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Advantages of the BCN over Venetian canals. Can any one think of more? Any one can become a commercial boat skipper in Birmingham. Gondolier jobs are a closed shop, passed down in families. The smell of sewage wafting over the Venice canals. The smell of skunk wafting over the Birmingham canals. Global warming and sea level rise will doom Venice to sink below the waves. The Birmingham level is at 453 feet. Sipping a very expensive coffee on St Mark's Square, overlooking the Grand Canal, compared with sipping a cheaper pint of beer in the Tap and Spile, overlooking Gas Street Basin. Venice has the Campanile overlooking the Grand Canal. Birmingham has the Post Office Tower overlooking the Farmer's Bridge Flight. Venice has cruise ships in the Grand Canal. Birmingham is protected from wide beam monstrosities by flights of narrow locks on all the approaches. Venice is on the Adriatic, so sea life can get in to the canals. In Birmingham, sea life is safely segregated from the canals in the Sea Life Centre. No risk of your boat being pulled down to its doom by a kraken, or damaged in a dolphin collision. Listening to the beautiful, melodious Brummie accent, compared with the jarring drone of Venician Italian. Your Watermate key won't open any Elsan facility in Venice. The artistic endevours of Birmingham's many painters are displayed in public on every canal side wall, or other vertical surface, not hidden away in galleries, churches and museums as in Venice. Venice has no tunnels, or locks on their canals at all. In high summer, on some parts of the BCN, you can go all day without seeing another boat on the move. In high summer, Venice is so overcrowded, the authorities want to limit the numbers allowed in. Birmingham has never been a major naval power, or used its boats to carry fire and sword to other cities. The overblown lines of a gondolier, versus the elegant lines of a narrowboat. Venice might have the Bridge of Sighs over a canal, but Birmingham has Spaghetti Junction soaring over its canals.

It's hard not to draw the conclusion that composting separating toilet owners are simply lazy and cling to the green angle to obfuscate. Anyone prepared to dump their shite in public bins and their pee in the hedge or the canal should consider what a world we'd live in if everyone did that. Lazy and selfish, it only works if hardly anyone does it. Apologies to the one in a hundred who actually compost and take their pee to the Elsan, but come on - if you do that you might as well take a cassette the the elsan. It's notable how many of the shite in the bin / pee in the hedge crowd still insist on describing their toilet as composting - you're fooling nobody. Dumping your excrement is Pre-Victorian and went out of fashion due to the associated diseases like cholera - it's backward third world behaviour, it's not even remotely green.

Reminded me of this that circulated around BW during the 2009 reorganisation, one of several initiated by Robin Evans

Ive just been out walking the dog and walked past a couple of locks. Some locks seal on the top gates, some locks seal on the bottom gates, some seal a bit on each, some even change top to bottom each time the lock is used. Leaving any gates open therefore carries a significant risk of empty pounds. Leaving gates open might save a little time and effort, but sorting empty pounds consumes a lot of time and effort. Its selfish.

If it takes six men to fit one sign how many broken paddles can be fixed for the same cost?

If you think that's odd wait until you try Hermitage Lock when the Gt Ouse is carrying several feet of fresh. The highest spot on Midnight is the tiller pin top it was just 5mm from the underside of the road bridge above . When we entered Salter's Lode from the tidal I expected to go up instead of down. Weird but well worth it. The Nene, Fens and Gt Ouse are just brilliant.

Especially if they are open-topped bins not covered ones ... All you'd need is a lifering as a seat and a roll of paper in your pocket.

Big thank you to the Atherstone vlockie who helped us and the boat in front all the way up the flight this morning. 👍🙂

@Alway SwilbyI will wave to you as we pass 😀 I will be on a slightly crusty looking Annie heading for Salters tomorrow (unless Ive had the chance to wash it by then)

There was a boat race between a Japanese crew and a crew from the National Health Service (UK). Both sides practised long and hard and the Japanese team won by a mile. So the NHS ...faced with this problem setup a working party which reported that the Japanese had eight people rowing and one steering and the NHS had eight people steering and one rowing. So they brought in management consultants and the management consultants confirmed the diagnosis, suggested the NHS team be completely restructured to make it more efficient, more cohesive, streamlining and all-round better performance. A strategy document was drawn up and the recommendations encouraged restructuring for the entire organisation. As part of the restructuring, a number of appointments were made including three Assistant Steering Managers, three Deputy Steering Managers, a Director of Steering Services and the rower was given an incentive to row harder. They had another race, this time the NHS team lost by two miles, so management laid off the rower for poor performance, sold the boat and gave the Director of steering services a large payout for making the ‘hard decisions’ and concluded they had too many management consultants and not enough managers!"

Last week. Bridge 70 (restored) Old Uttoxeter Canal course.

Nah, it's ages away yet. I was just thinking that @Midnight could check when they are planning to shut Yorkshire again - although of course the plan doesn't allow for the emergency stoppages ... The other useful thing about early planning is that it helps CCers decide where they might like to either head for or avoid over winter. If a favourite area has limited or no access to services it's handy to know before the stoppages happen.

Tesco certainly prefer Birmingham ...

It's bad enough dog walkers now wanting someone else to deal with the excrement their pets produce. I reckon every dog owner ought to spend one month a year emptying dogwaste bins full time. But now you want some other poor sod to get rid of your personal crap too. Funny how it's always someone else who has to clear up the mess of the ecologically right on...

Lemme guess, you've been fooled into buying a composting toilet - only to find it doesn't compost anything.

No, I’m hanging onto my well earned.

That looks remarkably like FOTRN Peartree Farm moorings 😎

River Nene, an unofficial mooring near Oundle. This was even nicer (near Wadenhoe)

Opposite opinion: we visited the secret bunker a few years back - all four of us agreed it was very good. Don't know if it's been altered since then, but we plan to go again next time we chug that way.

One in one out Last Thursday at Streethay Sorry Peter, that was the only shot I took of CopperkinsII

Brilliant. I bet it’d only take one to remove it 🤫

But then they would wouldn't they. Nobody wants a rubbish incinerator in their vicinity so it has to be given a more positive sounding name, regardless of what the net energy balance actually is.

Same here, in 70’s/80’s. I was daft enough to try it and can say….it don’t work. 😳

Just found this postcard that I bought when I did the Canal De Midi in 1988

Boats are not like houses. The legal regime that makes renting out houses so advantagous doesn't work with boats.

Finally, a benefit identified of eating in McDonalds....

If the person doing it is also a heavy drinker, there is a risk of the canal catching fire and burning to the ground. 😀

What worries me is will the nuisance pennywort eventually be replaced by tomato plants?

Foredeck drain cutouts are quite handy for mooring with. Just lead a line through and tie to something that won't get drawn through the hole. Usually dead Canada geese are good for this and help with shock absorbing but other than that a bit of two by four or the head or a recently decapitated cyclist cable tied to his front wheel can work. Nice to have a low down attachment point close to the piling height.

I don't see why. Boaters with pumpouts and composting toilets pay for Elsans but don't use them. We don't use every service we contribute to, that's the nature of taxation and the distributed costs associated with living in a civilised society, and ensuring human waste is disposed of in a sustainable way benefits us all. Even this point is moot anyway since as I've already said, it's the direction of travel whether you like it or not, being more sustainable than any of the other solutions in the long term. If I recall the starting point of this thread was that composters were told overnight that CRT guidance was changing and they could no longer do what they had previously been told they could. This was a management failure by the CRT and the results were entirely predictable, it has nothing to do with the behaviour of composting toilet users. No one is using them incorrectly. A composting toilet itself is designed to start the process not complete it and given the marine application it is unlikely the end user is in a position to complete it either - but yes, a holistic solution is required to support the process. If councils can provide in some cases up to 4 different bins to categorise and collect household waste it is not beyond the wit of man, the CRT and companies such as Veolia to provide suitable collection facilities at rubbish points. In my experience the 'atmosphere' shall we say, around and inside Elsan points is considerably more unpleasant than any effect of composting toilet users currently putting their double bagged waste into regular waste containers (which I am NOT condoning) so once a suitable collection point is provided I do not see the problem. Honestly all I see is reactionary posts citing would are essentially trivial issues with what is otherwise a considerable improvement in the sustainable disposal of human waste over the long term. I don't get what would motivate anyone to be so negative. I appreciate changes in behaviour need to be supported by organisations such as the CRT to make them happen, but surely far better to encourage and lobby for positive change than simply resist what is, as I said before, the direction of travel.

You can't just go by price. What about the culture and beauty of Birmingham, compared with a dump like Venice?

I purchased one of these magnetic mount poles and fixed the arrival to that, they seem quite common on boat roofs. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magnetic-Mounting-Antennas-Caravans-Motorhomes-Black/dp/B019H5V9LW/ref=asc_df_B019H5V9LW/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=218715807545&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=131260434667219034&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006886&hvtargid=pla-426048253137&psc=1

From Wigan the best places to stop overnight are: - Adlington - good visitor moorings on the off side and a large number of pubs and a few restaurants. Spinners Arms the pick of the pubs but no food. Wheelton - below Johnson's Hillock locks. A formula pub by the canal and a decent restaurant at the Red Cat up the road. Wheelton - top of the locks. Visitor moorings on the off side above the top lock. Make sure that you check there's space before you go up the lock as it's often full. If it is full you can moor below the lock. Top Lock an excellent choice for beers right by you. A better choice for food andn also excellent beers is the Dressers Arms but it's a 20 minute walk. Riley Green - always plenty of space to moor. You can moor outside the Boatyard Inn but a better choice is the Royal Oak 10 minutes walk up the hill. Blackburn - only spent one overnight there at Eanam wharf, which was fine. Rishton - visitor moorings fine. We have left the boat to its own devices for 24 hours here with no problems. Range of pubs and restaurants including the very simple Rialto Italian next to the canal bridge - BYO beer or wine and you could be in Venice (if you drink enough). Beyond Clayton-le-Moors - excellent rural overnight stop just past pipe bridge 115A, with as fine a view as you will find anywhere. Hapton - moorings by the centre of the village. Rose Grove - BW yard with full facilities on the off side - very secure. Burnley - outside the Inn on the Wharf on bridge 130B. Safe with a decent pub outside and easy access to the town centre including a large Tesco. Barrowford - below the bottom lock, on either side of the canal. A bit of motorway hum from the M65, which you are never very far from from Riley Green to here. Barrowford - above the locks. Nice spot but limited space. Foulridge - decent moorings at the north end of the tunnel, if a bit gloomy and scruffy. Choice of pubs in the village. Salterforth - visitor moorings by the Anchor pub. As you would guess we have been up there most years and have yet to have any problems.