Blasted heath

Yes, I know it's the wrong side of the country and no doubt looks entirely different, but that was the first thing that came into my head upon seeing this scene. Where are we? Somewhere on the Nene Old Course, headed not towards Floods Ferry and March, but the other way, on our way to Holme Fen. Yep - intrepid or foolhardy, we have decided that this will be our first holiday adventure. Hopefully at this time of year there will not be so much weed. That's what we thought when we tried it one Christmas, but there was still a lot of dead weed hanging about then, and you may recall, we never made it as far as the winding hole at the end but had rather a long reverse out.

We've stopped here for the night as Moomin says it's the last nice-ish spot, and it was, of course, raining. It started just as we untied to leave Bill Fen, soft wet rain. I just spent three days in Manchester and it didn't rain once!

You ain't going nowhere

Bah! It is as we feared. Salters Lode lock will not be re-opening in time for Easter, so sorry Cambridge, you'll have to manage without us.

This leaves us with two options (well, three if you include staying at home, but I'm dying to get back on the boat, even if this means...) Option 1: Go up the Nene. Jim just suggested that we could spend our week going up the Nene to Northampton and back. Why? I asked... So that we could go to the Malt Shovel. Well, yes, I am very much looking forward to visiting this pub with its massive selection of real ales and continental beers, and I do like a journey to have an objective, but the cost-benefit analysis on that particular proposal is not positive.

My preferred option is to spend the time exploring the bits of the Middle Level that we might otherwise not get round to. A new assault on Holme Fen, for example; a run up to Dog in a Doublet; up Bevills Leam as far as possible from each end (it has a pumping station in the middle); to Upwell to drink in the Globe as planned; and to Welches dam lock, which used to be passable (indeed, Warrior was built to the maximum length with which it was possible to pass it) but is no longer...

All I can say at present is, sorry Cambridge that we won't be visiting after all, and watch this space to find out where we will be.

Found it!

Still, I suppose it wasn't really lost. But it was still nice to come across this on my way from the conference centre last night. As I was watching a small girl came up to me. My expertise must have showed, because she asked me 'Is that gate allowed to be open?' I said perhaps it wouldn't stay shut. Should she go and shut it, she wanted to know. I thought this was probably to be discouraged, as she really was quite small and was accompanied by an even smaller boy. Then they caught sight of three rather menacing looking Canada geese on the lockside, and with a cry of 'Duckies!' they were off in pursuit.

Helyn again

At last! Some free time combined with good weather means that work on Helyn has restarted. Today Jim finished relaying the floor after we'd had it up to inspect and clean underneath it.

And yesterday we got the new steering cable steering fitted.


Just a final scrub now, and some new varnish on the wooden handrails, and she'll be ready to go.

A-bantering, Ubuntu-ing

It can't be often that someone decides on a whim to go to Uxbridge for the evening, especially when it involves a two and a half hour train and tube journey each way, but hey, that's the kind of mad people we boaters are. We had long known that there was going to be a CWF 'banter' (these get togethers seem to be becoming more frequent of late) and that Moomin and the Ducks and various other luminaries were going, but we'd decided to give it a miss and save our pennies for the forthcoming holiday. But then, like all the best decisions, we thought, oh what the hell, let's go after all. So there was a mad dash to catch the train, as we hadn't noticed that the start time had been moved from three to six o'clock.

No matter, we got there at about half past four and strolled up and down the towpath in the sun - yes, the SUN! - for a bit, then sat and had a quiet pint, and then the Cambridge contingent arrived, closely followed by about thirty other people in the end, some of whom we knew - it was particularly splendid to see Bones and Maffi again - and some we met for the first time. Not many had come by boat but there were a few tied up outside, including Derri's rather wonderful Carribean Broads cruiser, and a RN DM3 being run on waste oil of various sorts (we saw him pouring in old chip fat as well as the much blacker stuff) using RN's heating and filtering system.

Moomin was delighted to hear that I, being the last person in the household to hold out, have finally abandoned Windows for Linux. It wasn't that I liked Windows; rather, like I suspect about 99% of users, I was clinging desperately to the familiar no matter how awful it was - and mine, after four years, was pretty dreadful. So the other day, when it absolutely refused to connect to the internet, I finally got round to backing up all the photos to DVD and let Baz wipe the whole thing and install Ubuntu. So far I am very impressed. It's not just that it's quicker and cleaner, but it does - even to someone who's very used to Windows - seem more intuitive and simpler. The installation went without a hitch, and Firefox, for example, was ready to go without any further setting up.

I am still slightly wary of OpenOffice and its compatability with MS Office - I'm currently writing the PowerPoint presentation for my conference paper on Tuesday and having seen the changes it made translating into OpenOffice from my Windows machine at work, I'm a bit worried about what it's going to do when I try to transfer it back again in front of a room full of people. Also I miss the keyboard commands which don't seem to work - but maybe I just need to use different keys?

On the plus side however, it has an excellent version of Tetris, so I never need be gainfully employed again. And - see the photo at the top? I decided that I wanted to crop it a bit, something I would normally summon Baz to do, but I thought, this is all new to all of us, so I'll see what I can do, so I rooted around for a bit, and found something called Gimp, dragged the photo into it, messed around for a bit, and presto, I worked out how to do it. Hours of fun beckon.

Although having said that my desktop computer is once more refusing to communicate with the wider world, whilst all the wireless jobbies seem quite happy to. So perhaps it has its wires crossed.

This time next week

Jim has just pointed out that if things go to plan, this time next week we should be enjoying a few pints of Elgoods (Black Dog in Jim's case; me, I don't know yet) in the Globe in Upwell, en route to Salters Lode (which as of today still hasn't reopened, but we continue to live in hope).

Steering

In order to head off any criticism before it gets to me, I tend to announce up front (in circumstances where it is relevant, and sometimes when it isn't) that I am the world's worst steerer. At least, proportionate to the amount of practice, experience and effort I have put in; there might be small children who have never seen a boat (though they'd probably pick it up and overtake me within minutes) and creatures without opposable thumbs who find it as much of a challenge, but I can't be sure.

This, as you might imagine, is a source of much consternation to me. I love boats so much that it seems there should be a natural affinity between us, but no; it appears that this love is unrequited and its object responding only with a chilly civility. Fantasies of chugging nonchalantly along, coolly tweaking the throttle and adjusting the tiller are replaced in reality with a constant state of near panic and a horrible feeling of inadequacy.

Why this should be, I do not know. It might be partly just the way my brain's set up - learning to drive a car was a similarly dogged war of attrition between me and my inadequacy, marked by one (oh yes, there were many) instructor memorably saying (imagine this in a lazy Yorkshire drawl) 'I'd guess you're not very good at practical things... Academically you're probably quite average, but... not very good at practical things...' Naturally I was most offended at being accused of being academically quite average, but had to accept his verdict on the other front. I won that battle in the end though.

And I intend to get the better of this one as well. The thing is, I am quite good at practical things, provided they don't involve heavy lifting or power tools. What I am not so good at is doing them under pressure, whether that's the pressure of having someone breathing critically down my neck, or the pressure of being about to hit something hard with a big lump of metal. (Boating of course often provides both. Simultaneously.) It's in circumstances like that where I am still (very occasionally) wont to doubt my judgement as to which direction I should be moving the tiller, and, far more frequently, to forget entirely which way the throttle turns, or, in extremis, which way is reverse.

Nonetheless, I am not nearly so bad as I once was, so I am convinced that, even with diminishing returns, if I practise enough I will eventually reach a level of adequacy, even if I never attain the flair of which I once dreamed.

Ornamental

I was out on Tarporley yesterday afternoon, and tied up just below St Pancras lock was an ugly-as-sin widebeam (internal decor in the style of a faux-country pub)... and anyway, as we went past it for the second time a classic irate bloke leapt out and started yelling at us for going too fast... I was a bit slow on the uptake (thought we were having a friendly conversation with a passing cyclist) but apparently his language was none too refined.

We weren't going too fast, of course. He was tied up appallingly for starters, and no matter how slowly we go in a beast like that we're going to move a lot of water. When we were at Cropredy with Warrior last summer many boats passed us, some of them no doubt going quite fast, but the only one that made us move significantly was Chiswick. It might have been speeding of course, I was too busy watching open mouthed and going 'ooh, I haven't seen that one before' (And hopefully the week after next I might be having a ride on it).

Back to yesterday... as we came back (it was a short trip) I became aware that the aggrieved widebeamer was following us on his bicycle, shouting very aggressively all the while. He didn't look the sort that you'd like to cross, really - large, shaven headed, and very very cross. And for the first time I could make out what he was yelling: 'You broke my ornaments'

The wonder of Woolies' woolies

Returning to the Wellingborough wheat topic once more... One of the reasons I find this, the last days of the working boats, so fascinating, is that it falls - just - within my lifetime, and yet is still another world. While Nutfield was being bow-hauled down the Rothersthorpe locks, I was picking forget-me-nots and painting with water on the faded peeling maroon paint of our shed door in Thornton Heath.

And this is brought home to me all the more keenly by the feature in Waterways World. See there on page 66, the little boy sitting on the bollard, and again, in the bottom corner of page 67, trotting down the towpath. He must be about my age; maybe a year older, no more than that. But even more to the point, look at the jumper he's wearing. I know that's a Winfield jumper from Woolworths, because I had one exactly the same (only with the welts in blue not brown). They were made to last in those days; I still have it somewhere, after me and my sister, it was worn by my own children. A strange link with the past, but a link all the same.

Well, well, well...ingborough

When the latest bright shiny wipe-clean NarrowBoat magazine landed on my doormat half an hour ago, the first thing I spotted was 'Last Traffics: Wheat to Wellingborough'. Not quite coincidence, of course, as it's a Waterways World publication, and it was WW's feature last week that put the idea into my head. No more pictures of Tarporley, but lots of other nice ones and historical detail, and it really has whet my appetite.

I wonder of there is any enthusiasm among the historic boating community for setting up a trip (starting from Brentford, it would appear) - or indeed, whether anyone already is (I certainly haven't heard anything, although next month marks the 40th anniversary of the last commercial traffic). Or whether it's been done recently - I'm sure it has been at some point in the past.

Wheat to Wellingborough

The most exciting thing for me in this month's Waterways World (I can't tell you the page number because I've left it on the boat) was an article about the grain traffic in the late sixties, illustrated inter alia with a big photo of Tarporley - a Tarporley that had clearly seen better days, like most of the boats just clinging on at this time - but how facscinating to see the evidence that it had still been carrying so late.

Maybe because this is a bit of route that I'm relatively familiar with, my first thought was how splendid it would be to re-enact this particular run. The Jam 'Ole run is supposedly historically significant as representative of the very last long distance contract, but this is not universally agreed, and the re-enactment, brilliant as it is, is marred somewhat by the complete obliteration of the Jam 'Ole itself.

Whitworth's mill at Wellingborough on the other hand is very much extant, and still in operation. The starting point of the journey could fairly (possibly completely; I haven't researched this at all yet) accurately be Limehouse. Surely someone, at some time, has done this before?

Report from the Eastern Front

Jim is currently on Warrior at Bill Fen, mending oil leaks, fitting gauges and sorting out the bilge pump in preparation for our Easter trip to Cambridge, as well as extending the back cabin bed in readiness for his and Craig's June trip to Northampton. Until a couple of days ago the weather had been fairly good, but today he has had northerly winds, hailstorms, snow and lashing rain - and that was just by the time of the last update. What an adventure. Still, I hear that he is keeping warm by polishing the brass and now he also has the latest Russell Newbery newsletter for entertainment. It will all be worth it when we set off in a couple of weeks, glinting and glittering in the sun (it will be sunny then, won't it?)

A photo of my cat

Well, that's what the web's for, isn't it?

And here's a little something for people with very special interests...

Doing my brass

Whilst feeding Carl and Sean's cats last week I noticed (or so I thought) that Carl had been polishing his brass door furniture, which quite put mine to shame.

So today I set about attacking it with Brasso, scourer, rag and elbow grease, for - I'm ashamed to admit - the first time in years. I had to do a bit at a time and keep coming back to it - to have tried to tackle the whole task at once would have been so daunting I would never have started - and it's not quite finished yet but it looks a whole lot better.


And then Sean tells me that theirs hasn't been polished at all - they'd got a new letter box!

ASBOs for all

Is conversation soon to be considered antisocial behaviour, I found myself wondering yesterday. Is it, perhaps, already? Now, I like peace and quiet as much as the next person - more, in fact, I would hazard a guess. But that preference doesn't extend to thinking I have a right to peace and quiet wherever I go.

Have you noticed the proliferation of signs on trains - and now in the scrolling announcements too - reminding you to be 'considerate'? This includes not having your ipod turned up too loud, not eating smelly food (that one's on the tube, admittedly - and I did always opine, in the days of non-smoking carriages, that there should also be egg sandwich free carriages too) and not holding loud mobile phone conversations.

Now I have never really been able to understand why mobile phone conversations are considered more irritating that face to face ones. OK, it might be because it's frustrating only hearing one side of the conversation, but that's not really a legitimate complaint, is it. I suspect the idea set in in the early days of mobile phones when a. reception was patchy and people tended to have to shout and b. the only people who had mobile phones were the sort of flash gits who would have been extremely annoying anyway. My contention is that our current disgruntlement with people going hello, I'm on the train, is a hangover from that rather than having any basis in current experience.

On occasion in the past when fellow passengers have tried to make me complicit in their eye-rolling and tutting about people making phone calls, I've asked why it's considered worse than having an ordinary conversation, just like the one that we are having now, and often they haven't really been able to give a reason. But that just makes them more annoyed of course.

However, since yesterday I've concluded that this whole issue is having a sinister knock-on effect. I was on the train, and soneone was on the phone which, to be honest, I hadn't even noticed, when another passenger started berating them for having their conversation 'on a public train'. The caller remonstrated, and I joined in, saying, ' yes, what's wrong with having a conversation?' The phone call continued in a whisper and it was then that I realised that everyone else was sitting in silence. A carriage that was pretty much full, and no one dared speak.

Conversation itself has by extension come to be seen as an unacceptable infringement of other people's peaceful journey experience. Being sociable is now antisocial.

Sodden and unkind

Hmm. Hilaire Belloc. I was planning to follow up yesterday's post with a bit about how I rather liked Belloc because he had written a paeon to my local landscape, The South Country.

The Downs aren't butch and rugged and attention grabbing, but they were always nice to come home to, soft and billowy, with a bosomy hug and a scone out of the Aga. After a while the comforts of home pall and one longs for adventure again, but it's nice to think that the green grass and the white chalk and the bright blue sea will be there to come home to.

But then I went and looked the poem up and read it properly, and I must say I think it is the most dreadful, pass-the-bucket, sentimental doggerel after all, and I fear that it was Belloc himself, no doubt ensconced in a cosy corner of some Sussex hostelry coming up with this drivel (he never even gets as far as the East before he starts rambling), who best deserves the epithet 'sodden and unkind' for being so dismissive of the delights of the rest of England.

Still, he was French.

The last of England

When we went to Braunston last Saturday, we ended up in a pub in the high street called, I think, the plough. It was a perfectly nice pub (Adnams Explorer and Black Sheep), but I wonder whether, if it hadn't closed last month, we might have gone to the Admiral Nelson instead. I always thought I would, one day, visit this legendary canal pub where generations of boatmen had drunk; where Leslie Morton held court in the sixties. And now perhaps I never shall. Which goes to show that you should always carpe diem, for one thing.

The loss of one pub is only the tip of the iceberg though. According to CAMRA, pubs in Britain are closing at the rate of thirty nine a week. Once closed, most won't reopen. Some of the big 'pubcos' are even selling former pubs with restrictive covenants preventing them being reopened as pubs. Some of these might represent no great loss - but others are of historic or architectural significance, or are the heart of a community which has already lost its shops and Post Office. The reasons and the chain of blame for this sorry state of affairs is long and complex, and while this is probably the direst things have ever been, the issue is not entirely new. Hillaire Belloc wrote in 1912 (in a Sussex pub)

From the towns all Inns have been driven: from the villages most... Change your hearts or you will lose your Inns and you will deserve to have lost them. But when you have lost your Inns drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.

Bearded. Did beer.

I am a great fan of real ale. It is refreshing and nutritious, environmentally friendly and socially responsible. I love beer. So it pains me greatly to have to report that I have never in all my born days seen such an unappetising bunch of individuals (male, to a man) as were congregated at the London Drinker Beer Festival this lunchtime. It wasn't just the fact that well over half of them had beards; I have nothing against beards. Many boaters have beards, albeit luxuriant, freshly washed and lovingly combed ones. It wasn't just the clothes, the decades old Scruttock's Old Dirigible* T-shirts that hadn't been removed for... well... decades. It might have been the smeared spectacles; it might have been the wobbling stomachs, and the shuffling trainers, the dandruff. This was not masculinity at its alpha male best, it has to be said.

But hell, I wasn't there to size up the talent. I was only there for the beer (and the commemorative glass and the T-shirt. Cos it's got a boat on it). In fact I wouldn't have gone at all but for the fact my lunch date cancelled and I got an email reminding me to support the event because CCNA (aka Tarporley) is the festival's chosen charity this year (although worryingly I failed to spot any collecting tins).

And what an amazing event it is. Turning up at the first session, a Wednesday lunchtime, I expected it to be fairly quiet, but the former St Pancras Town Hall was absolutely heaving; there was barely space to weave through to the bars that took up two entire walls of the hall - and that's without the cider (14) and perry (6) and the foreign beers, which had their own spots. It was - as these events usually are, for who would invite the inevitable opprobrium of doing otherwise - very well organised. There was food too - I had a very nice sausage; apparently they have a different one every day, which made up for not going to Carluccio's. I couldn't stay long (well, to be perfectly honest, I was running out of places to put myself) but I sampled two of the beers on offer; they weren't chosen entirely on the basis of their names, but one was called Navvy, and the other, brewed especially for the festival by Brighton brewer Dark Star, was Battlebridge (as that was 5.6% I thought I had better make it my last).

So if you can stand the clientele, it's well worth dropping in.

*With apologies and/or grateful acknowledgement to Alexei Sayle circa 1982 - it has stayed with me ever since. You may recall the distinguishing features to be found in the bottom of the glass; if not, I don't think I'll repeat it.

Wiggly lines

Whenever we go to Ramsey I'm struck by the similarity between the logo of Cambridgeshire County Council and that of our own dear East Sussex County Council. Given that ours - redesigned imperceptibly but at great expense many years ago when I was interested in such things - is meant to represent the chalk downs and the sea, shouldn't Cambridgeshire's be two straight lines?

The age of the train

It's probably just as well I don't do air travel, given how amazed I am by the potential even of the railway to whisk one into another world before you even know it. At seven o'clock this morning I was on the boat at Bill Fen, which feels like the quietest, remotest place in England (quiet apart from the peacocks that is, which I think could quite easily drive you mad if you were that way inclined); at seven thirty I was at Huntingdon station and even allowing for the train being delayed by overrunning engineering works at Stevenage, at half past eight I was part of the stream of humanity flowing up the Euston Road. At my desk by nine - unheard of.

It has been an interesting weekend, which I started writing about last night, but was just too exhausted, so I gave up and went to bed at half past eight. Must have been either the fresh air or the excitement. Yesterday I was laying on the grass next to the river, in the spring sunshine, working (!) on my conference paper, and on Saturday we went to Braunston for the HNBOC AGM and slideshow of photos of the BCN in the 50s and 60s. Must be that that wore me out I guess.

Apologies for absence

In fact, I'm only doing this now as a displacement activity because I should be knocking a conference paper into shape before we go away for the weekend... But though I have been busy, that doesn't usually stop me posting; no, this time it's been compounded by an ongoing... ahem... disagreement with Pipex, who without a by-your-leave took over the previously trouble free and really rather good Toucan a couple of months ago, lost any trace of our having paid them, and cut us off, leaving us in the position of being put on hold on a mobile for half an hour at a time to try to sort it out. Grrr. So as soon as that is sorted out it's bye bye Pipex, hello... Post Office? Virgin? Anyone got any recommendations? Also, soon I shall be in the market for recommendations for USB broadband, if anyone has any. I'd be particularly interested in hearing about genuine PAYG deals, as there will be some months I probably won't use it at all.

Ah well, back to work. Perhaps I'll just have another cup of tea first. And do the shopping.

Radio star

Jim has been off today getting his VHF licence (I meanwhile wrote 2,833 words not counting these). I am not sure precisely what he is planning to do with it, although the fact that he has been going around the house for the last few days muttering 'Trent Lock, Trent Lock, Trent Lock' under his breath is not necessarily reassuring.

(Isn't that an American senator, I wondered, delighted at the coincidence, until I realised a bit later that the senator's surname was actually Lott. I was at school with a girl called Susan Lott who was rather uncharitably known as 'Gibbon' because whenever she knew the answer (which was frequent) she wouldn't just put her hand up, but would stretch wildly towards the ceiling, bounce up and down on her chair, and go 'ooh, ooh, ooh'. Gosh. I hope neither she nor anyone who knows her is reading this.)

What it means in the short term is that Jim and Moomin will have new toys to play with at Bill Fen next week.

Three short years

To fill up the space when I can't think of anything to say during the month of March, I shall be reminiscing about our first voyage with Warrior, when we brought the boat from its mooring at Hargrave, on the Shroppie just south of Chester, to Stretton Wharf where it was to remain for the next year. This was just before I started the blog - at least in earnest - and I have raided my drawer full of shiny prints to bring you.... some pretty smoke rings, just before we set off. We began our journey - me, Jim and Baz - on April 9th 2006, after first having visited Huddersfield to replace Andante's window and clear up the broken glass following what must have been one of West Yorkshire's least productive burglaries.

I know what we did and when because it is all in The Red Book, a hardback notebook that I bought in Wilko's in Huddersfield to be our log for our new boat. So far we have kept it up fairly assiduously. It is interesting to note that on this day Warrior's engine was difficult to start and running very hot... which was solved by removing the thermostat. I suppose we should have known then not to put it back.

T-shirts and anoraks

Much excitement this morning as the latest HNBOC Newsletter dropped onto the doormat, in time for me to take it to read on the train, in the hope that someone will lean over and ask, do you like old boats too... Two copies, in fact, as the CCNA one comes to me as well, as I was the one who signed them up.

And the AGM is the weekend after next, complete with slideshow. I've never liked to go before, feeling a bit of an interloper as a mere associate member. But now, as the representative of a genuine bona fide qualifying craft I can hold my head up. Perhaps. It's all still a bit vicarious but I think I can cope. It was announced at the committee meeting on Tuesday that the Tarporley T-shirt order has finally been sent off, and the garments should arrive within a couple of weeks. I really really want one to wear to the AGM...

Anyway, I had tea this afternoon with a colleague, and asked him if he could possibly cover for me at a Saturday School on June 27th, and then explained why... and told him about Tarporley as well (marketing officers are never off duty) and I think he might have been foolish enough to look interested so the next thing was I had whipped out the Newsletter and was going ooh look, well that's a Royalty Class and...

... and he started rather pointedly looking to see where I had left my anorak, before giving me a copy of an article he'd written about the Labour Party's attitude to retailing between 1931 and 1951. It was very interesting actually.

Beer!

Much as I love beer, I don't go to beer festivals very often - in fact the last one was at the Star in Huddersfield, that's how long ago it was.

This is largely because , in the words of my most apposite, if not my favourite, Shakespeare line, 'I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking.' I've been working on it, over the years, putting in lots of practice, and I think I'm improving, but I don't really have the capacity for alcohol that full appreciation of a beer festival demands. Wimp.

But even if I don't go myself - and I might pop by one lunchtime. Or two - I thought I would put in a plug for the North London branch of CAMRA's festival, very conveniently located round the back of Camden Town Hall just off the Euston Road. During the course of the event they are going to be collecting money for charity - and that charity is the Camden Canals and Narrowboat Association, aka Tarporley.

If you're thinking of going, do let me know.

Spring in my step

Everyone, it seems, is full of the joys of spring, and I shall be no exception. The days are growing longer, the mornings lighter (harrumph, go the government, we shall soon do something about that) and I have broken out my spring footwear.

I don't have summer and winter wardrobes - that would require far too much planning and storage - but I do have a strict footwear rota. November, December, January, February - boots; May, June, July and August - sandals, and March and April, September and October, Sensible Shoes.

Which reminds me tangentially that when I was at primary school, the arbiter of whether or not there would be swimming that day was whether Mr Fletcher was wearing shorts in assembly. Those were the days, when teachers could come to work in shorts. I am not sure though why swimming was such a cause for excitement, given that the 'swimming pool' was something like a very large wooden packing crate lined with wrinkled slimey polythene, and full of cold green bitter tasting water, garnished with dead greenfly.

Ghost ship

Yesterday I was due to go out as crew on Tarporley for the first time proper, so I was very excited at the prospect of getting some boxes ticked off on my training sheet and starting the process towards becoming a Community Boating Association qualified steerer. So I left home bright and early to catch the rail replacement bus (oh yes), thinking I would be there in plenty of time for a ten thirty briefing and eleven o'clock departure.

Only the bus driver couldn't make the turn into the station car park and we had to go round again, and by the time we had disembarked the train had gone, and we had to get another, much slower one (I've lived round here for nigh on forty years and I still had no idea there were so many stations between Brighton and Victoria). So, having left the house at half past seven, it was twenty to eleven when I finally arrived at Kings Place full of apologies to David the day's steerer (I cannot bring myself to say skipper - I'd be going aye aye cap'n next) and fellow crew member Graham... but no passengers.

After an hour and numerous attempts to contact the customer, we decided that as it was such a nice day we would go anyway, to Little Venice and back (a stoppage in the other direction made this our only option, but I wasn't about to complain - I'm just about becoming familiar with the route). Shortly after we left we learned that the booking had been cancelled, but was going to be re-booked... and by this time we were well on our way.

The weather was perfect - the sun even struggled through a bit, my fellow crew members were excellent company, and standing at Hampstead Road with the sun on my back, waiting for the lock to fill, smelling the food (etc.), listening to some rather nice Peruvian nose flute music, and watching the people watching us, it occured to me that if there's anything better than taking a Grand Union motor boat through Camden Lock on a sunny afternoon, then it must be pretty damned good.

Once we got to Little Venice and spun round the island I took over the tiller and brought us all the way back to Kings Place without hitting anything (lock gates not included but I didn't hit any very hard, even when I did momentarily forget which way the throttle turned. (Tarporley = volume control (thanks Moomin); Warrior = tap). I even managed to put the boat in various correct positions to pick people up and made a reasonable fist of parking when we got back. In many ways the big boat is easier to handle; the steering is more intuitive (if physically more demanding) and it is more likely to stay put, at least as long as it's not windy. I love the Grand Union gear wheel, and suspect that I'm more ready to use it, and thus make better use of the gears, than Warrior's push/pull control - now I've thought of that I shall try harder. So all in all a most enjoyable outing and a great confidence booster.

Just wish I'd remembered to take the bloody training sheet with me.

Cry freedom (and buy the T-shirt)

If you are an avid reader of the Guardian or the Observer, you might have read about the Convention on Modern Liberty that took place yesterday in London. Well, I think the convention bit refers to the event, but there is also a sort of organisation; at least it has a website.

As soon as I heard about this event, I signed up, although it cost £35. I did this for a number of reasons. Firstly, the issues on which they are campaigning are those that have always been dear to my heart: civil liberties, human rights and the gradual, quiet erosions of our freedoms and privacies over recent decades which has escalated in the last few years to a quite frightening degree - the same reasons that cause me to be a member of Liberty and to support NO2ID.

Secondly, I'm about to start work on a book about freedom; more specifically about how the idea of freedom has been shaped and used by politicians through the ages. So this also seemed a good reason for going. Thirdly, there was quite a star-studded cast. I went to sessions on press freedom, with Alan Rusbridger, Nick Cohen and Andrew Gilligan, and on liberty and republicanism - where there was a really interesting discussion, and I finally got the chance to see Quentin Skinner, an academic whose work I've long enjoyed, speak live. Whilst watching David Davies give his plenary oration on the big screen in the foyer, a strange man caught my eye and half smiled as if he thought he knew me... but he didn't, because he was Billy Bragg.

And finally, I met someone who I have long admired for not just talking about it but really doing it - Peter Tatchell. Whatever you think of the causes he stands up for you would be hard pushed not to be awestruck by his dedication and the sacrifices he has made, over decades now, to defend human rights. Although in the media he can come across as a bit 'worthy', in person he was absolutely charming - and a brilliant soap box orator to boot.

Will the Convention on Modern Liberty make any difference? Will the fact that the Shadow Home Secretary clearly and unequivocally promised to scrap the ID cards scheme, and to repeal a good deal more of the 50 or so recent peices of legislation that chip away at our freedoms really be remembered after the next election? Will the government take a blind bit of notice of a gathering of the Guardianistas they already so despise? Or were we just talking to each other, articulating our unease and our fears, and making ourselves feel good by buying T-shirts? Well, even if we were, that's no bad thing. Yesterday's convention may have been preaching to the converted, but the converted will have had their confidence and their arguments bolstered, and the coverage of the event will hopefully bring these issues to a wider audience.

Hopefully.

Books I have read in February

I was going to count how many cups of tea and pints of beer I had in February, like Diamond Geezer, but firstly, that would have been a bit derivative, and secondly, I lost count.

But I can, just about, keep track of my reading matter, and if I volunteer to share it with the world, that will help me to steer clear of the most egregious tripe when I'm in the library. This doesn't include work reading; only what might loosely be called pleasure, or more accurately, killing time. Most train journeys (an hour and a half each way to work, although I really should try to do more work on the train, especially as I now have my new toy); and on the sofa of an evening when my brain's too exhausted to read anything that actually requires thinking.

My usual strategy is to go into the paperback section of the local library, which is not large (hardbacks are not so convenient for lugging around) and select one volume from each section of shelf. Not quite randomly, because I'll put it back if it looks too awful; chick lit, magic realism or mediaeval monastery. This is supplemented by the odd book I buy at the station (if I've forgotten or finished the library book), find lying around, or, rarely, go out of my way to buy.

So, in February I read:

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The dangers of adultery, debt and arsenic in nineteenth century rural France. But mostly debt.

Journeys of the Swan by John Liley
A deliberate purchase, this, and will tell you more anon. Very good though.

Bread upon the Waters by David Blagrove
A re-read for reasons that may become apparent but probably won't.

The Portrait by Iain Pears
Painter takes his murderous revenge on critic, all in the second person. Not quite unreadable.

The Hours of the Night by Sue Gee
Surprisingly good sparsely told tale of various unrequited loves, spoiled by glib wrapping up on the final page.

Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka
That difficult second novel. Frothy comedy of human trafficking and factory farming featuring a dog that thinks in English.

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
Slightly surreal but strangely engaging fifties period piece, with a really good dog.

Out of my Depth by Emily Barr
Disappointing. Maybe I got her mixed up with someone else.

Pause Between Acts by Mavis Cheek
Formulaic and superficial. But Simon Hoggart likes her, so I keep trying.

The Lucky Ones by Rachel Cusk
Minutiae of women's lives, but in a different league from the last two. Beautifully observed detail.

The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
Delightful. Though I suspect if you read the whole oeuvre from end to end it might become a trifle repetitive.

Buried by Mark Billingham
Police detective race against time sort of thing. I'm always on the lookout for new authors in this genre - this one's OK.

All the Colours of Darkness by Peter Robinson
Newly out in paperback, the latest case for DCI Alan Banks. One of my favourite series. I'm still reading this one, but it's looking good.

Uxbridge Farewell

This was not a random selection, but an irresistible photo... There's me, sadly walking off into the sunset (the main subject of the picture, I like to think) ... and there's a man who appears to have mislaid his trousers.

Scenes from last summer X

And a final February random selection, in which we see Warrior and the Duck nearing their destination, on the penultimate day of the Grand Tour. So just what is that settlement in the distance?

Scenes from last summer IX: Dog Days

I must apologise. I have - so far - managed to post every day in February, but only at the cost of posting some extremely boring photos. The trouble is, there just isn't much happening in February. Things start happening soon; Jim is off in a couple of weeks to make the final preparations for the Easter Excursion, and then the Easter Excursion (or incursion, I suppose, if you happen to be reading this in Cambridge) will occur, closely followed by the June Jaunt and then the August Outing, which will no doubt provide reams of fascinating copy. March will also bring at least one new book review, and there is the possibility - I put it no higher than that - of me getting a ride on a Big Woolwich... so watch this space.

In the meantime, here is a picture of the front end of Canis Major, as featured in the Advent Calendar, which is (and here I duly reference AMModels) the back end of the GU butty Canis, but I don't know whether that constitutes the front end of Canis Major, and is therefore in the picture, or not. My admittedly untrained eye plumps for not, but I stand to be corrected. It is not, of course, in itself boring.

Scenes from last summer VIII

Gosh - nearly forgot to post today. So here, at the eleventh hour, is the rather swoopy Parexcel building in Uxbridge. I'd love to know more about its history...

The temptations of the Nene

Following our posh lunch yesterday with relatives various, and tea and buns and presents in Wootton Bassett, we dashed back down the M4 in order to meet Craig, whose hectic schedule meant it was either last night or next month, to discuss our cunning plan for June jaunts.

Having long promised to show him what counts as a good time in Newhaven, we took him down the road to our local, the Prince of Wales, which was as heaving as I've ever seen it, with about seven people in total present. And there, over pints of Harveys, we beguiled him with photos of the Nene, displayed on my nifty little baby computer.

Well, the idea was well and truly sold, and the deal was done, and Craig and Jim will be navigating Warrior from Peterborough to Northampton over the weekend of June 20th. I will then take over (a handover in the Malt Shovel sounds like good practice) and the idea is that we then proceed to Braunston and find a convenient but non-obstructive spot for the following weekend's f&f in order to facilitate all night frolicking and non-stop fun.

Another birthday

This time it's my Auntie Doreen, who's 90 today. Any minute now we're off to Swindon to help her celebrate it. My sister has just sent me this lovely photo, circa 1920, of my grandparents (the grandfather that I never met, who was a Great Western boilermaker (though that's not what I imagined one would look like), and the scary Grandma, from Jersey, whom he collected, not speaking a word of English, on a GWR outing, and who lived to be ninety nine) and my father, Leslie, and Doreen. A second sister, Ina, was to arrive a few years later.

Happy Bazday

And here's the birthday boy about fourteen years ago - one of my all time favourite photos of him. It takes a lot to look that mean and moody whilst wearing fluorescent green wellingtons and holding a slice of bread.

Snow fun (ouch)

Tomorrow is Baz's birthday when I will, in time honoured fashion, post a cute picture of his younger self. For today though, a completely non-embarrassing and mature photo taken a couple of weeks ago.

Cold comfort

Browsing through G2 on arriving home this evening, my eye was caught by an article about people giving up their fridges in order to reduce their carbon footprint. Oooh, I thought, no fridge. Just like me on Andante. I wonder if there are any hints I might have benefited from.

Well, what a swizz. These people who have oh-so-greenly unplugged their fridges still, it transpires, have a 'small freezer' in their basement. Plus a 'cool box' upstairs. And this is still treated as an enormous deal. This despite the fact that within living memory, most people didn't have fridges (surely in fact, the electric fridge was invented within living memory). I mean, Jim isn't that ancient, but he remembers his family getting their first, second hand, General Electric model. People had larders, and meat safes. Hmm, and daily deliveries from the milkman and the butcher's boy.

Admittedly, I had a fridge on Andante - one of those little brown gas ones - but it didn't work. We took it all the way to Sowerby Bridge (we got as far as Brighouse by boat, but then had to turn round and come back and go by car. No, we had to buy bolts, turn round and come back and go by car) to get it decoked or whatever it needed, and oh the excitement when we finally (with much lying on the floor squinting into its little mirror) got it to light. Cautiously, I put the CO detector in close - possibly, with hindsight, too close - proximity to its workings, and watched and waited. Unbelievably, it seemed to be working. A few hours later I was wondrously poking at the thin film of ice that was forming on the top of the ice cube tray, when off went the alarm. And that was the end of that little experiment. Subsequently, Jim bought a 12v fridge - a full size one - on ebay, which was wired in just before I sold the boat.

So, all the time I lived on Andante, in short, I was fridgeless. When it was very hot, I would buy a bag of ice in Sainsburys, and put it in a tin tray on the top shelf. But mostly I just kept stuff in the gap under the foredeck, sitting on top of the pig iron ballast, where it was a bit wobbly, but always cool. This in fact was the original beer cupboard, and never bettered.

Here are my top tips for living without a fridge:
1. Don't eat meat
2. Don't eat fish. Unless it's tinned.
3. Eat up everything you've cooked so that you don't have any leftovers (the main reason, I think, that I left Huddersfield a stone and a half heavier than I arrived. But it might have been the pie and peas).
4. Take your milk to work with you every day and let it chill out in their fridge (cheat! cheat!) Or you could buy fresh every day.

Oh look, here's fun

For weeks now Jim has been driving me mad (yes, even more than usual) by reading out bits from CWF and from emails from Moominpapa, and worse, far worse, trying to EXPLAIN to me about matters electrical, and this is something I neither want nor need to know. The fact that I have a total mental block against understanding it doesn't help either. But will he stop trying to tell me?

Yes, yes, I know it's important to know the basics. And I thought I did. I know how to wire a plug and I know what fuses are for and how domestic earths work, and I know not to stick my fingers in sockets and throw electric fires in the bath and all that sort of thing. But bloody hell, it's a whole different ball game on boats. In my naivety, I'd have thought that 12v DC would have to be simpler than 240v AC, but how wrong can you be?

But I suspect that no one else really knows either. Otherwise they wouldn't constantly be arguing about it, would they? It's a matter of as deep division as the Creed. It's what we philosophers call an essentially contested concept.* There are, I would go so far as to hazard, no objective truths (short of don't stick your fingers in the socket).

So these objects are for something. Just don't ask me what.

*Don't bother looking it up. This is not, strictly speaking, true.

Scenes from last summer VII

A wall, somewhere in Northampton.

Scenes from last summer VI

Having been reassured that my random number selection is sufficiently random for these purposes. I bring you once again the Warrior Duck somewhere between Pitstone and Soulbury locks, in the rain that was to hamper their onward progress considerably.

This is of course a singularly inapropriate selection for today which actually, briefly, here at least, felt like the first day of spring, and made me SO wish I was on a boat.

But doesn't Warrior's fore end look nice.

How random?

Moominpapa suggests that my method of randomly selecting a number between one and four hundred, as I have been doing for recent photos from last summer, may not be all that random. He may be right, although I think it will be random enough for these purposes, where it isn't being used very often, and it's completely independent of the photos themselves. It's a pack of cards, so the randomness largely depends upon how well it's been shuffled and reshuffled and where it's cut.

I need to create a three digit figure, between 1 and 400.

So for the first digit, let hearts = zero, clubs = 1, diamonds = 2 and spades = 3

For the second and third digits, let 1 = 1 and so on, with 10 = zero and discounting picture cards.

This doesn't however give an equal chance to each number between 1 and 400; unless one had three packs or reshuffled the whole pack between each selection, it would militate against the last two digits being the same, and the latter two selections might also be influenced by the first if that were not a picture card.

So it may not, technically, be completely random. But it serves my purpose; it rules out the possibility of me exerting any preference, whether consciously or not, and above all, it saves me actually having to make a choice.

Scenes from last summer V

Pick any random number between one and four hundred. The fifth time I do it, and I pick a photo I've already used. So I picked another one. I can't see the names, but I guess it must be Cedar, with Cyprus inside. Cyprus is another of those rather charming misspellings; it should be Cypress, as in the tree, but got named after the country instead. Of these four Erewash boats (built by Yarwoods?) I also saw Ash when I was in Birmingham.

Scenes from last summer IV

Septembr 15th, Warrior and the Duck emerge from Titchmarsh Lock on the Nene.

Something funny's been happening with the blog today - when I access it from the address bar, whether on the main pc or the laptop, the sidebar comes up but it's blank where the posts should be - but when I access it via a link or through the archive, it's fine. Has anyone else noticed or experienced this?

Fear and loathing

I warn you now, not only does this have nothing to do with boats, it isn't even mildly amusing. But it's something that's bothered me for quite a while, and I was reminded of it by this story in the paper this morning.

It's the misuse of the suffix 'phobia' that bothers me. It started with homophobia, and now we have Islamophobia; more new formations will no doubt follow if they haven't already.

But the thing is, a phobia is a fear. An unreasonable fear, but a fear nonetheless. And we usually feel sympathy for people who are afraid of something, no matter how foolish or misplaced we judge their fear to be.

These new 'phobias' do not actually refer to fears at all, but to hatreds. Fear and loathing may well be closely related, but they are not the same thing. We can sympathise with someone who is afraid of, say, horses, but not someone who wants to go out and hurt them, or wipe them off the face of the earth.

Take women. There are two clearly different words to describe fear of women - gynaephobia, and hatred of women - misogyny. So it is possible; there is a prefix available that denotes (unreasonable) hatred. We need to be able to make this distinction in other areas as well. The lazy use of the term 'phobia' by journalists who can't construct a new term with a more appropriate 'mis' prefix robs us of a valuable sublety in our language, and brackets together those who fear and those who hate. It's not the same thing, and we shouldn't allow the lazy use of language to blur the distinction.

Easter excursion

Emails have been winging prolifically between Jim and Moominpapa planning our joint Easter Expedition. We are going to go to Cambridge with Warrior and Melaleuca in convoy, possibly stopping off along the way (or the way back) to explore minor waterways and expensive eateries.

I shall be enjoying my annual jaunt to the Political Studies Association - in Manchester this year - until April 9th, so it looks as if we shall travel up to Bill Fen on Friday early morning, throw our things and provisions onto the boat and depart post haste to make eight hour journey to Salters Lode by nightfall, in order to go through on the 10.30a.m. tide on Easter Saturday.

Then we will wend our way at a more leisurely pace up the Ouse and onto the Cam, hopefully meeting up with people along the way, and spend a couple of days in Cambridge checking that the nice pubs are still there before returning within a week or so.

Prior to that, Jim has to pay another maintenance visit, to make sure that all is finished and prepared for which I suppose is the start of the season, as we're planning some early summer boating too this year. So I expect the plans will be fine tuned/altered/ completely rewritten before we actually go - but if you think we might be passing you, do say.

And for my next target

Yes, I meant it.

Mind you, ever since I read Joan Bakewell on what a boon wheelie suitcases are for the elderly, enabling them to get out and about in ways previously not possible, I would not ban them outright (unlike umbrellas, which surely could be brought under existing legislation covering offensive weapons).

Actually, I'm a liberal; I don't want to ban anything outright. I think some kind of licencing scheme might be the answer. Old people could have a free licence, but it would act as a deterrent to those who don't really need them.

Why has there been such a proliferation in recent years? It must be something to do with the development of miniature wheel technology - or else a blinding brainwave that no one had thought of before, but I suspect the former - that has caused so many to be available, in so many different sizes.

But why have they caught on so successfully, to the extent that even the smallest case now it seems is not complete without wobbly wheels and a flimsy pull-out handle. Have we all suddenly become weeds, unable to lift luggage that we managed perfectly well ten years ago? Were there serried ranks of friendly uniformed porters at every rail and tube station right up until the moment that these things first appeared on the market, at which point they all became redundant? Or is it just that people now take far more stuff with them wherever they go just because, thanks to the advent of little nylon wheels, they can?

Only, of course, as soon as they come to a staircase, they can't. They become as helpless as Daleks. You see them plaintively standing at the bottom, anchored to their case like a ball and chain, pondering the cruel trick that promised them that they could take the entire contents of their wardrobe and six pairs of shoes on that weekend break. Similarly when (as not infrequently happens) the wheels fall off or the handle breaks, and they're stuck with lugging it around in the old fashioned way for the rest of their trip. These days, even abandoning it isn't an option.

More seriously, presumably TfL have given some consideration to what happens to all the cases, large and small, should the tube need to be evacuated - say if there were a fire. Can you imagine how they would impede people's exit as great heaps of them built up at the bottom of the stairs?

No. Take a tip from me - never travel with more than you can comfortably carry. Even if that does include a roll of black and white check vinyl.

Another gratuitous attack

Time to offend another large section of the population with a completely uncalled for, prejudiced rant.

Umbrellas. Um-bloody-brellas. At the first drop of drizzle, out they come, quadrupling the amount of pavement space each person takes up, and imperilling the eyeballs of those sensible enough to eschew this idiocy.

Why do you need a bloody umbrella? It's only a drop of water. How do you manage to have a shower, for heaven's sake, if you're scared of getting wet? If it really bothers you then get a coat. And a hat. Have you any idea how daft you look carrying your own personal little roof around with you? Particularly if it's one of those cheap crap folding ones and you spend more time shaking it and trying to turn it the right way round than actually sheltering under it.

More to the point, have you any idea how selfish and thoughtless you are being? Just because everybody else is doing it, doesn't make it OK you know. It's not just the eyes. When you're carrying the thing on the tube, do you realise that you're jabbing the point of it into the thigh of the person behind you? When you leave it on the office floor, open, to dry, can you not see that it's in everyone else's way, dripping? And when you are at an outdoor spectacle, does it not occur to you that you are obscuring the very view that the people behind you have every much right as you to see? Amazingly, utterly amazingly, this really does not seem to occur to people. Ask them to put the umbrella down and they look at you as if you're the stupid one, and say, but it's raining. Bloody go indoors if you don't like it, and let us hardier souls enjoy whatever it is we have come to see unimpeded.

Umbrellas are the ultimate manifestation of selfish individualism on an everyday level. I'm-all-right-Jack under my little shelter; sod the inconvenience to everyone else.

Tomorrow: wheeled suitcases.

Scenes from last summer III

Yes, this was random, I swear. Gemini (which I have never seen), on September 3rd, somewhere between Pitstone and Tring, as my dating/placing system seems to be fairly reliable.

A proposition for Craig

The year before last we toyed with the idea of taking Warrior to Braunston (the occasion, not just the place), to have a base for the weekend and thus be able to enjoy it to the full. We didn't, in the end, because we went to Atherstone for the RN rally and just generally didn't get our act together, but it is re-emerging as part of a plan for this year (yep, it's that time of year again, when plans start to emerge, all unpredictable, like the green shoots of spring).

The original tentative plan was based around going to the IWA festival at Radcliffe-on-Soar. The problem with that - other than the fact that once you've been to one or three the novelty wears off a bit, unlike other events I could mention - is that it's at the wrong end of August. Flexible though my time is, I do need to be back at work in September. But the thought of going there put the idea of crossing the Wash into our heads. It had already been in Jim's for quite some time, and I allowed it a small corner in mine on the proviso that we will actually have a pilot on our boat, steering it, won't we... And it spares me one navigation of the Nene. Having done that, but not gone to the IWA, we hoped to explore some northern canals we've not yet traversed: a circuit of the Leeds Liverpool and the Rochdale, perhaps, and a detour to Sheffield on the way.

But now there is a better plan, and it involves propositioning the ever keen Craig (who with Vicky came with us from Little Venice to Limehouse last year and were fantastic). It goes something like this. Jim brings Warrior solo from Bill Fen to Stanground, then picks Craig up at Peterborough. Craig - not me - enjoys the delights of three days on the Nene (and Craig, if you're reading this, I hasten to add that everyone except me thinks the Nene is absolutely wonderful. I have just taken agin it for no good reason, honest). I join the party at Northampton for a handover in the Malt Shovel. Craig may, if work calls, depart at this point, and I get to do the Rothersthorpe flight which I like a lot (mainly because it's at the end of the Nene), and we then proceed to Braunston where hopefully we can plot up somewhere that's not in the way of anyone big and important. The bugger with Braunston of course is that unlike Peterborough and Northampton, it's not well served by trains. Apparently one can do things with buses - if anyone knows what, with detailed instructions, I should be most grateful to be informed.

After that we will have a month or so before the summer holiday proper begins, and hopefully will be able to leave the boat somewhere even if that does mean coming south a bit and/or moving it once or twice. Then we can head north again - and, eventually perhaps, return via the Wash at the end of the year's travels.

Now and then...

I know I'm always banging on about things changing, and usually for the worse... And even if the change is for the better, I still have a bit of a problem with it. It's a bit hard to explain, but I suspect it's all of a piece with my inability to remember which direction I was walking in when I emerge from a shop, or to have any conception of how a linear route relates to a map - I can manage with one or the other, but it was a revelation to me that some people can effortlessly combine the two. The problem is that once something is changed, I simply cannot remember how it used to be. Just very recently it's dawned on me that some people have very visual memories, and others - e.g, me - don't. Most of my memories tend to be stored as human Word files, rather than jpegs. And of course the thing with the workings of the human mind is that it takes a long time before you realise that not everyone is the same as you.


Anyway, when I got back from Birmingham last week I showed Jim my nice Gas Street Basin photos, and last night, he recognised the very same scene on his second reading of September 1974's Waterways World (25p). The scene clearly isn't exactly the same - the buildings are different and I think the photo must have been taken from a different vantage point (but I can't be entirely sure, which is symptomatic of my affliction) but the amazing thing is that the boats could be the same. Some of them probably are.

Sincere apologies to WW for nicking the picture, but I do hope they won't mind.

Toilet travails, lavatorial larks and macerator madness

It's not only boaters who have trouble with their macerators. A certain senior offspring who lives not a million miles away (it would not quite be in good taste to refer to him here as number one son, although that is indeed his name) is dependent on one in his cottage. And it is not, ahem, macerating, although it is pumping fine.

I was apprised of this earlier when he turned up on the doorstep asking if he could borrow my prized Snap-On screwdriver to dismantle the unit. This seemed to me like a Very Bad Idea on a number of fronts, especially if it was going to involve my Snap-On, so I declined, and said he should wait til Jim got back. Provided they haven't actually broken it, it's still under guarantee, so we thought it best to ring up the proper man to come and look at it, but in the meantime we dug out the instruction book and troubleshooting guide, and have diagnosed the problem as a clogged air distributor, or disseminator, or something. I suggested hitting it with a hammer, but my technical expertise was not valued.

Meanwhile of course, life goes on. What a shame, I said, that we don't have a spare porta-potti at home that we could lend them. For we possess two (one belonging to Warrior and one to Helyn) but the bottom half of both is kept on Warrior (a back up and a spare back up). But then Jim remembered that when he last returned from Bill Fen he brought a bottom half with him, on account of the elsan point being frozen. Of course. So we had the bottom half. But could we find the spare top half? Picking our way through our outbuilding which, despite copious Freecycling and downsizing seems to be some kind of bottomless knick knack pit (from which they emerge, rather than one into which they disappear; just thought I ought to make that clear) by the light of a very feeble torch, it was definitely not where I remembered it. Son in question was then sent to clamber, in the dark and the wind and the damp, into Helyn on her trailer on the drive, and search there. The first time he emerged, he said there was only another bottom in there - impossible, I said, and gave him another leg-up. This time he turned it over and lo and behold it was the top so we now had the pair.

They have been duly clipped together and handed over, with instructions and directions as to where to find the manhole cover. Now all we, sorry, they, need is some blue...

Scenes from last summer II

According to the photo, this was September 8th, which, as it is clearly not the Rothersthorpe flight, would put it between Blisworth and there. It's just one of those completely anonymous, pretty pictures that you see on greetings cards and jigsaw puzzles, and think, now why did they chose that one? In my case of course, the answer is I chose it through my random number generator, which consists of a pack of cards and a set of instructions for generating any number between one and four hundred, for this purpose, but can be easily adapted. I might even share it with you, as long as you promise not to say I'm odd.

Scenes from last summer

Last night I was looking through Jims photos from last summer. You may recall that I had to decamp at Uxbridge, as paid employment called, but Jim continued with Luck Duck up the Grand Union to Northampton and thence through to Ramsey, with a few stops along the way to wait for the weather, meaning that in all this part of the journey alone took three weeks.

There are four hundred photos from this, and in some of them the sun is shining! So I thought it would be a nice antidote to pick a few random selections from this album over the remainder of the winter (oh, and I've got nothing else to write about of course).

Now obviously looking at this one, my first thought is 'what's the next boat along but one?' and as there are so many photos I only have to click back along the sequence to see that it is in fact Elstree.

Platform one and three quarters

Whenever I visit Tarporley, or the Museum, or, for that matter, my friend Dean, I always make sure to make use of the footpath along Platform One at Kings Cross. It's actually a lot more pleasant, and I guess it must be quicker, than walking around the outside, but above all it is a Matter Of Principle. Because, I hear from a range of sources, although I couldn't find anything on the web, plans are afoot to extinguish said right of way as part of the development of Kings Cross and the surrounding areas. There were, I believe, people counting how many people used the route, as if that would have a bearing, although I suspect (and so does an Islington councillor I met at some event last year) that it's a forlorn hope. It is quite heavily used, despite the powers that be clearly discouraging it (by making the exit path very narrow and invisible for a start) but I hold out no hope that the great god regeneration will fail to see it off in the end. Which is a shame.

There is a certain glamour and romance about Kings Cross that you don't find at other stations. When the mist rolls into that great shed you can almost imagine that it's smoke and steam wafting about. St Pancras, lovely as it is, is too new and clean to convey this atmosphere, and Euston - well, the less said the better.

I have a soft spot of course for Kings Cross because of my weekly commute to Huddersfield over a period of eighteen months. London may be one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, and wherever you go - including the concourse at Kings Cross - you are surrounded by people speaking hundreds of different languages; dressed in myriad different styles, and of all hues of skin and hair. But the really exotic thing, the promise of romance and adventure, is in the big fat red faced GNER guard, who greets you in a broad Yorkshire accent. It's that that tells you that this is the gateway to new and strange places.

A poem

Jim found this; it's the product list of the Liver Grease, Oil and Chemical Company, founded in 1809. I hope they won't mind me reproducing it for its sheer evocative poetry. It reminds me a bit of this poem.

Aluminium Solar Reflecting Bitumen Roofing Paint
Anti-Scuffing Compound & Grease
Bitumen Paint BS 3416 - Solid Bitumens
Beechwood Tar & Pitch
Barbados Tar
Burgundy Pitch
Black Lead Powder
Black Annealed Wire
Creosotes: Types 1, 2, and 3
Caulking pitches (black and white; hard and brittle to soft) + Oakum
Concrete Mould Oil
Chalk Lump
Caustic Soda
Cotton Waste (white and coloured)
Colza Oil
Cardium Compound equivalent
Carbolineum BS 144 (1990)
Caulking Irons made to order
Cork
Cork Dust
French Chalk as powder or sticks
Disinfectant Fluids (black, white and pine)
Distillate Degreasants
Export products Empty Tins / Drums.
Fish Oil
Flux Oil
Graphites
Greases
Greasy (gland) Packing
High Temperature Silicone Grease
Iron Cement
Jointing Compounds: white graphite, petrol & oil resisting for pipes.
Linseed Oils (raw, boiled)
Low Cost Oil and Grease from time to time
Lead Powders (red, yellow, white)
Lap Compound
Lime (quick, slaked)
Lime Wash Constituents
Lysol (disinfectant)
Molybdenum Disulphide Powder, blended in grease, wax or oil
Naptha
Oakum (Swedish)
Oils:
Coal Tar - a thin tar.
Colza - a burning oil for hurricane lamps
Shutter - for concrete.
Drying - for paint making.
Fish - for decks & ropes.
Paint - for surface coatings.
Storm - for hotter burning, and also pouring onto troubled waters.
Pine Tar - industrial perfume, and also for hoof oil.
Soap Oil.
Pitches: Petroleum, Vegetable, Mineral, Coal, Caulking, Burgundy
Quick Lime
Roofing Tar & Bitumens
Rosins (gum and wood)
Stockholm Tar
Sodium Hypochlorite
Spun Yarn
Solvents (numerous)
Spirits
Soap Oil
Storm Oil
Slushing Oil
Tallow
Tar
Tarred Marlin
Turpentine (substitutes or genuine)
Toluene
Tall Oils
Varnishes
Wood Preservatives (brown)
Wood Tar
Waxes (bees and petroleum)
White Lead Paste (or in Tallow)
White Spirit
White Petroleum Jelly
Xylene

Brummagem

This was my third or possibly even fourth visit to Birmingham, but the first time I managed to venture beyond hotel and conference centre. With a free afternoon I took full advantage to explore on foot where I have never yet ventured by water.

My first purchase on arrival was an A-Z (it is my intention to build a complete library of these) and with the help of this, a lot of brow-furrowing, and the helpful pedestrian fingerposts (which I am convinced are designed to funnel you to your destination via the shops, a bit like the signs that tell you you can only get to the end of the pier by going through the amusement arcade, even though this is clearly a lie) I eventually found some canal, and by dint of following some more signs on the towpath, arrived at Gas Street Basin. This was smaller and less glitzy that I had anticipated, which was far from being a disappointment; quite the reverse in fact.

In all my waterside perambulations I believe I saw only one other boat moving, and that was a BW tug and mud hopper (is that the right term? A boat full of mud anyway). Not a single pleasure boat was underway, and the visitor moorings were all empty.

I took a bracing stroll down the Farmers Bridge flight, and even now it is possible to see why this route was so hated by boatmen; even without the chemical outfalls, evil smelling sludge, dead dogs and factories it was dank and forbidding. So I loved it of course.

Making my way back through the city centre, I found England's second city rather disappointing. Although there are some very fine buildings, there are many more appalling ones, and there seems no sense of cohesiveness. Grand pieces of public art - including a Gormley sculpture and many lesser pieces - seem to have been dropped randomly about the place; as did the buildings themselves. The pedestrianisation of the city centre leaves it, as is so often the case, feeling sterile and artificial, and enormous shopping centres abound and dominate. There is still a great deal of dereliction, interspersed, again apparently randomly, with shiney regeneration. There was none of that sense of grandeur that you feel in, say, Manchester.

There was, however, a splendid memorial to Joseph Chamberlain, reminding us that this was the epicentre of Victorian civic pride, the municipal powerhouse driving the development of English local government and its mission to improve the lives, physically, educationally and spiritually, of the inhabitants of England's great industrial cities. Sadly, like its physical, architectural, manifestations, that mission is now but a shadow of its former self.