Leaderboard

Including foals we have 20 ponies( 10 Mares, 9 Foals and 1 Stallion) and 1 horse. SWMBO 'drives' (horse & carriage) and we were discussing recently if we could use the driving horse to pull the boat, our Daughter-In-Law ( a real 'townie') was listening in a asked "what would you do with the horse at night, how would you get it out of the canal, don't its feet go soft and wrinkly ?"

Yes - it stops your battery re-charging the Sun

Also heard from a lady at Braunston, as a boat with a Bolinder engine went past: "I'm surprised they're able to keep going, with the engine mis-firing like that" On long-lining, I once came through a bridge hole while a boat coming the other way held back and waved me through; then he immediately shot forwards and collided head-on with the boat I was towing. As we all disentangled ourselves from the resultant chaos, I asked him why he had done that. He replied that he didn't mind waiting for one boat to come through the bridge but wasn't prepared to wait for two !!!

Lady boater at Braunston as a pair went past, long lining: "How stupid, towing another boat"

I suspect that there are many people, boaters and car owners, who would find purchasing an electric car or boat financially challenging.

one thing strikes me.. from the advert it is registered with CRT as electric to qualify for the 25% license reduction but with CRT's rules doesn't it state that to qualify electric must be the sole means of propulsion? with that in mind how does it stand now it has a diesel outboard attached

No it's one of the forums nicer features that threads sometimes come back to life after many years. Who knows - we may even find "Que Sera Sera" some day! (Only tjose who have been on here a very long while will understand that without a bit of searching).

Whilst we can all snigger at people who use their bowthruster to compensate for an apparent inability to steer, the do have their uses. even for people who are perfectly competent. I was grateful for my bowthruster when I had to reverse for two miles last year. Mrs S is also grateful that she never has to handle that long heavy eastern European thing on the roof. I will only accept criticism for using it from someone with a horse.

Not a chordless phone?

Not sure, I use a corded phone. The only way I guess is to try it, Cheap cordless phone and RJ11 to BT adaptor should be achievable for less than £20. It may be a Three only thing as I believe that they use the 4G signal for voice as well as data. We obviously need a telecommunications expert to give us chapter and verse. I only found out because the original three router supplied with their original homefi plan said voice calls could not be made through the RJ11 socket, which made me think it had been disabled by Three and that if I purchased a non Three router and a cheap phone it may well work. It did!!!!

Nobody ever needs to know the price of Doom Bar. When I have been I think they have generally had Wye Valley HPA on. JP

We now have pollution sensors and cameras on the M1 through Sheffield/Rotherham, it seems that 50mph means just that! All caused by those clean diesels that you are all going on about!? At least my Lucida can only just do that 50mph so it dont matter

Yes, but not if you turn your headlights on.

Must have been the beans on toast you had earlier ?

Laws of thermodynamics?

Oink!

In case you don't know, Quaysider runs a hotel boat. It's early days for his business and like most businesses, the early days aren't easy. Just imagine, having a couple of bookings that might be the difference between making a small profit that year, or a loss. You take the bookings in good faith, based on information given to you by the navigation authority. Then, the authority puts everything back, destroying your plans. There's the possibility that the bookings might be lost, or many days extra spent navigating, new plans made, maybe irate customers. How would you like it? I think your sarcasm is well out of order.

Have you thought of sending CRT your itinerary so that they can plan all works and maintenance in to fit in with your schedule? The complication might come when doing so interferes with someone else's schedule, but maybe cross that bridge when you come to it, eh? If it's any help, I'll fit my boating in around whatever's open at the time so as not to be a nuisance to you.

The 1st question to ask before purchasing a 2nd hand EV is: How much to replace the battery pack (or how much is left on the battery warranty)? It is still early days for used EV's and the subsequent owners arent used to their battery packs reaching their sgelf life. Example: BMW i8 is now 5 yrs old. Battery life: est. 8yrs. Replacement cost out of warranty: £8 to £10k!

Bagpipes at any time of day are not good, but fortunately the excruciating sound is mostly confined to Scotland and some other parts of the world that seem to appreciate it. In the event of Scotland's independence, our embassy there will advise tourists to leave the bagpipes at home when visiting the Split Apart Kingdom or whatever we're called then. There will be a hard border from Carlisle to Berwick just to enforce this, perhaps built out of the leftover bits of Trump's wall bought from a US Government garage sale. Seriously, well done Scotland for getting your canals open again. As I argued on the other topic some while ago, this was always going to set an important precedent for when the UK government's subsidy to CRT is supposed to expire in about 2026.

In terms of eating I wouldn't say there is an absolute must visit pub and the one I would be most inclined to deliberately plan around is probably the Weighbridge at Alvechurch marina. You could start your holiday in there at lunchtime. For drinking it must be the Vine, AKA Bull & Bladder, in Brierley Hill. A trip to the Swan at Netherton is possible and there are a couple of good drinking pubs in Birmingham. This is of course based on drinking proper beer. As you are planning to go clockwise the pubs from Alvechurch are broadly;- Queens Head. Opposite Stoke Pound visitor moorings between Tardebigge and Stoke lock flights. Overpriced and surprisingly popular. In truth the food and beer is perfectly fine and the location is great from a canal perspective. Big beer garden, can be noisy. Navigation Inn, Stoke Prior. 50 yards from Stoke bottom lock which is five locks and about a mile past the Queens Head. Recently reopened. I haven't been but my mum gave it the thumbs up. That may not be the most reliable indicator though. She doesn't drink. Can't be worse than precious incarnation. Boat and Railway, Stoke Works. Half a mile south of Navigation opposite visitor moorings. Unpretentious local pub that has a nice mix of locals and boaters and does ordinary food and beer decently at good value. Bowling Green Inn, Astwood. Short work from canal bridge above Astwood locks. Not far from Boat and Railway. Has appeared to be barely open for a number of years. Visited once about four years ago. Food and drink OK but no one else there all night other than our party of six (and it was Saturday!). Expect to find it closed down every time I drive past. Eagle & Sun, Hanbury Wharf. Adjacent to Hanbury visitor moorings. Carvery. My mum likes it. I am less keen but wouldn't avoid it. Popular at weekends. Fir Tree, Dunhampstead. Moorings nearby. Haven't eaten there for years because it always seemed a bit odd and quality variable. Called in for a drink recently and had a decent pint. Should try it again sometime. Bridge Inn, Tibberton. Adjoins Tibberton visitor moorings. Like a lucky dip. Never quite sure what it's going to be like. Some folk prefer Speed the Plough just down the road. I don't know but have also heard people say they are both much of a muchness. From Tibberton the next places to visit are in Worcester where you have lots of choice of pubs and restaurants. Then up the Severn the pubs seem to be neglecting their moorings or closing. The Camp House below Bevere Lock is an offbeat place that can be fun but the mooring was barely useable last time I passed and even at it's best you might struggle with four boats. You can moor for the night on Bevere lock landing after lock closing time and there is a path to the pub. There are pubs at Holt Fleet and Lenchford but last time I passed the Hampstall Ferry Inn was closed. You won't need to moor between Worcester and Stourport as the river section will be half a day. Stourport has a number of pubs and an Indian restaurant. There are a couple next to the canal. Near the moorings above York Street lock is the Black Star. Kidderminster also has many pubs but generally it's not a town to moor in overnight. The Lock at Wolverley is OK and it's a nice spot. Moorings above and below the lock. No phone signal and the pub wi-fi is useless. Kinver has a large pub by the lock and I suspect better ones in the village. There is - or was - an Italian restaurant in the village. Moorings are below the lock before you get to the village but don't be tempted to carry on past and look if you want to stop. It's a nice place. After Kinver there is a a gap. Nothing at Stewponey any more. If you head down the arm into Stourbridge there will be options but I don't know Stourbridge well. The Samson & Lion is a well known pub by the side of the Stourbridge flight. Then it's on to Delph/Merry Hill for the aforementioned Vine/Bull & Bladder which is the Batham's brewery tap and walkable from the canal. The Swan is another historic pub at Netherton, also walkable from the canal. Moorings possible for both but best locations not necessarily the nearest. If you visit the Black Country museum take in the fish and chips cooked in dripping and have a drink in the recreated Bottle & Glass pub. Birmingham is of course full of places and you really should moor in the centre on your second from last night. From there it's about three hours to Hopwood where there are good moorings and the pub mentioned in your other thread. Then it's an hour back to Alvechurch on the last morning. JP

That's like all the articles in papers saying that if everyone in the country unplugged their phone chargers we'd save enough energy to power [xxx] houses. Which sounds like a big number, until you compare it to the [xx] million houses that we have, and realise it's maybe 0.001% of our home energy consumption. Nobody should be worrying about this, fix the big things first, then the medium sized things, by the time you've done all this you don't have a problem any more and can justifiably ignore the really small things. So yes we need a pollution reduction from all *significant* sources including cars, taxis, trucks, planes, ships and trains, and as you say they all need looking at. What can be ignored -- unless you *really* enjoy pointless arguments -- is things that contribute probably 100x less pollution than the sources I mentioned earlier, which includes narrowboats and standby generators. If you want some numbers, there are about 30 million cars and 30 thousand canal boats in the UK, so a thousand cars for every boat. Fuel used per year in the UK is about 12MT (million tonnes) for petrol cars, 12MT for diesel cars and taxis, 12MT for vans/trucks/coaches, 12MT for planes, 4MT for ships, 1MT for rail -- so it should be obvious where we have to look first out of this ~50MT total. A narrowboat used for fairly intensive cruising (3000 miles per year) uses about 1T of fuel (1000l) per year, but given how many boats are essentially stationary or hardly move at all I'd be very surprised if all the boats in the UK use 5000T of diesel between them -- which is 10000 times less than the big culprits mentioned above. You could also say there's no excuse for having a smoky old engine chucking out clouds of stinky exhaust fumes, since this is a local pollution hazard to the nose if nothing else -- however it's unlikely to contribute anything to global warming or lung disease, unless you connect a mask to the exhaust with a length of hose...

Sssh - don't tell them - they'll all want one! Just remind him that it always rains in Manchester ()

Absolutely not a problem. Nobody was suggesting 100% renewable electricity for 100% of the time -- any sensible energy policy has a 'mix' of sources in case one dries up or becomes too expensive. At present the UK has over 30% renewables and the proportion is growing steadily. ETA: according to Gridwatch it's 26% renewables at this moment, but over 30% if you add in biomass generation. It isn't very windy. That's still a huge amount of emissions 'saved'.