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My favourite was an 8' snake. It turned out to be a draught excluder, but it was heart-stopping when it's head came up the weedhatch!

I caught a fisherman at Alvecote last trip, he didnt hear me coming and I didn't see his Carp float halfway across the cut. He chased me down the towpath runnin out line and shouting to me

OK, so these aren't actually my boat, but I carved them while on my boat. Surely that counts? ? Some are just figures, some are pen holders. Funnily enough, they're the ones holding a pen/pens. I'll risk putting my Etsy here and hope I don't get slapped for it: http://ronnietucker.etsy.com

Just in case anyone desperately wants one, here's the handbag my son's girlfriend turned up with the other night...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50894670 HMS Defender: Royal Navy seizes £3.3m of crystal meth in Arabian Sea Cdr Richard Hewitt added: "This has been a real boost for the ship's company as they face Christmas away from their loved ones." Well yeah. 130 kilos of crystal meth would be a real boost for anyone!

Be grateful Peter - until you let him by, that mattress had your name on it!

The mill ceased to be a paper mill in the 1830s. It was converted to a corn mill and later the site was converted to tinplate and chemical production in 1888. There remains some evidence of the original mill and is designated as an ancient monument. There were 4 locks on the canal, one of which was converted to an air raid shelter. There is still a small part of the canal remaining in Gowerton but it is fenced off for safety. There remains a Canal bridge which I cross most days!

I collected a floating bunch of reeds around the prop going through Armitage "Tunnel". Stopped the engine dead. Opened the weedhatch and a frog jumped up into the counter. Scared the living daylights out of me as I wasn't expecting it!

A child's tricycle. The noise it made convinced me that I'd done some serious damage. All OK, though, after a bit of a struggle. However, the worst thing I've had to deal with is this piece of wood. It jammed the hydraulic motor which had to be rebuilt. It cost me so much that I decided to mount it as a piece of artwork.

You are right Bob I just hope that a few of us survive so that the human race continues, the best we could hope for is something like spanish flu wipes out four fifths of the worlds population that would sort it out nicely! Very grim eh but unfortunately its whats needed?

Still lots of carbon fuel out there for many many years...i.e. Gas. Hundreds of wells drilled every year for oil but only a few percent have commercial quantities of oil. All have gas. We have to find other ways to generate power. The big energy companies have been looking for 50 years plus with very limited success. For me nuclear is the short term but there has to be a big breakthrough in fission or other tech soon or else we are all doomed. No, on reflection, we are all doomed.

Hi I built mine using the Hornby lock with some alterations

Years ago on the river in Leeds I was passing a bankside building site when I noticed we were slowing down. I looked behind and saw a large traffic cone about 100ft behind us skipping along on the surface or just below it. What was odd was that it was catching us up, a bit like the scene from Jaws. Eventually, our progress slowed right down and I had to stop mid stream. The cone had fallen in from the building site and had about 50 yards of 6mm blue polypropylene rope tied into it, the polypropylene merrily wrapping itself around the prop shaft into a tight ball occluding the prop as we proceeded. I cut the cone off and managed to get to the shore where we could tie up and then get the ball of rope off.

Merry Christmas. Dare I say Peace and Goodwill to all men (and the Ladies of course).

It's very rare I disagree with you on technical topics Tony, but this is going to be one of them. If the boat is not hooked up to a reliable shoreline and left on charge, there is no valid reason at all not to have a solar array and controller fitted. Batteries left for months on end are prime candidates for at least a modest solar system, keeping them fully charged even through winter. I agree that many battery distributors only charge stock once a month, but that's the trade-off between too much faffing and acceptable battery condition. It's also why I always check rested voltages on delivery!

So then we get no stations making quality stuff such as Attenborough's work and we no longer have any national or local BBC radio stations either, and that is what you want for the country? Endless, Murdoch generated crap such as his Fox News.

So instead of a station or two producing decent programmes you want them all to produce crap! What a strange attitude.

Correct!

Going by your name you just run your sit compressor then!

Underground sections of the Manchester & Salford Junction Canal were also used as air raid shelters, though the canal tunnel was used, rather than just the lock chamber.

I seem to remember learning that C Oxycantha is the Midland hawthorn with the red flowers, C Monogyna the white flowered May. Not sure which was most commonly planted by Canal companies though.

1) They have been incorporated into British legislation https://www.gov.uk/eu-withdrawal-act-2018-statutory-instruments 2) So why does all petrol, including that for generators and tools, pay duty at the full rate?

A plastic carrier bag containing two bicycle inner tubes felt very suspect through rubber gloves when I snagged them on the Curly Wyrley. On the same cruise I collected a vacuum cleaner hose, wire reinforced, which took an age to hack through. But every cloud has a silver lining, when the Tame Valley provided me with about 20 mts of 10mm polyprop that kept me in fender ropes for a decade.

Er, no. Even if it is downgraded to a civil debt Crapita will still have the ability to send bailiffs around to enforce the debt for non-payment so there will still be people knocking on the door. As far as threatening them with a 'slap' what is then done if they call your bluff?(as bailiffs often will). Carry out your threat and get done for a more serious offence of assault? or climb down and look a bit silly?

Who'd have thought a submarine had a cratch cover.

And folk dotted about playing smart phones while their boat sinks.

You can add to the realism by including a sunken butty:

Seconded. Delightful characters!!! And how odd that until now, I have been mis-reading your username as ronnietrucker, "Ronnie Trucker"....

An under water web cam could be attached under the uxter plate facing forward. This to detect and spy any rubbish approaching the prop with malicious intent. When it does it relays a message via thingys and whatsnames to servos connected to the gearbox and automatically bungs the boat into reverse to ward it off until you've passed it by. If you go along in revere a lot you will need a web cam faciing backwards. But don't make them too sensitive or it'll be detecting all the fish swimming past, continually shoving you into reverse, or forward whichever the case might be. making you dithery , dizzy and a nervous wreck not knowing whether your coming or going and will cause great expense by keep destroying gearboxes.

Stop charging and measure the current in the 22C battery. If it's still in the same direction (ie charging) then the other batteries are charging it and and that's the smoking gun. If I was you I'd just disconnect the 22C battery for 24 hours. and then measure the terminal voltage. If it's still around 12v then it's OK, if it reduces to around 10v then it's dead. MP.

Quite right too! take one of those plastic hula hoops available at most pound shops, split in the obvious place. Make sure plastic is warm (leave inside, near ISH the wood burner or lean against a radiator to maximise flexibility). Fit to inside of porthole. Wrap with fabric of your choice - et voila! For extra thermal quality use the hoop as a template and cut a circle of that silver thermal stuff (pound shop windscreen ice cover stuff I had spare..) I used some mega-big wooden buttons to cover the untidy bit where all the material gathers together in the middle.. rather proud of them!

This one is very relevant. At present I am looking at houses for sale and no where on any of the bumff from any estate agents is this listed? Perhaps it should be printed on their documentation other wise how the hell will I find the filler?

My car is Euro 6 diesel, you never see smoke but the stink is something else. 2 stroke smell is best.

Mebbe I should explain. A trip to the winding 'ole, back to the tap to fill up, wind again then back to the mooring involves four lock passages and takes around four hours here. So some here prefer to use a wheelbarrow and water bottles as its far quicker.

What evidence do you have that the current rapid change in CO2 level and the associated rapid climate change is similar to previous natural changes in climate. I find that people who take the "there's always climate change" line tend to be in denial but choose to dress it up as a scientific observation suggesting that the current situation has happened before, when it hasn't. It might seem like a generalisation but my observation seems always to be on the money.