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My first job in the private sector paid well, but I was not allowed to join the pension scheme until I had completed 10 years service. This pension scheme included me & the employer making contribuitons. 6 months after joining the pension scheme, we was bought out by another company, who immediately closed the pension scheme & didnt offer a new one, sacked 1/3 of the staff, put up the hours from 35 to 40 hours per week, reduced the holidays from 28 to 20 days per year, & those remaining had to take on the extra work for a 5% pay cut in actual pay (not playing with numbers to account for lost holidays, lost employer contribution to pension, extra hours worked). Everyone was sacked & only 2/3 offered their job back at the new rates, no redundancies. When I worked for the Public Sector, I was not allowed to join the pension scheme until I had completed 10 years service. 28 days holiday per year, 37.5 hours per week over 5 out of 6 days, full days Monday to Saturday, always had Sunday off (& 1 other rotating day per week). Hours of work were between 7.15 am - 6 pm (1 week early shift next week late shift) When this job was transferred to the private sector, the terms of employment were protected for 1 year. when this year was up the terms of employment changed (everyone on the council terms was sacked, not made redundant, & then offered the new contract) So the exact same job, pay cut by £6,000 per year. Hours increased from 37.5 to 45 hours per week. Hours of work changed from between 7.15 am to 6.30 pm to between 7.00am to 2.00 am, not neccesarily a full shift, you could start at 7.00 am have a few hours off in between & then come back to finish at 2.00 am & still have to start at 7.00 am the next day. Work now included Sundays as well, never a guaranteed day off, the weekly hours were often spread over 7 days. No overtime rates, & holidays cut from 28 to 20 days per year. The uniform now had to bought from the new employer at over inflated rates, eg a pair of police issue boots which could be bought at the local Walkers shop for £90 now had to be purchased from the new employer at £150 for the same boots. (The uniform was previously issued free of charge when public sector) The uniform changed 3 times in that 1st year. Now all employees for the same job are on minimum wage. No pension scheme. Instead of bitching about oh they've got it better than us, lets make it worse for them, evryone should band together to get decent pay & conditions for everyone, instead of making the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. So the politicians would have you believe everyone in the public sector has some gold plated pension scheme & lots of other perks. The same as they would have you believe everyone on benefits is work shy & raking it in. To put it simply, this just isnt true. The reality is people everywhere are on varied conditions. The rich & powerful want everyones conditions to get worse & worse so that they can have more money for themselves.

I used to be a Civil Servant, now I'm not. I regularly worked around the clock, with no breaks, often the only time I could sleep was when I was on a train or plane, going straight from one job to the next. Flexi-time existed but I used to be told off on a regular basis for accumulating far too much flex-leave, that I had no time to take, let alone my annual leave. There was often a bar in the building because I often worked in embassies and the diplomats hated integrating with the locals, constantly accusing me of "going native" (ironic considering their attitudes towards UK immigrants attempting to retain their culture.) I rarely used it though, preferring to get to know the country I was a guest in. It was a bit of a wake up call, after being in the private sector, working for a major research company, where we were paid to sit around and "think" though I left because I was sick of being told that I was overworking and "spoiling it for everyone else" No bar there but the canteen did wonderful egg and bacon butties. I also worked as an LGO, after leaving the civil service. I controlled a budget of around £9 million a year, every penny going into keeping private sector employees in work and buying materials from private companies.

Get that straight from the Daily Mail did we. The facts are somewhat different from your jaundiced opinion.

I was with Haven Knox Johnson. My boat sank on The Thames in the 2007 floods, the boat lay on the bottom for 6 weeks as river levels were high, as soon as they subsided, I rang them to ask the assessor to call. He arrived 2 days later and declared the boat a total loss. The cheque was posted within 10 days of the assessors visit. I was very impressed, the lady who took my initial call on the day of the sinking was a real sweetheart, calmed me down, and was most sympathetic. I don't currently own a boat, my next narrowboat purchase will be next year. Guess who I will be insuring it with, I don't care how much they charge, peace of mind is priceless.

Ok should put my 2p in here There has been much discussion on the IET forums (http://www.theiet.org/) following an article in wiring matters about the suitability of blue arctic cable for use at 230volts. The gist of it is that the blue cable does not meet the regulations as it was designed to be used on the O/P of transformers at 55-0-55 and the blue cable is the same spec as the yellow and thus does not meet the current regulations and the name is a misnomer as its not good insulation wise at lower temperatures. If you care to check in BS7671:2011 it doesnt directly mention the connecting cable in the marinas section, however it does in both the caravan and caravan site sections and it says that the cable used should be HO7RN-F to BS7919 or equivalent. Blue Arctic does not meet this spec so use at your own risk. I have always used H07RNF as its a far better cable

Bit late now but you lot keep on about pensions push off and start your own thread.

Hi guys, Sorry my first post has ruffled a few feathers; not my intention! It was banged off in a hurry! I have never posted on a forum before so I am very much a newbie & have no intention of deliberately breaking etiquette. Please feel free to advise me, I will do my best to comply. I was asking questions that didn't seem to be coming up in this thread & which will be very relevant to Joshua if he pursues his dream. Others (perhaps CarlT?) may have time to answer them on the forum. I just don't, & this is probably the most time I will spend replying to posts from now on! Skipper says "See this is your first posting guess you have been busy collecting your years of experiences before letting loose this deluge of knowledge on the boating world." In a nutshell, & not as I would have phrased it myself, but... yes that's exactly what I have been doing. Sorry if that offends you. I'm not claiming to be the font of all knowledge, only to have a lot of experience in a particular way of life. My post was intended to offer that up so that others don't make the same expensive mistakes I have. I simply have neither the time or inclination to spend my time at a keyboard entering into this kind of discussion. So rightly or wrongly, I put a post on this forum that was aimed at assisting someone who I recognise as being in a similar situation as I was many years ago. Probably a mistake, would you say, Skipper? I am privileged to be the owner of a Roger Farrington boat & I would be happy to show anyone who wants to take the time to travel to Northamptonshire why Roger's boats are exceptional, IMHO. I spent about 8 years CC'ing, gathering every scrap of practical advice from my own experience & listening to the experiences of others. The reality of this lifestyle is far removed from many people's dreams & preconceptions. There was so much I learned from the way others had found solutions to the unique problems we were all facing. I took the best of those ideas, added a few ideas of my own, & asked Roger to build me a boat incorporating it all. It all works pretty well & has stood the test of time, but it is my own approach which would not suit everyone. It suits me, it works, I'm happy. Doesn't mean I think I know it all. So I am willing to spend time chatting or passing on hard won experience in person or on the phone, & happy to leave others to decide the value of my opinions. I am sure they will not be what many want to hear & lots people will disagree, which is fine by me. I'm not prepared to spend time on a forum playing "I'm right, your wrong". I would rather be boating. I didn't mean to, but I did provoke a discussion "on a website that is designed to provoke discussion" didn't I? :-),

Hmmm ... Steve Hudson himself described his boat hull shape as 'genuine Josher' at Crick when I first met him, but then he thought Ellen (my daughter then aged 16) and I were lesbians so I'm not a great fan of his powers of discernment!

Maybe best to act a little dumb and say you haven't received a licence renewal. That you'd bought the boat in June and the broker had suggested/implied/etc that all relevant paperwork done. If you offer to pay by debit card, for the full year, over the phone when you are told nothing had been received by BW, you may, may, as long as the BW person has got out of the right side of the bed, get away with a discount. Have a look at the table in the links above to find your fees, both std and discounted, so you know where you stand. Do it today, now!!

What a day it was! Big crowds in brilliant warm sunshine. we were pleased to bump into Miss Bones, the Nightwatches and the Berengarias. A tremendous range of stalls (I especially liked the Norman cheese merchant's stall from Coutainville), some intersting boats too - I would have liked to see the tug 'Oxford 1' under power from her Lister JPs, probably capable of tugging a water-skier.

So, let's help the lady with her shopping First a couple of questions for the lady Are you going to be using lots of mains gadgets at the same time (fridge, freezer, microwave, vacuum cleaner, kettle, TV, dishwasher, hairdrier, curling tongs, make up warmer...) or will you only be using a couple? The answer to this determines how complicated the wiring is beyond the "safety barrier". Will you want to use some, or all of these gadgets when away from your nice warm marina mooring? You've already identified the need for a cable to get the power from the shore to your boat, but don't exactly know what it will look like. Then you are confused by lots of jargon. Keeping it as simple as possible. First, the cable, as has been said this should be a good quality "arctic grade" one - use BLUE, because other colours mean other voltages. Most marina posts use a "16A outlet", this has three round pins. At the boat end it is customary to use a "16A socket" - this is so when the shore end is plugged in its hard (not impossible). The cable itself should be 2.5sqmm. You can buy made up cables in various lengths between 5 and 25m, and they cost about the same as buying the bits. Next we come onto the boat. Lets start from scratch and assume you've nothing. You will need a place to plug your shore line in, this will have PINS on it. Locate this so you want kick it, or trip over the cable. This will almost certainly be on the boat, so you need a hole, which is bunged up by the thing you plug your cable into. Move inside. I will list the bits you need, and explain what they do in simple terms. An earth bonding point - this is where the earth of the outside world and you boat meet. and either a glavanic isolator or an isolation transformer (lots of discussion earlier about what these do, so ...) A special sort of breaker called a Residual Current Breaker - this detects current flowing into the earth circuit and breaks the incoming supply These first three bits are all there to protect you as far as possible from getting mains electric shocks. Now, depending on the complexity of your mains system we may have one, or more, overload breakers. The idea of this is to prevent you blowing the shore line, or the marina supply. For anything more than a very simple "single mains socket" (well probably a double...) system you need to have a simple distribution box to hold all the breakers in one place, indeed for tidiness you may decide have one any way. You will then have the mains wiring around the boat, properly installed, using the correct types of cable and sockets. I have NOT mentioned "nice things" like inverters, generators, solar....... as it is obvious that the OP is working to a tight budget. BUT, sometimes by thinking about them, and making provision for them when the sheet of paper is clean, you can make life easier in the future. I have DELIBERATELY NOT said how the bits on the boat are connected together, this list is to say what goes onto the boat, not how to fix it to the boat. I hope this helps you understand the words and phrases you will read and hear. As someone very early on said, mains electricity on boats is a subject best installed by those who know what they are doing, as while it is "easy" to do, it is easy to do it wrong.

We went out of Limehouse this year. I was talking to a cockney guy that does it alot and he said to us:- "I cant believe they still let noarrowboats out there, whilst they do I'm making the most of it, Its a privilege that cant last much longer". I he's right then a load of pricks pissing about is just going to speed things up.

no coincidence

I did the same at Winkwell on the GU, but with an Escort van....

And how much of that is going to maintaining the BW Directors' bonuses at their present level?

Hi Joshua, I have 18 years' experience living on narrowboats - a Hudson & Farrington to be precise. 14 of those years were spent CC'ing until I finally settled on my present residential mooring. If you would like to chat directly, I can save you a lot of time, money & disillusionment. I have an answer to, (or at least an opinion on), just about every point raised on this thread. My answers may not be the only valid ones, but they have been proved to work in the real world of all- year - round CC'ing, & provide comfortable & practical solutions to problems that you probably don't even realise exist! For example, how to keep your boat cool in summer & warm in winter? If you are using a pump out toilet, have you thought what you will do when the canal or the marina pump out machines are frozen solid? Do you know how long your water capacity will last you or where you will store the bulky garbage you will accumulate between rubbish points? Do you know the favoured break - in methods of boat thieves & how to design in protection? How will you wash, dry & air your laundry? Keep the boat from running with condensation without being icily draughty in winter? Keep the cupboards & wardrobes from getting damp? Store all the rarely used items such as documentation & tools, that would go in the loft or garage in a house? Because living on a boat is YOUR LIFE & you need so much more with you than on even the most extended holiday! If you want to contact me I would be happy to chat on the phone. I don't know it all bu I have learned an awful lot the hard & expensive way. Living on board can be done & it can be a great way of life, so go for it! Good luck.

Apparently this boat was originally equipped with the famous Bollinger engine! Sales linky .....

I know that the Dunton Double is much favoured in some quarters. But when I was watching Towcewster on it's coal run earlier today, I saw the head snapped cleanly off one, apparently for not that much effort expended. Unlike a Walsh alloy windlass that OH managed to do a similar trick with, there appeared to be no casting defects in the alloy of the Dunton. I was bit surprised how slender it looked - I'm guessing that despite the price, they are not that strong. They looked fed up enough to have broken it that I was not going to ask if I could take a picture, though!