Granny Buttons

Rare Pontcysyllte Aqueduct book tells the tale behind the draining

This month the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is getting an inspection and a tidy-up.   It's the waterways equivalent of a haircut and a shoe-shine, and shouldn't take long.

It gets one every five years or so.  There was one in 1998, but the aqueduct's last - and biggest -inspection and repair was in the winter of 2003-4. 

That particular renovation was the biggest the aqueduct had ever seen, closing it for several months and costing around £2million. 

After that refurbishment British Waterways concluded it ought to be 'good for another 200 years.'  The reopening in March 2004 was subdued, with the real celebrations being held back for the aqueduct's 200th anniversary the following year. 

Since then - and particularly after the aqueduct, its sister at Chirk and about 10 miles of canal gained World Heritage Site status this year - there's been a lot more attention paid to it.

Yet there are surprisingly few books dedicated to this 'iconic' wonder of the waterways, at least those which are currently in print.  Amazon lists only a handful.  (What am I doing wrong? Where are they?)

I was thinking about this when I started browsing one of my own out-of-print treasures last week, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct Restoration.

Written, photographed and privately published entirely by Richard Turner-Thomas, the lead engineer of the 2004 project, it shows an insider's view of what this project was really like.

His DIY publishing gives the book considerable 'rough edges'.  But all this only adds to its authenticity and fascination.

What makes it so special is that it's not a book by a historian, an author or a marketing department.  It's a book by a hands-on engineer, one who told the real tale of the project because no-one else did. 

That tale included not just the project itself, but the after-hours real life and privations he experienced as they raced to get the project finished in time for the 2004 cruising season. 

(One wonders what would happen now, five years on, if BW's marketing department produced it.  Or, indeed, if they learned that someone on the project was writing it.  Would they insist on jumping in, seizing control?  Professional photography, writing and editing would probably have glossed the story into only two dimensions.)

Richard set up his own website to take and fulfil the orders.  I was particularly pleased that he took the trouble to give a private dedication.  And at £10 for a hardback it was reasonably priced.

I wonder how many other people are lucky to have a copy in their waterways book collection?

At the time he used the cool, memorable and then-available domain www.pontcysyllte.co.uk, but he's since let it lapse and someone else squats on it now.   You might have trouble tracking the book down.  It's listed as ISBN 9546422258, but there's no record of that number on the ISBN database.

(Harrumph, I bet now that you find a copy in ten seconds of googling!) 

Narrow Dog - a twice-written scroll

Last Tuesday night, Terry Darlington's beloved boat Phyllis May went up in flames at Stone.  Today, he says he's already chosen a replacement. 

(Good lord, that didn't take long.) 

It's a lovely boat, near-new (2009), shiny and comfortable, and there do seem to be a lot of near-new boats available right now.  Buying a near-new boat is probably a better deal now than having your own built. You bypass all the worries of the build; it's a known quantity and you can get on with other things straight away.

However, I wonder if he might be buying on the rebound, the way some new widows get engaged on the way back from the funeral.

If you've read Terry's books, you'll know he's fond of quoting from and alluding to literature (and that's the jewel of the books for me).   In an email thanking me for my sympathies he quotes a line from Oscar Wilde's poem Requiescat to describe the loss of his boat:

All that bright golden hair, tarnished with rust

Wilde wrote Requiescat when haunted by the loss of his younger sister Isolda, who died aged only 10.  (He is said to have kept a lock of her hair.)

The poem starts with disbelief of bereavement:

Tread lightly, she is near

Under the snow,

Speak gently, she can hear

The daisies grow.

It ends with resignation:

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear

Lyre or sonnet.

All my life's buried here,

Heap earth upon it.

It's a short poem, only 5 verses, so I guess it's after that bit, after the resignation, that Terry sniffed, squared his shoulders and immediately went out to chose a replacement.

By selecting another boat before the ashes of Phyllis May are barely cold he's echoing another of Wilde's famous lines, from the poem Helas:

Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll.

Butterfly flaps his wings in Swansea, storm on the waterways in London

I still don't like the No. 10 Petition system and think the ProtectOurCanals petition is a bad thing (in a broader governmental sense) and I won't support it.

Because this is my blog I get to say that at the start of this post, and you are reduced to fuming and having to reply in comments in the unread bit at the bottom and giving it a one-star rating.

But no one's yet asked where this petition came from. 

The IWA and BW didn't seem to know, and only pitched in because 'someone' posted it and 'someone else' publicised it and they felt railroaded into promoting it in case it didn't get enough support. Who is Ian Rees, the guy who started it? 

Well, I followed it up and spoke to him yesterday, and he was very friendly, with a cheerful sing-song voice right at home in his role as culture/tourism marketing officer at Swansea Council.  He claims he's done this on a very personal basis, nothing official.

If you read his blog (A Simple Welshman) and Twitter stream (@ijrees) you'll notice that when away from the office Ian is a hyperactive political animal, intensely partisan (in a lefty sense) and never short of outrage, but of no particular or official affiliation to the waterways.

He just saw the BBC Politics Show report on 15th November, felt yet another new public wrong to be righted and jumped in because no one else yet had.  He's not a 'serial' No.10 petitioner; this was the first one he's ever done, and when I spoke to him yesterday he was unaware of the stir he's generated. I got the feeling he hadn't even looked at the count of supporters.

If he is involved in a waterway, it's casually, and its the local Neath & Tennant Canals, which he loves walking and cycling by.  Especially around Resolven, he says.

For BW and the IWA that makes him the perfect, guileless person to start a petition.  He's the sort of canal user they are trying to attract, the one who justifies taxpayer's money, the ordinary john smith that BW directors get bonuses for attracting to the waterways.  They couldn't be seen to create a petition themselves, since that would seem self-serving and likely wouldn't take off. 

In that sense Ian Rees could be a symbol of the chaotic way No. 10 petitions work.  He's the unwitting butterfly who simply flapped tiny but angry wings by the Neath & Tennant and generated ripples on the waterways all the way to London.

Tweetups fuel canalside twi-fi

I've been banging on about wanting canalside wi-fi for over five years. 

I found my first free-to-access connection in April 2005 (see Free wi-fi link via Jason's),  but the adoption by business has been painfully slow.  When you are trying to persuade a licensee or pubco manager that it's a worthwhile investment, they see only the cost upfront, and the monthly subscription, and hear horror stories of hacking.  They can't often see through to the benefits.

Yet for everyone - not just boaters, the benefits can be great - especially now that so many people have wifi-enabled smartphones such as Android, Pre and the iPhone. 

One of the more enlightened pub/brewery chains is Fuller's, who offer wifi at most of their pubs, include several near the Grand Union Canal, from the Paper Mill at Apsley to the Grove Lock near Leighton Buzzard. 

While Fuller's wi-fi is free, it's passcoded and the code is changed daily.  However, you only have to ask at the bar and they'll tell you.

It's probably smartphones, not laptops, which are driving the adoption of wifi.  After all, it's hard to work at your laptop in a pub - and heaven knows I've tried.  Distraction lurks at every table.

Sometimes (see right), being outside away from everyone is the only way for me to do a Grannypost at a pub, and obviously that's only practical in the summer, but even then it can be hard to see the screen if the sun's shining.

But if there's one other thing that's driving wi-fi in pubs, its social networking, particularly Twitter and Facebook.

Tonight from 8pm there's a tweet-up of local Twitterers at Fuller's pub The Boat in Berkhamsted.

Details here on Tweetvite.

15 are already signed up as definite Yes attenders, with another dozen or so Maybe, and half a dozen have taken the trouble to send their apologies.

If you are on a boat in 'Berko' and use wi-fi, even if you don't use Twitter, you might like to go along from 8pm onwards and pass on apologies from Granny Buttons.  You should spot them easily enough - they'll be the disparate but loud and sociable bunch in the corner nearest the car park.

All praise these tweetups. They can help canalside business to recognise the value of opening up their wi-fi to boaters and other customers.

I've never been to a tweetup.  Do they all sit crouched over their phones,  hammering away on the keys, tweeting and retweeting and twitpicking and yfrogging and generally twignoring each other?

Or do they look up from their screens occasionally and twalk?

Hey, is that a recognised collective noun?  A tweetup of twitterers.

Sign the petition or we'll shoot this canal

You've probably already heard about the Protect Our Canals petition on the No.10 website:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to protect our canals by not selling off property owned by British waterways. 

The Inland Waterways Association has emailed every member with a message from Chairman Clive Henderson saying:

I am ... urging you to sign up to this petition - if you agree with it, and ask that you encourage everyone that you know, to also sign up. 

... The worst outcome, now that this is in the public domain, would be if this petition receives scant support. That might give Ministers the impression that there are few waterways supporters who care very much about the issue.

British Waterways has jumped in, bearhugging the IWA with a 'special edition' of their monthly Boaters Update newsletter, giving full support for what they are effectively suggesting is an IWA initiative.

And in an email to all employees, BW's marketing director Simon Salem urged them to sign, preferably using a non-BW email address (presumably to hide their BW bias).

Sign this petition, or the government will shoot the canals.

[It's not an IWA initiative, by the way. It's a private petition by someone who has no official connection to the waterways at all.  He just likes to visit his local (Neath) canal.  He says he was inspired by the BBC Politics show the Sunday before last.  He watched, was upset, put it up.  I'll tell more about it in another post.]

Well, I don't support this petition.

Obviously I do love the waterways.  But I dislike this whole No. 10 petition system, as I've said before - several - times. 

Petitions have traditionally been laboriously collected things that are handed in visibly to legislators. 

They are evidence of long-running and deeply felt feelings by real people, locally, on issues that needed changing.  Witness the high-profile local efforts made three years ago (right, at Foxton, and below, at Thurmaston) in the 2006 Save Our Waterways campaign.  

The trouble is, the No. 10 petition system is now being used as just another focus group, helping to decide government policy in advance by idle clicks.

An 'e-tition' can quickly put a shot across the bows of the government on any issue.  They are now steering governments, in a populist - and I think very unhealthy - way.   The Prime Minister can seize on them simply to make policy on the hoof, and use their support to railroad legislation through parliament.

In short, they are helping to bypass your local MP.  Every time I see a No.10 petition with lots of clicks underneath I hear the heavy wheeze of democracy's shortened breath.

Write to your own local MP, present him with your own set of locally collected signatures.  Don't just idly add a 'me-too' click. 

In fact, don't add a me-too click at all.

By the way, I can't help feeling that the BW directors have a substantial personal financial interest in stopping the sell-off.  But that's a subject for yet another blog post.

Boatyard apprentice

 

One of the frustrating things about film, something you don't have to suffer with digital, is not knowing when a photo was taken. 

I scanned this picture a couple of years ago, and obviously it was taken at Streethay Wharf.  But I've long since forgotten when it was taken (best guess: mid-2002).  Knowing the exact date, one could then track back and perhaps recall a whole new layer of information - information that's not in the image but is held in my memory and simply needs a jog from the date.  

Unfortunately I can't find the negative now.  Might have just mislaid it; I hope so, because it could certainly do with a better scanning, from professionals.  If I come across it again I'll ask EWA Digital to do it.  They made a good effort of earlier scans.

Canal-boating hottie Natalie is cool

On her blog Hotspotting, TV/Radio presenter Natalie Barrass is always on the hunt for 'trendspotting, coolhunting and culture-surfing'.  

Cool is hot, apparently.   Or is that 'hot is cool'?

Anyway, reading her post this week called Fancy rewinding to the 80s?  - complete with lively YouTube video - I was interested to see that she has a canal boat:

Over the summer I took my narrow boat on a journey of discovery to Henley-on-Thames. Not just an idle jaunt, it was in fact to visit the 80’s Rewind Festival with a couple of friends

So I searched the rest of her blog for evidence of a peripatetic waterway of life.  Sadly, apart from one other tiny mention of her boat, she doesn't mention the canals.  I guess canals just aren't cool, or hotspots, or whatever it is she's looking for. 

Which is a pity.  She's a bit of a hottie herself, a lively, watchable, attractive and competent video journalist, (all presented filmed and edited by herself, it says in the credits) and I'd like to see canal festivals done like this.  Not all the time, of course, but it would make a refreshing change occasionally.

But before she can bring her own perky style to the waterways, I guess the rest of us canal boaters need to to cool down first.  Or get het up, or whatever it is we need to do if we are to attract the attention of the people who surf-spot the trendy culture-hunting heights.

Update: I just came across this 2007 article in the Independent, describing Natalie's reasons for living afloat, and it suggests just why you won't find much about the canals from her.  She's quoted in the arcticle as living afloat (on a 'house-boat') simply because it's a way of living cheaply and temporarily as an investment "in a cool area", not because of the waterways: 

In the end, she picked up a 58ft narrowboat for £40,000 at a mooring in Southall, west London. "It meant I could live in a cool area and have a nice place. It doesn't make me money, but it doesn't lose me any either."  She will consider selling her boat, Jackpot, to buy a property again in a year or two. In the meantime, like many of her friends, she and her boyfriend may purchase a property in Australia where prices are cheaper.

Gosh, 30 months on, that article reads like a period piece now, with all its buy-to-let references, etc.

Narrow Dog to the bottom of the canal

Author's barge is destroyed in fire - Staffordshire Sentinel

Calamitous news: Phyllis May, the well-travelled narrowboat of Terry Darlington, was burned last night at its mooring in Stone boatyard.

All humans and animals are safe, and Terry Darlington is reported stoic:

"Someone rang us and told us our boat was in a fire so we went down there. It was a furious blaze.

"It started a couple of boats away from us, spread to the next boat, which sank, then it spread to ours. It's burnt out end to end.

"We're upset, but nobody was injured and the boat's insured, so it could have been a lot worse. Luckily our dog Jim wasn't on board at the time.

"It's ironic that the boat's taken us half-way round the world, though tornadoes, hurricanes and alligator-infested waters, then burns to death at its own mooring."

After two successful books Terry and Monica had spoken of a final long tour and travel book.  One idea was Narrow Dog to ... somewhere in the Baltic, via the European waters. 

Now, sadly, it's Narrow Dog to the bottom of the Trent & Mersey.

How sad for them, and yet how glad I am that it was only the boat.

Irony is something Terry spots easily, and for any writer it's the salt of creativity.  This may yet be the genesis of his next book.

Irony is something I can spot too.  For example it was in that very same Stone boatyard, in 1951, that L.T.C. Rolt's beloved Cressy was broken up and burned. And this year is the 70th anniversary of Tom Rolt's original voyage around the canals, the source material for Narrow Boat, the book that inspired the saving of the canals.  Rolt went on to write many other books, and so could Terry. 

(Oh, by the way, someone who won't be sorry is Jim, the original 'narrow dog', pictured above eating pork scratchings.  He hates boating, said Terry. Loves scratchings, tho')  

The sight of a burned-out narrowboat is distressing when it's your own, but it's also strangely fascinating.  Inside, the range of colours is diminished, but it's replaced with a whole new palette of smells and textures.

Below is the interior of (more irony) NB Reckless, burned out about three years ago.   I blogged about it here.

 

See also: The lovely, lovely story of green NB Emerald, burned by arsonists but restored into a purple phoenix when friends rallied round.

Don't know their architrave from their entablature

I can't help but feel that when it comes to the web, property developers don't know their architrave from their oriel window.

(Sorry to be boring, but this is about the Marsworth yard demolition/planning application again.) 

I called Andrew Chandler, the BW contact listed at property development partnership H2Ourban, and asked him for more information about the Marsworth development.  Why it wasn't listed among the 'schemes' on the website? 

He said ah, yes, we need to get the website updated, it's a year or two out of date.

A year or two?  I asked.   Why, that's ridiculous!  What does it take to update a website? 

He said well, we can update the website, but our priority is to spend the money on development so it can benefit the waterways.  Or that sort of usual PR thrust.  

For him the website was expensive, luxury, eye-candy, and when he'd finished filing his nails being very busy answering my questions, he'd maybe think of looking at it again. 

I got pretty cross, and said that British Waterways was stuffed full with PR ladies who sent out press releases on frivolous things like halloween ghost-hunting nights at Standedge Tunnel and face-painting classes at waterway museums and hedge-laying courses for beginners, and unnecessary announcements of lock gate replacement works.   (A tiny exaggeration, I know, but there's a wash of truth in it.)  

But I was talking about something that kept canal users informed of canal-changing new developments and was not expensive.  (I know because I do one myself, every day in my spare time.) 

Anyway, he said 'we'll have to agree to disagree', and that made me blow my top and slam the phone down.

Architects and developers look on web sites as glossy brochures, like bright-screen versions of what they expect to leave with planners in enquiries.  They think it's all about fancy flash movies and not about just keeping ordinary people updated with simple information.

I could set up a website for any multi-million pound development in an hour or two.  It would be a blog format, it would include a simple gallery of pics, it would be updated weekly at least.  It would tell people what's going on.  It would enthuse people about the projects.   

(The word 'enthusiasm' comes from the Greek meaning 'to insert the spirit of God inside'.)

It wouldn't be 'a year or two out of date' like  the H2Ourban website.  And frankly, I think it would be rather more professional.

To think that all this started because they couldn't be architraved to keep canal users informed of what was going on down at Marsworth.

Later Aiden Johnson-Hugill phoned me back and we got on a bit better.  He's the young and thrusting BW guy responsible for the Marsworth development.  He tried to explain about where they were going to put a new sanitary station etc etc, but  my irritation had long since moved on the web site, and he just had to sit there and take it, poor thing.

Beware of the leopard

I need to apologise for saying that the Marsworth Junction canal yard demolition planning application came out of the blue.

The local councillor (Mr Corry Cashman) has kindly pointed out that British Waterways gave full and due notice:

Five planning notices were placed at both the entrance to the site and in the vicinity of the site at points on the tow path, and in Watery Lane and  Church Lane on 4th November 2009. Precise details of these locations is given in the application papers.

The Parish Council discussed the matter (having suspended standing orders) at its meeting on Monday 9th November. It will formally discuss and decide on its response to the application at its next meeting on Monday 14th December.  Members of the public are welcome to attend these meetings.

Comments on the application, should you wish to formally make them, should arrive with the District Council by next Tuesday 1st December.

My point about all this is that while it might have been discussed at meetings by bureaucrats and councillors, there seems to be little consultation in advance about BW's plans.

For example, here's a search on britishwaterways.co.uk for 'marsworth'.  And a hunt on the IWA site draws a similar blank.

Update:  Wozie of NB Oakfield went walkabout at Marsworth today - the picture of the yard from the bridge (see above) is his (thanks!) and he took several others you can see on his own blog.

Time and again, boaters are left feeling like that moment in Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, when Arthur Dent opens his bedroom curtains to see the bulldozer and the smiling man from the local council.

Good lord; I've checked all my photos, I've got almost nothing showing Marsworth yard.  This photo of the junction, taken as I descended the first of the Aylesbury Canal Arm locks (the yard is on the left), is the best I can do.  Sorry.  

You might like to try Ken Kilfedder's photo on Flickr instead - it's very nice. 

Glorious mud

The Central Dredging Association is holding a seminar on December 10th, called Disposal Of Dredged Material On Land.

No, really, this is probably more interesting than it sounds, for waterways lovers at least.

The issue of dredging canals exercises our minds all the time, and not just canal boaters.  Anglers, too, worry about water depth and quality as well as the professional and volunteer canal restoration teams.  And so do the waterways engineers and hydrologists who must maintain not just the channels but the reservoirs too.  The deeper the channel, the less pressure on the water supply.

I thought about this particularly in the recent Caldon Canal breach, where the photos showed an empty canal that looked half the depth it would have been when it was build 230-odd years ago. 

But digging out the silt is only half the problem, and perhaps a quarter of the cost.  Getting rid of it is a bigger headache.  

There's not only the issue of creating unwanted mounds, but of considering pollution from centuries of industrial chemicals in the silt, and transporting it where it'll do the least damage.   Indeed, this can sometimes form half the cost of a new marina.

The most important parts for canaloholics will be probably be 'Classification of British Waterways’ dredged material' by Paul Beckwith of BW, and 'Disposal of dredged material from inland waterways on land' by  James Maclean of Land & Water Services.  The latter company seems to dominate dredging and excavation on Britain's canals.

For me, dredging is like proctology - it's a vital subject that I'm hugely glad someone else is specialising it.  And if it's not a problem pressing on your mind (and your backside) you might well fall asleep very quickly at this seminar.

However, with the right hands on keyboard and camera, the subject would make for an interesting article.  Perhaps a whole series of articles.  Even if you went into it in-depth, as it were.

How was this Marsworth canal planning application slipped through with no-one noticing?

I've often taken a neutral position about the way British Waterways is selling off a lot of its property.   I often feel uneasy about it, but I don't feel qualified to comment.  

However, normally there's a bit of consultation, particularly with commercial sites, and it crawls through planning applications and appeals with good due process.

But today I'm astonished to learn that the old BW yard at the bottom of the Marsworth lock flight - just by the start of the Aylesbury Canal Arm - is subject to a planning application for its demolition, and it seems to have taken canal lovers by surprise.

(Google Maps location here.)

This location isn't just a canal junction and BW works yard.  It's long been a key stopping place for boaters, being the only sanitary station, refuse disposal and watering point between Cowroast and Leighton Buzzard, a day and 17 locks apart. 

What's most astonishing is that this comes only a few days before the application goes before a planning committee, and any objections are supposed to be in by Wednesday November 25th.

Actually, there are TWO planning applications lodged with Aylesbury Council:

1. 09/01945/APP -  Demolition of existing buildings and erection of 14 dwellings and associated works.
2. 09/01946/ACD -  Demolition of industrial and British Waterways operational buildings.

I'm ignorant as to why there are two applications, or what the difference might be.  Could they be tactical, with one of them being 'surrenderable'?

The applications have been submitted by H2Ourban, the (pretentiously named) development partnership between BW and Bloc, 'the urban regeneration arm of the Kilmartin Property Group'.  Contact details for the relevant Bloc and British Waterways people here. 

(I can't see a single reference to boats on the H2Ourban website.  No, wait, to be fair there's a small reference on the BW section to 'open up and reinvigorate old waterways, attract more boating and leisure activity and protect and enhance the environment.')

All praise to a bunch of people on the Canal World forums for raising this issue, in a thread titled BW Planning Application, Marsworth yard demolition  

Key influencers in this story include:

Corry Cashman, local  Marsworth councillor.
John Bercow, local MP and Speaker of the Commons.

One problem with trying to get the local MP involved is that you'll have to be a local voter.  That'll be a problem for canal boaters, especially continuous cruisers.

On the plus side, as Speaker, John Bercow isn't hidebound by the official positions of the parties if they are against you.

On the minus side, as Speaker, John Bercow isn't hidebound by the official positions of the parties if they are on your side.

You can read the Canal World thread and sieve out the information (can you see why I haven't the patience for forums?).  Or you can just jump in with the information I've given you here, and muscle around like the irritable boaters you no doubt are!

FA's sweet report on the sour state of waterways funding

I've often wondered at where the money comes from to pay for the canals and navigable waterways.

The Inland Waterways Advisory Council has just answered that question with a new report, called Insights into the Funding of the Inland Waterways

[PDF download, 0.5mb, 41 pages)

If you're the sort of person who reads homework in bed then the report's summary (read it here) makes interesting reading.

Key points include:

Total income for UK navigation authorities was about £300million per year.

British Waterways accounted for 71% of the total, the Port of London Authority and the Cardiff Harbour Authority for 16%, the Environment Agency for 9% and the Broads and smaller authorities the remaining 4%.

'Grant in Aid' from DEFRA and the Scottish Government made up one-third of BW's income and just over half of the Environment Agency's.

BW’s property activities represented 18% of its total income.

Local authorities contributed less than 1% of  total income.

8% came from licences, registrations, permits and tolls.

It doesn't attempt to ask what the total waterways 'industry' income is - for example, the money spent on boating or angling by ordinary punters - but it's a start.

The IWAC didn't actually do the research itself, but commissioned a specialist marine industry consultancy appropriately titled Fisher Associates.  

FA announced their task a year ago (here's their news announcement from Nov 2008), saying that they got the gig from doing similar work overseas: 

Aimed at identifying how the waterways sector is funded, the commission builds on our experience in this sector overseas. Chris Fisher said: “We are pleased that IWAC has engaged us for this interesting work, and we look forward to contributing to the sustainability of the UK’s waterways”.

The IWAC say another report from FA is due shortly, showing how the waterways are funded in in the rest of Europe as well as North America.  I'm surprised that didn't come out first, but perhaps they want to put it in context.

I think the idea is so that the IWAC has a stick to beat the government with, or at least the local authorities.   After all, 1% is not an impressive figure, considering how the waterways are often local amenities as much as national ones.

Yet, I'm not sure how well this analogy with funding in other countries can be stretched. England's canals are so individual, so very 'ethnic'.  People usually say that to mean non-Anglo in character, but it really means to have a distinct national character.

That reminds me.  If there's one waterside city more than any other that now has an 'ethnic' (in the popular sense) character, it's perhaps Leicester. 

Tomorrow (Tues 24th Nov) Leicester County Council heads the launch of the new River Soar & Grand Union Canal Strategy, outlining the future plans for the 23 miles of canal and river around the city. 

The plans don't say how much of the money is coming from the local authorities.  Nor how 'ethnic (my sense or yours)' they consider the Leicester waterways.  But seems to me that nowadays everyone uses the waterways in Leicester, including surely a lot of council-tax payers.

Sanity's porthole crochet is more identical than the original

It's taken me a few weeks, sorry, but I finally got around to putting up the new porthole crochet 'doilies' that Sheila of NB Sanity made for me.  Thanks, Sheila!

Bruce and Sheila passed by Granny a couple of months back at Shardlow when they spotted my unusual window crochet, and wrote asking for a photo of it so that Sheila could try duplicating it.  (She's got a fascination with porthole doilies.)

To make it easier I sent her the whole thing, and was surprised to get four identical replacements in the mail a couple of weeks later.  The Doily Mail, so to speak. (sorry)

You can see the brown original (over ten years old) on the left, and one of Sheila's bright, white simulacra on the right. 

It's an excellent copy; they are pretty much identical.   Except that, if anything, Sheila's copy is in some ways even more identical to the the original than the other three originals are!

Sheila's gallery of porthole doilies is here.  Expect to pay about £10 each if you want her to make you one. 

I got off rather more cheaply, mainly because mine acted as her model, and the 'Granny Buttons' design has now been added to her doily gallery.

Anyway, thanks again, Sheila.