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Or the standby generators at your local hospital, telephone exchange or data centre? With the resilience of the national grid getting worse, power outages get more common so a standby source of power becomes even more necessary. The only alternative I have seen to the standby generator is the aluminium air battery, and that was a prototype 25 years ago. Too costly, limited standby life and takes to long to replace compared to a diesel generator, as it is a primary battery and thus cannot be recharged. In Peter's world there will be deaths on the operating table, no 999 services, no internet, no cash machines, no buying goods on cards and no telephones available when the lights go out.

Visitor: "How many people work in your factory? Manager: "About half of them".

It certainly sounds that way - if it was just complaining house dwellers they would close the bins and the tap too. 2 weeks is probably long enough that even the most retentive householder will have to go to the loo during that time, so if no boats are disposing of sewage and there is a continued leak it's not the services causing it. I do have to wonder if the leak is still there after this monitoring whether they will disconnect the house sewers for a fortnight but let boats use the services ...

This is because standard Meccano holes aren't the right spacing to make a log periodic aerial that work properly. ?

That's me! ?

One that works when you are going round bends so you can cruise in peace whilst the family watch soaps. Isn't that an occasional toilet?

Yes, and this is the best way to test it, because you rule out dodgy connections or switches. Fuse the test leads though, just in case! Just check first that the cables you have shown us are actually that thin all the way along. I have seen boats that have easily thick enough cable (10 sq mm+) running along the boat then join onto a thin bit for the last couple of feet, and this can be OK - not ideal but does work, and you say yours has been fine for years.

I visited the BMW engine factory in Birmingham a few years ago where they use robot electric trolleys to move materials around which were programmed too head back to the charging area when their batteries were low and plug themselves in. This was fine until one evening the floor was painted, the next morning the floor was criss crossed with wheel markings ?

I had a mate ask me if "Clift" batteries were any good? I said I'd never heard of them. My mate said there was a boat at his mooring that had four of them fitted and the owner said they were brilliant. Then the penny dropped! ?

How big/strong is the dog? How about a set of panniers on the dog with a 5l can in each? Jen? Obvious dangers with a dog carrying petrol. It might go woof! ?

That’s without the risks associated with bulk storage of lpg either in cylinders or bulk tanks...plus the added risk of spark ignition engines on some sites

Two reasons, one that people do moor there for up to 14 days without receiving any attention from the enforcement officer. and the second because I was involved in the campaign about three years ago to keep the moorings open and have a letter from Richard Parry confirming exactly what I have stated. My concern is that boaters who do use the mooring may feel intimidated by the company putting out these notices. When this all started in 2014/5 it was because of harassment which resulted in the boaters leaving their moorings and the moorings not being re-advertised and subsequently closed.

You could use the sun terrace.

It's very common with proper boat sales that whatever is on the boat when you strike the deal is included in the sale. Again, not usually for liveaboards though, or you might end up with 2 dogs and a spare wife!

Very sad to hear of John's demise. He was friend of our Captain Dennis Papworth, and I knew him well back in the 1960's. On more than one occasion, we were commandeered for manual labour assistance with the renovation of an old wooden working boat, and we never got payed !! I remember the clinker boats that Balliol mentions, and John also experimented with concrete hire boats, but I don't think they were very successful. One interesting story about John is that one winter in the late 1960's, he helped collect a wooden Butty from Braunston which my friend had bought. They used Pisces to collect the butty, John was on the front end of Pisces when he slipped and fell off into very cold water. Dennis immediately put Pisces into neutral and they drifted along for some time when John suddenly popped up behind the butty. He had demonstrated extereemly brave will power, lying on the bottom of the canal holding his breath whilst two boats passed over him. Apart from being very wet and very cold, he seemed to suffer no ill effects.

It was not actually that simple if you had studied the plans at the time. These developments are really only an "earner" for CRT and their development partners, if they are able to cram in as many houses as they can at the greatest density. If they had allowed 15 feet or more from waterside to the face of the buildings, something else would have had to give. A very similar problem existed with the plans for Bulbourne Yard, again trying to cram in what they said was required to make it an attractive development proposition resulted in something fairly horrendous, and with inadequate parking. Unbelievable at one point they suggested residents could use the car park at the Grand Junction Arms, (or whatever it is currently called!). I'm not condoning what has occurred - it was always going to be a problem, but at least the original fight stopped them knocking down the historic carpenters workshop entirely, (they declared it of no historic interest), and stopped the crane being relocated to a daft location where it would never have ever been used in the first place. The second modified planning application should have also been thrown out IMO, but unfortunately it wasn't, and it was at least an improvement over the first one submitted. ll this is academic now. The facilities will probably ultimately be lost anyway, but engines running, noise, smokey chimneys, and bad attempts at pump out will all serve to make it more likely, I fear. All boaters will probably ultimately reap what only a few have sewn.

And most profuse apologies to the person who retied the grey/red/black boat near Brinklow, presumably after it came adrift while I was away last week, leaving one of their own pins to cross-pin my bow line. It's a fairly new boat to me and I hadn't got round to buying another couple of pins to supplement the mooring hardware that it was sold with. No excuses, I knew it was iffy mooring on such a shit bit of towpath, and I shouldn't have on just two lines and two pins. It was stupid of me to chance it. If you're on here and read this, can I: Give you your pin back? Offer you a beer/whisky by way of apology? Little things like these are one of the things which make the boating community so special, in my humble opinion. Thanks again.

Do the householders being irritated by your engine running know all this? Have you explained it to each and every one of them? I'm staggered that you think your excuses make it ok to ignore the requests not to run engines on the service point.

So why not do your washing while boating towards the water point?

My biggest worry would be “All Ebac models have digital controls ” We've heard from many a boater that their electronically controlled w/m doesn’t like running off an inverter, even good inverters such as Victron and Mastervolt. Perhaps the Ebac will prove to be the exception...

Lard or better still mucky dripping is better than oil for proper chips. No oil used as kids. Too much fat or oil is bad for you. I know this for a fact as my Dad had full English every day and died young aged 90. I have just cooked my mums dinner with a few chips and she is 99 lol. Bet you don't know any 99 year old vegans. Bye the way she eats white bread always with butter and full cream milk ?

And therein lies the exact problem I was describing. You and others here simply can't tell (or refuse to accept) when you are posting comments in a style others find offensive.

Yep - there's space at the end of the basin. But, be aware of the wind. Being surrounded by tall buildings can produce some rather strong gusts....

The forum software allows Reddies too - negative points. We are not trusted with them though - the unimpressed or horror ones are set as neutral on here, they don't take points away. Maybe we should have the Reddies that take points away activated so we can all descend into Lord of the Flies mode without having to bother posting words ...