily Telegraph

Last Wednesday's Telegraph had what amounts to a big free advertisement for Bantock butty Pamela, for sale on a residential mooring in a backwater near Oxford:

Are you thinking of drifting away from big city stress? Living on a narrow boat could be the answer, says Caroline McGhie.

(Mortimer Bones mentioned  a couple of weeks ago that Pamela was for sale on eBay.  It didn't sell there, and is now on the books of estate agent Carter Jonas - see the lovely particulars here in a 4-page pdf.

If you are looking for old, authentic butty tradition, then you won't find it in Pamela.  It's a gorgeous conversion, for sure, a lovely boat; but going by the sale particulars there's not much left inside to remind you of how a Bantock Butty really used to be.  Certainly there's no boatman's cabin left.

The trouble with the Telegraph article is that it's in the Property section.  It's all about getting a boat to live on, and as an investment, not to actually go anywhere.  And the boat is now on the books of an estate agent, not a boat broker. 

They give a six-point 'moorings know-how' list, which doesn't mention actual boating (i.e. moving the boat) at all.

Moorings know-how

1. Getting a mooring is much more difficult than buying a boat.
2. A good mooring can double or triple the value of the boat.
3. Make sure you have access to mains power and other sources of fuel (bottled gas, logs).
4. Ditto running water and waste disposal.
5. Check you have shops within reach and can use television, telephone and internet.
6. Make sure there is adequate car parking and security.

Sure, it's great to see a 'live on a boat' article that - for once - stresses the need to find a mooring.   But it would be nice to see a boat as a form of transport, not simply as a house.  The Telegraph article doesn't mention how you might move the boat.

The article rounds off by mentioning a boat for sale on the Kennet & Avon canal, again for sale through an estate agent (not  a boat broker): 

Be a water gipsy: the Alice Deysia, is a one bedroom 60ft boat on the Avon and Kennett Canal at Claverton, near Bath, Somerset. It has a diesel-powered engine, wood burner and Calor gas heating, and a solar panel. It costs £39,500 through Palmer Snell (01225 482488)

The impression given is that that Alice Deysia - like so many boats near Bath - doesn't have a mooring at all and is simply a house, adrift.

Waterskiing on the Erie Canal and boatswapping

Life in the Slow Lane: Navigating the Erie Canal - New York Times

There's a nice article in the New York Times travel section this week by William Neuman about a holiday on the Erie Canal.  A hackneyed headline, but I think it's a cut above the usual WIDITH.  

(In fact, it's not a widith at all, because the writer says he actually paid for the rental,  $1900 for three days.)

The subheading is amusing:

A family spends three days on a houseboat, gliding by the farms and small towns of upstate New York, at five miles an hour.

FIVE MILES AN HOUR!  That's waterskiing!  But the main picture shows not what we Brits think of as a canal, but a veritable Severn-sized river.  Blimey, it's HUGE by my standards. 

I like the history lesson, beautifully potted:

Work on the canal began in 1817. It was completed in 1825, stretching 363 miles from Albany on the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie. For the first time goods could travel quickly by boat from New York City up the Hudson, through the canal, all the way to the Great Lakes and the interior of the country.

It led to an upstate boom, and the industries, inventions and ideas that sprung up in the vicinity of the waterway helped create the modern world: the first factories for building mechanical harvesters (Brockport in the 1840s) and for making cheese (Rome, 1851); the invention of the Kodak camera (Rochester, 1888); an early large-scale hydroelectric plant (Niagara Falls, 1895); the start of the women’s movement (Seneca Falls, 1848); the creation of Jell-O (Le Roy, 1897).

In its earliest days the canal was just 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep, and boats were pulled by mules clomping along the towpath. Over the years it was enlarged twice and ultimately had room for huge modern barges. Commercial traffic fizzled out by the mid-1970s, and the canal became a recreational waterway, maintained and operated, as it always had been, by the state.

What it doesn't mention is that the canal is strictly an annual six-month wonder, closed completely over the winter, thanks partly to NY's extremes of weather, with frequent icing-over, and partly to a no-nonsense maintenance programme.  There's none of this pansy 'ripple of stoppages' with which British Waterways endeavours to keep the waterways open during the winter.

But that's not relevant to a holiday article, is it.  I think the NY Times sets a great example for British newspapers, not just for the words and design, but the bonus content - a slideshow, map and layout of the boat itself. 

[Digression: It's amusing, in the pictures, to see an American flag flapping from the stern of the hire boat. I mean, you are already in America and you aren't likely to leave it on that particular trip, are you?  And are you worried about being mistaken for a non-American?  Americans sure love their flags.  But curiously they are perhaps the least likely people to fly them on English narrowboats. 

Instead, it's Canadians who fly the flag over here, probably because they don't want to be mistaken for Americans.  Which I normally ignore, because I consider them Americans who simply stayed loyal to the Crown, and I know that annoys them intensely! /Digression]

I'd love to do this trip, but for $3,000+ for a week ($300 surcharge for your dog) it's enough to make me think of 'boatswapping' instead. 

I wrote ages ago about one particular boat swap website  (see Granny Buttons: Boat Swap, March 2004), and various comments drew my attention to other boat exchange websites. So, that's next year's holiday taken care of.  

Now, where did I put that Union Jack?

Peter K. Kars, taxi of Saxilby, near Lincoln

One thing I keep forgetting to do is give modest little back-pats for people and businesses who've given me good service.  

Tonight I came across the card of a taxi service - Peter K. Kars - Tel 07716 089553 and suddenly remembered his great service.

It was a month ago.  I'd taken Granny from Lincoln to Torksey Lock with my old friend Ray, and his son Jack.   Ray had to return to Lincoln to collect his car, and who would dare leave an infant in my charge? 

Anyway, the keeper at Torksey Lock recommended 'Peter K Kars'.  It turned out to be a smart, modern people-carrier and a friendly driver. 

But what especially impressed me was that Peter K automatically carried a child's seat, and he helped to strap the child in. 

He always carried a child seat, just in case.  How many taxis can you say that of?  How nice.

This is a modest post, nothing special.  I'll try to congratulate good service more often. But it's hard to strike a balance between a quick pat on the back and a full-blown post, complete with research, links and photographs.

No pics of the taxi journey, but here's one of Ray and little Jack saying goodbye to Granny below Torksey Lock.

First BW/Waterways World webchat contains a quote worth framing

Congratulations to Waterways World editor Richard Fairhurst for organising a webchat with British Waterways senior staff on the magazine's website last Monday. 

(Waterways World live debate with British Waterways, Mon Sept 14th) 

I got a bit confused with the torrent of questions, which were somewhat assymetrically answered, and it makes confusing reading after the event. 

For example:

Simon Salem:  Comment from Ray Hughes - can you tell  me where the lock is ? 

sent me scurrying back several screens to find the original question, and eventually it wasn't answered anyway.   These webchats always seem livelier and more focused at the time than when you read them back.

I feel such events ought to be concentrated on more specific subjects, otherwise the poor BW staff can end up being aunt sallies, pelted from all sides on all subjects. 

Still, it was a good effort, well done to all concerned.

I was particularly amused by one exchange:

[Comment From David Roberts]
On the issue of using volunteeers to help look after the sites, I suggested some time ago that if BW provided a mower, we would keep the cut grass, instead of the contractor doing it with a styrimmer at the run every six weeks or so (and costing BW a fortune). Of course the answer was no - had to be on approved supplier list, H&S etyc. Just to cut the grass!

Vince Moran [BW Operations Director]:  
David - although we are keen to increase volunteer involvement we cannot ignore safety risks and mowers and strimmers do fall into the higher risk end of things and we can't just give someone a mower and say get on with it.

"Mowers and strimmers fall into the high-risk end of things".  It's a quote worth framing.

See also: Joe Strimmer and the clash with veg - Granny Buttons, July 2007.

Is the future of the waterways bright orange at night?

British Waterways reward volunteers from GlaxoSmithKline - Waterscape

I guess this is the sort of story we ought to encourage.  

GlaxoSmithKline employees volunteered for four Orange Day work parties to spring clean stretches of the Grand Union Canal adjacent to their offices in Stockley Park and Brentford.

The volunteers, managed by London’s environment charity Thames21, removed 4,385 litres of rubbish, cleaned off 460m2 of graffiti, installed new benches and planted over 1,200 wildflowers.

Company employees helping to monitor and clean the waterways are a good thing.  But I wish the story would tell us what the 'Orange Days' actually are, and more on Glaxo's internal organisation of them.  Anything that gets more companies organising them is to be applauded, although I'm not looking forward to yet MORE press releases every time someone picks up litter or strims a towpath!  

When Granny passed through Brentford last new year, I stopped opposite the the GSK headquarters, and photographed the scene at night. 

And, as with so many of my photos, I spent some time trying to remove the orange cast of the streetlights in the night.  

So I was somewhat chagrined to learn that, at GSK, the days are Orange, while I was taking some time to make their nights less orange!

Incidentally, the reason I stopped there was to photograph the water coming out of the building in their energy-saving air conditioning scheme. 

Click on the second photo to enlarge, to see the coolant water emerging from the building, and see the story 'Green' canal water helps fuel 21st century business' (Dec 2008.)

Why GlaxoSmithKline needs air conditioning in December in London I don't know. 

The Floatel in Northwich - the UK's first floating hotel - proves fawlty

MP Mike Hall says it's time for the Floatel to be pulled down - Northwich Guardian

The 'Floatel' in Northwich was one of the earliest examples of 'building on water', where it was cheaper to float a building into position than go through the rigamarole of planning permission on land.  (Well, that's my cynical view.)  

I'm sure they still needed planning permission but it's presumably a lot easier to get it for a floating structure that can more easily be demolished (or rather, dismantled and - literally - sold down the river) than for a land one.

I love the contrast between the blunt quote from the local MP ...

"Since the Floatel in Northwich closed and has since been boarded up, local residents have expressed their concerns to me about vandalism, the derelict building being used for illicit purposes and it is becoming an eyesore.

"... I have now written to the chief executive of British Waterways asking them to confirm that the Floatel is due to be demolished and asking them to get on with the work as soon as possible.”

... and the blithe PR-speak of British Waterways, as quoted by the paper:

Mike Coates, British Waterways investment and development manager, said the demolition of the Floatel was integral to developing the riverfront aspect of the Northwich Vision project.  It required a coordinated approach by the parties involved.

Now that's how to put a position spin on a disaster, with style.  To paraquote BW, "The reversal of this disaster is integral to developing our vision of the future..." etc

Holiday Watchdog had some of the most entertaining guest reviews for this hotel, running right up to its closure last January:

" I would have graded it Zero, but 1 was the lowest option! "

" This hotel is not worth any stars!... "

" This is the worst hotel I have ever... "

" The staff are fantastic at this... "

(Oh, that last review was cut off too early.  It continued:

The staff are fantastic at this ... hotel, but the rooms are very tired, badly decorated and needs lots of money spent on them. The whole hotel is shabby, and looks as if it’s being run down. All the radiator covers are broken, carpets are stained, the toilets in the public area are always out of order or they smell.

There's something heroic about the failure of the Floatel,  almost like the definitive bad hotel, Fawlty Towers.  I've love to have seen its Basil and Manuel.

The only time I came this way, six years ago, I forgot to get a photo, but I seem to recall it looking a bit brighter, as you'd expect.   So you'll have to make do with the Google satellite view of the site.  And a screen grab of the Northwich Guardian story.

Blogshank delights

I'm like a nun chasing her second lover, or a dog finding its second bone. I'm amazed and delighted and wanting to go back again and again.   I've just discovered Blogshank, the illustrated blog of Mike Smith, freelance graphic designer.

In his words:  There are plenty of blogs by illustrators in which they upload their latest work, and loads of webcomics, but not many whose illustrations ARE the blog.

Mike draws and colours the entries in a little pocket diary - a week to a page - and simply posts the photos once a week. While the illustrations themselves are sweet enough (and the layout is very clever) what really marks out this diary is the wry sense of humour.

I haven't been so entranced by a pocket diary - not one so magical anyway - since Harry Potter destroyed Tom Riddle's in The Chamber of Secrets.

The waterways connection here is that a couple of years ago he bought St. Kilda, the very first narrowboat to have its own website.   (Not a blog, but nevertheless the first website.  In the 1990s St. Kilda dominated web searches for canal subjects, and I think I remember first reading it about 1996 or 97, although memory can play tricks.

Now Mike's in the process of moving ashore near Leicester, and the diary records, among other things, 'the final voyage of St. Kilda', of buying a house, boating there and selling the boat.

The blog's improved over the years.  Early versions simply show a written diary with occasional mono pen/ink illustration, but now it's a full-blown comic, complete with adventurous layout and colour wash.   Either he's missing a lot of appointments now, or he's keeping a separate 'normal' diary.

Boating first makes an appearance in Blogshank in February 2007, and he finally buys St Kilda in June 2007 - there's a sweet picture of the vendor and purchaser exchanging key and cheque on Friday 15th (see below).

An odd corollary of an illustrated blog like this is that while it's got a search box, it can't search the pictures.  So there's no real substitute for slowly browsing through. 

In later entries Mike has put keywords and descriptions behind the pictures, which does help the search, but you have to construct the story by reading it properly.  It took quite a bit of reading for me to learn how he came by his boat, and latterly the ups and downs of getting a mortgage and buying a house.

Mike also has a Best of Blogshank page - his own personal favourites:

Blog entries get pushed off the page and into obscurity, which is a bit sad. (Not so sad if they're crap ones.) So here are some of my personal favourites in chronological order, with a little bit of background info for the curious, and to get the page indexed in Google.

While that's handy, he might like to try a service like Outbrain.  This is the 'star ratings' system I use, allowing you (loyal reader) to mark the posts that you like (and dislike).   It sorts the wheat from the chaff, the flotsam from the jetsam, the coal from the slack and the dross.  It's not a personal choice, however; it's voted by the readers themselves.

I love the way Mike automatically grants you permission to use his illustrations on your own private blog, so long as you link back.  That ought to  give you reason enough to write about his work, no?   It's the main reason I've spent over two hours researching and writing this post.

If you want to use his work for commercial purposes and in print, well, naturally, separate conditions apply.  But I'm surprised I haven't seen this diary in a waterways magazine already.   Unless it's because they perhaps can't afford the high fees it's clearly worth.  Or maybe it already has appeared, and I don't read enough waterways magazines.  Or perhaps they want all the content to be about the waterways, and Blogshank isn't all about waterways.  In fact, very little is, really.  But enough to pass through Granny's filter, I think.

More information about Mike and his work on Blogshank's About Page. 

(Big thanks to Halfie.  Mike Smith might be the first boater to draw a blog, but Halfie was the first boater to draw my attention to it.)

Update: Amy of Lucky Duck comments that she mentioned Blogshank a year ago - her post here.

Acme Signal Horn allows you to frighten yourself

After my post last week on 'Urban children hold key to economic recovery', Max Sinclair drew my attention to the website of The Acme Whistle Co. 

He writes:

This old Brum company makes an incredible range of whistles and horns.

They produce a superb inexpensive boatman's horn which we heard very effectively on the Bridgewater Canal in the 1960's. Every serious boater should carry one, but testing all the sounds on the site is fun.

Frighten the burglars or the pigeons.

Or frighten yourself.  I think Max refers to the Acme Signal Horn (pictured).   Hear it in action here.  Cover your ears first.

I don't know if it would frighten urban tearaways away or simply attract more of them.  Certainly after they saw where the noise was coming from they'd rush out and buy one themselves to  frighten the boaters.

Nevertheless, I want one, like mad, now.