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.