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I've seen it so many times. A young person joins, hoping for a bit of help and advice and then is shot down in flames, accused of being a snowflake, eating quinoa, spending all their money on Starbucks coffee rather than working for a living. It's dreadful to see youngsters chased off again and again. Yes they may be naive, but that's what's being older should be about, teaching rather than deriding and alienating. I applaud the OP - if you can find a way of living the canal life without waiting till you retire - well done you. Go for it and ignore the nastiness please. There are some good folk on here that will help and support you, you just have to shut out the vitriole, a lot of which is born of jealousy - wouldn't we all love to be young again xxx

Give the lads a chance. This I made in the 1960's when I was a wee lad. Ended up getting 30 million viewers a week. Bet YouTuberds would like those hits.

You're not keeping up. Its the presumption that the aggro generated in that section spills over into the other 'main stream' parts of the forum and that drives valued peeps away. I originally voted for a political section as I thought it would focus all the nasty stuff in there and I could ignore it. It hasnt quite worked that way. The vote was also at the height of the Brexit debate and there was no getting away from that discussion so I think most peeps thought it would be a good idea to have a political section. Brexit is now over but unfortunately the 'left' and the 'right' are now well known and thus the ongoing sniping from either side. I am not sure how you will ever get round that now other than individuals learning to control how they respond to others.

Theres no lesser and greater with those two, the entrenched views of both sides are as bad as each other and absolutely awful for the country and society as a whole.

Oh dear... we both have jobs, i'm a freelance web designer and Jack is an accountant, we are very self sufficient thank you very much. We own our narrowboat out right and didn't take out a loan or finance. So that is about the best reply you will possibly get, don't judge a book by the cover in the future.

Then don’t look then it won’t matter ?

I won't comment on price. However, you say you want to make it more 'open plan, removing cupboards...'. Before you do that, I suggest that you pack up everything you need for a few weeks aboard (I'm guess you aren't intending to live aboard). Clothes, food, tools, bedding, towels, toilet paper, cleaning stuff; everything you would want. Everything. Now put it all away in the boat. If there is spare storage, then think about removing it.

Good luck with your venture. some of the sour replies are from people with masses of experience, such as my self with over thirty years living and cruising the system so people with no idea coming on the forum sometimes raises the hackles. you tube is full of newbie boaters producing very poor and often incorrect content so please get someone on board who has some experience and it may even be worth watching

Following an incensed outburst of mine last night which has rightly been removed by the moderators, I thought I'd post my reply in the hope that this might prompt a calmer discussion about what I feel is becoming an increasing problem on CWDF. This used to be a friendly place for boaters new and old to ask questions and get answers, and a mine of knowledge about the history of the canals and the boats on them. It's moving towards somewhere much less friendly, where anything that challenges the entrenched views of some results in a shower of criticism which often rapidly descends into schadenfreude and personal abuse -- playing the man, not the ball. And I'm not going to mince words here, it's also clear that most of this comes from a few people who are effectively poisoning the atmosphere on the forum. I'm not so concerned about myself -- I'm a big boy, I can normally take robust argument and even insults without throwing a hissy fit, though recent events explain why I finally blew my top this time. I can deal with this trend by blocking people I find obnoxious, and of course they can do the same to me if they want to. My worry is about the loss to CWDF of both experienced posters and new members due to the way that discussions and in particular personal comments on posts seem to be going. Am I the only one who thinks this is a problem? If not, it would be a shame to see CWDF go the way some other forums have done and die slowly while becoming an angry echo chamber ? Dear Athy I do apologise for this, I was just incensed at some of the personal comments on the thread and boiled over after a couple of beers. There seem to be more and more cases recently of people using personal abuse rather than reasoned discussion to try and "win" what they see as an argument (on many subjects) where they're in the right, and where anyone daring to disagree is obviously morally corrupt and therefore ripe for abuse -- and having spent some time looking back over various threads where this has happened, it's obvious that this mostly comes from a small number of people, I'm sure you know who they are as well as I do (because I've blocked many of them). I can't help feeling that this has not only driven some knowledgeable and experienced posters away from CWDF but is putting off new people joining when their first post is shot down on flames for one reason or another -- and there's even sometimes crowing on the lines of "hah, we taught them a lesson, we've had the last word", which I suspect sadly means they've given up in disgust and gone elsewhere. Which is a shame because there's still a huge amount of knowledge and experience which helpful people on the forum are happy to impart, and people leaving reduce this pool (if they're experienced) or lose access to it (if they're new). CWDF didn't use to be like this when I joined back in 2012, it was friendlier and less combative and abusive. Things seemed to take a turn for the worse before/during/after the Brexit referendum, and have done so again since Covid-19 hit -- maybe the first is a symptom of increased "us and them" division in the country, maybe the second is because some people have more time on their hands to angrily hammer away at a keyboard and tell other people how wrong they are. It would be a shame if this continues, because it could be the start of a long slippery slope with CWDF ending up as a small number of angry people shouting into an otherwise empty echo chamber, who think they've "won" because nobody answers back. I've seen this happen with other Internet forums and discussion groups over the years, and I really hope it doesn't happen to CWDF. Best wishes Ian

And I think that is a major mistake. It may not look like it from my previous posts but I would like if you could succeed however I do still have a general issue with the notion of requesting subscribers to channels which have yet to produce content. Once content is available then, and only then, would I consider subscribing.

A woolly photo shows our hotel-barge Luciole heading northwards down the Canal du Nivernais in the vicinity of Cravant. In the background, LH side, may be glimpsed one of the caverns in the hillside, limestone quarries cut centuries ago. In one, today, fine sparkling wine is produced. In the cave that is pictured, a French aviation company set up in business, only to find the premises taken over by the German forces of occupation. Here, safe from Allied bombing, Focke-Wolfe 190 fighter aircraft were repaired by a workforce of prisoners, local employees and, at one stage, 200 Russian women - there was an extensive White Russian contingent in the German army units hereabouts. Damaged aircraft arrived by rail and, three times a month by barge, unloading at a quayside nearby. Restored planes took off from the grass airstrip that still survives beside the canal on the western side. This was a large-scale business - when the Germans left 20 fuselages and 150 wing sets remained.

Yes, but how do you get work? You do a bit of publicity, just like wot the OP has done, and hope you catch some interest. Entertainment isn't like plumbing, however. As a musician, I might cold call a hundred pubs to see if anyone wants my kind of band. If they do, off I go. I'll get paid for the job even if the pub's empty. But no audience, no second gig, which is what you want, because then it's an income stream instead of a one off. So as an entertainer it's important to get your audience lined up first, before you produce your content. No audience, no second gig, however good your content. So that's what, I think, the OP is doing. .

Please read some of the first boat or first time boater threads here. Then buy a used boat, not a new one. Plenty of time to buy your ideal new boat after you learn what you want on an older one. Just a comment from experience, not a criticism.

Jack is an accountant and can work from home or at his mums office if he wishes to do so, im a freelance web designer so I also can work from the boat or the middle of a field. Don't worry, we are not put off at all, we only listen to wise people with half a decent thing to say!

Having a bit of a hard time is good training. If they can be put off by a few adverse comments from here, I'm not sure they'll survive what they want to do.

Perhaps we should have another referendum? :tonguefirmlyincheek:

Hope you got it sorted, sorry I can’t offer any practical advice. But let me say that it was a pleasure encountering you and your family on t’cut. Jeff (who has been a bit up and down with his mood recently) repeatedly commented on how nice everyone was.

In my experience, the interestingness of short conversations at locks is wholly uncorrelated to the quality of the boat - people in the least sophisticated vessels can have at least as much to offer as those in the most sophisticated, and sometimes much more! (Or may be in need of my conversation) To me, that levelling aspect of the canal life is one of its major attractions. In then, we are all just boaters!

This will be our 13th year on the Fossdyke and Witham and I can't say that we have really noticed that much has changed with the condition of the waterway and infrastructure. It is shallow and weedy, but nothing has changed there. Stamp End Lock is temperamental but it has been since we started boating there, same for the leaky lock gates at Bardney, they still leak. The one thing that has changed and really needs nipping in the bud is the sheer number of non compliant CCers. Moorings are in short supply on the Witham at the best of times so to have them littered with the same boats week in week out is particularly galling.

And the trouble with the temp jobs was that you did a couple of weeks labouring or whatever and then spent six weeks trying to sort your benefits out again, without any money. Those days, the queue at the Labour in York was out of the building and down the street. With zero hours jobs and Universal Credit, I don't think anything's improved much, and applaud anyone trying to make a living for themselves by carving out their own little niche. You don't get rich, but maybe you get happy instead, and get to eat as well.

Very few of us were deliberately off work. I had a lovely time in York living on the dole and playing music, but there was no work available. Same for years in Lincoln till I conned my way into a job that didn't really want me as I was overqualified for it. But when you are stuck in a place for one reason or another and unable to find work you might as well do something creative at the same time. If you deliberately avoid jobs, the dole tends to stop rather abruptly. And YTS was a crap system for employers to get work done on the cheap. Rarely any training and the kids got treated like dirt.

And if this one does work and the minister hauls CRT over the coals we might end up with Serco or Capita running the system instead! The specific remedy for failure to perform is to sack all the trustees and senior management and appoint new ones of the minister's choice. Be careful what you wish for ...

Never said I was posh. Middle class, I am, slap in the middle. But the people reading petitions are, or think they are. And I no there was a speeling mistook, I hate writing on tablets, but then I'm not trying to get a Government to listen to me, to think I might actually know what I'm talking about, and care enough to bother about presentation. There are a million petitions out there. If a single one has had any effect apart from soothing the ego of them wot wrote it, I'll be much surprised. They're just a slightly louder way of doing nothing, that's all.

Can't see the point. The problem isn't CRT, it's the lack of government funding. And if anyone thinks there's a few billion quid going spare to fix up the canals they're barmy. We're heading for a whacking great recession. Being picky, it's always advisable, if you're trying to get posh people to read your petition, to get the grammar and the spelling right,cos, like it or not, thry won't pay you any attention otherwise.

We went to the Folly last Friday, as has been said it is all in the garden and they have a bar in a marquee. There is no booking possible, first come. The info in all on their Facebook page.

I did Hatton in the dark one December from the bow, sticking the nose in the gates and climbing up. The boat I was moving was 3'6" at the back end, and after a few locks from Warwickshire Flyboats, realised that getting the back end in was just not going to work.

I'm getting the impression you're not a fan of this sort of thing? But why don't you tell us what you really think? ?

It's not just that politics spill over into the other forums, so does the current political HoC "debating" style -- "alternative facts", "if you're not for us you're against us", division into "us and them" (left/right, North/south, rich/poor, caring/uncaring, selfish/generous, Guardian/Daily Mail...), pulling out insults like snowflakes/woke/virtue signaller/Guardian reader if you can't "win" on the facts, denigrating and BEING AGGRESSIVE towards people who are new or don't know stuff, name-calling, denying that you said something which you did, twisting/exaggerating/selectively reporting the facts, quoting from dodgy/discredited sources, unwillingness to admit that anything you said or did could possibly be wrong even after being shot down in flames... All methods used by Trump and to a lesser extent by Boris, and by Brexiteers and to a lesser extent by the Remoaners (not my terms), because they think they can gain by division and tribalism, and admitting errors is seen as a sign of weakness -- care homes and Covid-19, anyone? What it really shows is insecurity, tribalism and lack of empathy, the inability to see another point of view or concede that it might have any validity if it disagrees with yours, and should be SHOUTED down. Before anyone repeats the tactics from further up and accuses me of hypocrisy yet again, I suggest you take the log out of your own eye -- nobody's perfect (including me), and pointing out where I might have departed from perfection sometimes doesn't make what I'm saying -- that CWDF would be a nicer place if all this happened less frequently -- any less true... ?

That is a really nice post, just exactly what the forum is so good at.

No it isn't. Doing things is what matters, not whinging on a canal forum. It seems there are still some postive active doers out there otherwise we wouldn't see canals being renevated still. Sitting on our arses achieves very little.

Get on Yer bikes eh.......oh the website has just crashed again....

The dole is/was for people trying hard and being unable to find a job, not for lazy boat building scammers. Your time should have been spent looking for work, its nowt to bragg about. Nowt wrong with living off saved money but drawing dole and tossing it off is not cricket.

With the best intentions I am sure. But you don't understand the way to live 24/365 on a boat, it is not cheap or easy or convenient if you have to go to work.

The old thread on TB's CWDF board was reignited by a CWDF member, who no doubt realised the error of their ways. TB faces down verbal atrocities, and without need of moderation!

“Vile and derogatory” posts about Daniel came from people who were summarily excommunicated from CWDF in a period of CWDF tyranny. Or the Great Cull, as we like to call it. Some of those people probably deserved their fate but many didn’t. TB arose out of that. It therefore can’t be surprising that he came in for a slagging. Behaviour breeds behaviour and if you make people feel aggrieved, it’s likely to bounce back at you. However this was not your original point, which was that the bad behaviour purported to be extant on here, was at least in part the fault of people from TB posting on here. And yet your evidence now is that it is what they post on TB that offends you. This is a completely different point and just goes to show that you have no evidence to support your original stance. If you don’t like what you read on TB (and actually, as has been said, TB has mostly “got over” the Great Cull) then here’s an idea which you perhaps haven’t thought of - don’t read it! Or is it actually the case that you lie in bed surreptitiously scanning every line of TB desperate to find something to be outraged about in order to get a thrill? Well whatever floats your boat, but personally I prefer looking at porn.

I have run out of popcorn

Does anyone else find it sad that a genuine well-meant attempt to try and reduce the nastiness of postings on CWDF has been turned round into adversarial accusations of hypocrisy, rather than discussing the issue at hand and whether anything can be done to improve things? I think this has perfectly demonstrated that what I've been saying has been true all along... [but I'm sure somebody else will come back and accuse me of hypocrisy on this post too]

I used to post heaps of rubbish on ere, but most of my fans seem to have gorn , It is quite boring now.

Some years ago with our first boat a Chrighton narrow 32ft cruiser we exited onto the Trent from Keadby taking it steady as it was our first time on the Trent a Gin palace shot past us digging a big hole in the water and causing us to bob and sway about violently depite turning accross their wake. Not very impressed we arrived at Torksey just in time to see him go through the lock. on our way to Lincon we saw them havinf a BBQ at Saxilby going past at low revs I made a loud remark about hurry up merchants causing fear and inconvieiance to other craft on the river. Some time later I had a nice letter from him saying he was very sorry and as a member of the Stawbury island boat club they tried to be considerate of other boaters.