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Showing content with the highest reputation on 19/05/22 in Posts

  1. 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.
    8 points
  2. 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.
    6 points
  3. Reminded me of this that circulated around BW during the 2009 reorganisation, one of several initiated by Robin Evans
    4 points
  4. 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.
    4 points
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  6. If it takes six men to fit one sign how many broken paddles can be fixed for the same cost?
    3 points
  7. 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.
    3 points
  8. 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.
    3 points
  9. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  10. Big thank you to the Atherstone vlockie who helped us and the boat in front all the way up the flight this morning. 👍🙂
    2 points
  11. @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)
    2 points
  12. 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!"
    2 points
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  14. How about peelings and waste food? Do people compost them? If it’s cooked or raw meat the fish get it. If it’s onion skin, banana peel etc the hedge row gets it ( only if I’m well countryfide, not someone’s garden hedge).
    2 points
  15. Last week. Bridge 70 (restored) Old Uttoxeter Canal course.
    2 points
  16. 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.
    2 points
  17. 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...
    2 points
  18. Lemme guess, you've been fooled into buying a composting toilet - only to find it doesn't compost anything.
    2 points
  19. This is a fine map of the system as it was in about 1080. Source: Anglo Saxon Hydraulic Engineering by Chisholm. You can see the original Nene that (obviously) went round March (to the North) not through it in a cutting (as the Old Nene does...).
    1 point
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  21. River Nene, an unofficial mooring near Oundle. This was even nicer (near Wadenhoe)
    1 point
  22. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
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  24. Brilliant. I bet it’d only take one to remove it 🤫
    1 point
  25. First time I've seen a slipway used to launch a dog! 🤣 Sam had his first immersion the other day. I was talking to someone on the towpath and they asked his name. "Sam" said I "SAM" they shouted back, and Sam though they were calling him so just walked straight off my mooring disappearing under the water and reappearing halfway across the cut. Fortunately he returned to base when I called his name and managed to drag himself out. He didn't seem to enjoy the experience and has avoided going close to the edge since.
    1 point
  26. From the very bottom? Well, there's a first time for everything!
    1 point
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  28. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  29. This is an extract from the Viridor website, the people who run the plants: "Energy recovery facilities use a technology that sees waste burned at high temperatures under carefully controlled conditions. The process is extremely sufficient, robust and safe. Emissions are treated to meet required standards under the stringent European Industrial Emissions Directive, which is strictly enforced and monitored by the Environment Agency. The electricity that ERFs produce is fed into the National Grid and the heat can be utilised locally, presenting opportunities for additional commercial development and improving resource efficiency." Perhaps this isn't such a bad way to process non-recyclable waste after all.
    1 point
  30. 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.
    1 point
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  32. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  33. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  34. Wholemeal, sourdough, foccacia? Or plain white? Is the canal in a middle class area?
    1 point
  35. We need to campaign for more accessible bins, they are far too high, it's discriminating and non inclusive. I demand my rights!
    1 point
  36. This is lifted from Fareham borough council's web site. "The Council, in line with many other local authorities is gradually replacing 'dog bins' with regular litter bins. This is because street litter and dog waste can now be placed in any litter bin other than those located inside a play area. Separate bins for dog waste were provided originally because it was felt that this material should be incinerated rather than sent to a landfill site. Nowadays all street waste is sent to the Energy Recovery Facility where it's incinerated, so now there is no need to provide two different types of litter bin." So if someone were to put small deposits of semi dessicated human waste, bagged of course, into council litter bins alongside the dog poo, then all would be used to generate energy, which maybe a good thing?
    1 point
  37. Boats are not like houses. The legal regime that makes renting out houses so advantagous doesn't work with boats.
    1 point
  38. And it benefits millions of dog owners, and everyone else who doesn't want to tread in dogsh!t... If your point that dog waste bins are worthwhile and economic because their cost is divided between millions of users, plus they protect the environment, then perhaps councils should allow boaters to use them, increasing the number of users still further and protecting the hedgerow from illegal dumping? Even more people benefit and even more of the environment is protected! Only users of composting toilets will know how much more pleasant partially dessicated human waste is than dog poo. I have seen dog poo bins being emptied and the operative doesn't touch the contents of the bin and of course at the processing plant the plastic bags are ripped off mechanically. Canal-side bins could be larger, but even several weeks of human 'deposits', having dried out and shrunk as they do, amounts to a tiny volume that needs binning. It could be that those unlucky enough to not have composting facilities of their own are already do this.
    1 point
  39. Because of extra licensing, insurance, BSS, and operating premisses costs as required by CaRT and the need to provide 24/7 support for breakdowns etc. the usual advice is that it is not worth it, but buying a sponsor boat in a hire fleet for an agreed number of years where you reserve X weeks for your own use does seem to work, but your budget almost certainly rules that out.
    1 point
  40. Finally, a benefit identified of eating in McDonalds....
    1 point
  41. If the person doing it is also a heavy drinker, there is a risk of the canal catching fire and burning to the ground. 😀
    1 point
  42. What worries me is will the nuisance pennywort eventually be replaced by tomato plants?
    1 point
  43. For general handling, nothing. I have two centrelines, one each side, attached to raised handrails. The lines do need to be securely attached though as they often get used for "strapping" the boat to a halt. I'd not use any variant of a centreline for mooring though, except perhaps as a very slack "belt and braces" insurance line.
    1 point
  44. Plus Birmingham canals have long had an extensive, free to view public art collection, which Venice lacks. For clarity, the upper photo is from Birmingham, the lower is from Venice. Photograph taken by Chris Jones in September 2010 and was added to the database on Thursday the 5th of January, 2012. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence By Saffron Blaze - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15374420
    1 point
  45. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  46. 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.
    1 point
  47. 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.
    1 point
  48. 1 point
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