Maffi Dredd: I am the canal Law

Maffi is now a waterways judge on the Oxford Canal Circuit, and has been dispensing summary justice by blog.

[Update 21/6: Maffi has replied to this post on his blog here.]

His post last Monday, Two wrongs don't make a right, fingers, apprehends, prosecutes, convicts and passes sentence on evildoer perp narrowboat 'Summer Run': 

Me: Excuse me Sir but you are going a bit too fast for passing moored boats.

Him: I don’t think I am my friend.

Me: I am not your friend and you are going way to fast.

By this time he was speeding through the basin.  Only God knows what happened to his water skier.

He moored up in Thrupp on Saturday. I passed his boat at 07:30 Sunday morning his engine was running. I still think I have reasonable cause to THINK he is an arrogant git.

Today he came past the wharf, our wharf, like a bullet!

Me: Excuse me Sir you are travelling way too fast. 

Him: People pass us at speed all the time, my friend.

Me: That doesn’t make it right. Please slow down and I told you last week you are not my friend.

He turned his nose in the air waved his hand like he was batting away a fly and continued. Now I KNOW he is an arrogant git and an arse to boot.

To ensure we all recognise the retribution, he takes a mugshot.  

Hmm.  Maffi's horizons these days seem to be crowded in by an awful lot of inconsiderate, arrogant gits and arses.  Why are they all clustering around him like flies?  Are there really that many in such a small area, or could it possibly be his perception?

I'm sure that he will approve of every word on Considerate Boater, the website that politely doffs its cap and explains how to take your boat from A to B without putting I before U.

But what Considerate Boater doesn't mention is how to identify other, inconsiderate, boaters, and how to behave considerately towards them and get them to understand your point of view without thinking of them as arrogant gits or contemptible arses.  To me, this is just as much a part of considerate boating.

It's strange, but now that I'm more experienced I don't see even one-tenth the number of inconsiderate boaters that I used to when I was starting out. 

Instead, I simply come across more and more intolerant, crabby old people on the bank who can't tie up their boats tight, who expect to moor online forever undisturbed, who know more than other boaters  and who are ceaselessly alert to the faults of others.  Above all, they know all the rules, regulations and byelaws to the letter, and can spot immediately when these are broken. Unlike the three wise monkeys, they see, hear and speak evil.

I fear that if the canals ever see the return of traditional cargo-carrying boatmen, many of these people are in for a rude awakening.

By the way, when researching this post I was amused to learn that one of Judge Dredd's arch-enemies is  'the mutant terrorist Mr Bones'.

See also:

Thank you for not putting out rude signs.

Comments

[Andrew Denny]

Mark,

Haha! Yes, you are quite right, Maffi's distemper sparkles. But in this case it makes me feel uncomfortable.

My post is NOT about speeding or any other BW rule-breaking. I repeat, IT'S NOT about speeding or rule-breaking.

It's about how to act when one decides to self-appointedly uphold the law, like a martinet. (http://bit.ly/aIrObx)

I was trying to make a (perhaps too gentle) point on how Maffi should have reacted.

Loaded words like 'arrogant' and 'git' and 'arse to boot' and sarcasm like "where's his waterskier?" don't accomplish much when talking about encounters with other people whom one is quite likely to meet again as equals without authority. They are subjective insults that tell us more about the insulter than the insultee.

And repeating the insults publicly in a blog post doesn't really accomplish much except spread the misery about, and in a very passive-aggressive way.

What's more, picking on nits to bolster the claim (in this case, running the engine while stationary at 7:30am instead of 8am in high-summer) simply emphasises one's reputation for martinetry.

Maffi doesn't say what gentle, friendly words he exchanged with Mr Summer Run the following morning as he took his photograph. To be honest, I got the feeling he just took a surreptitious photo without speaking and walked on, 'banking' the photo in case the boat returned, so he could use it as ID.

And lo!, Summer Run returned the next day, so he was already in an 'alert witness' mood.

Finally, we have to accept Maffi's word that Mr Summer Run actually was speeding, was acting arrogantly and did dismiss him with a supercilious wave as if Maffi didn't matter more than anyone else.

The South Oxford Canal is a beautiful, calm relaxed place, and yes, it would be nicer if boaters sometimes took it a little slower.

But the effect I get is of "Here Be Dragons".

In other words I'm left with the impression that the map of the South Oxford Canal around Lower Heyford and Thrupp is full of angry, supercilious intolerant locals who consider hireboaters and other less-experienced boaters as arseholes.

However, I'm sure this is not what Maffi intended by his post.

And yes, I'm acutely aware of my failings too. See my 2006 post "Canal Rage" (http://bit.ly/9abFaP), about an encounter I had on the South Oxford Canal.

Here's a photo of Maffi with his camera, being on the right side of the law in friendly, cooperative fashion: http://bit.ly/dv8IbK

You see, Maffi CAN smile and be conciliatory when he puts his mind to it!

[Mark]

Ho ho ho. And we all thought Maffi's distemper "just sparkles" for you.
qv. http://www.grannybuttons.com/granny_buttons/2009/10/maffi-excels-at-distemper.html

[Andrew Denny]

Maffi:

There's only one possible 'lie' in Johnboy's comment, which is in how long you've owned the boat. According to your blog it would be about 4 years (you moved aboard about 3yrs 9mths ago - see http://bit.ly/9jggSB .

To be fair to Johnboy, he might not be lying on this, which implies deliberate intent. He might have just been loose in fact-checking, which would be negligence, not 'lies'.

The rest of Johnboy's comment is opinion, not fact, so surely it can't be lying?

[Maffi]

Johnboy you are factually incorrect. 'why did you bother writing lies?

[Neil]

Depressing but true, a well-observed commentary.

[Mike]

All I can say is, in all the time I spent living aboard, I met the friendliest, most helpful bunch of people I have ever met. I also met the most up-themselves patronising knobs I've ever met.

[johnboy]

have you never met maffi?
oh you love him,what ever he does in life no matter how long for he is the best?
he has owened a boat for 2 1/2 years and spent most of that time moored on the oxford canal,just p*ssing everyone of that ever has any dealing's with him,he hates everyone so dont be offended.

cheers johnboy

[Barry and Sandra - Northern Pride]

Nice one Andrew! We've had a couple of run ins with 'old fish-wife' types and 'know-it-alls' too but it doesn't put us off; Barry just shrugs it off and we realise that unhappy people reflect their mood in such ways so we just feel sorry for them!

[Alice]

It's one of the reasons we left boating too. We were NOT inconsiderate speeders, by any means, but we just couldn't go slow enough for these people. Mostly the boats aren't really *moored* at all, just tethered. Some move so rarely that the occupants have forgotten what being afloat entails. It is irresponsible, in my opinion, to moor carelessly - online - and then expect everyone else to tiptoe past. We started to prefer river cruising for that very reason.
Alice.

[Nick Corble]

Well said Andrew - yes there are speeders on the canals (often, it seems, with a good line in sarcasm), but you get these types in all walks of life. One of the reasons we decided to sell our boat and take a break from the waterways however were the breed you refer to towards the end of the post - what I call the 'instant expert' who is always ready with the letter of the law. They are in many ways much more irritating - it used to make me laugh when they would lecture my boys on how to lock when the boys had probably done ten times more than they had!