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I believe it was Francis Wheen who said (I paraphrase) that the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the British public is the widespread belief that you can have both better public services and lower taxes.

I ran a ceilidh at a historic boat gathering at Ellesmere Port, many years ago. Most of the folk were there to have a good time but there was one bloke who obviously considered himself a character, in full trad-boat getup, and who kept interrupting the calling of the dances, tried to get the mic off me etc. I finally lost my rag and told him to either get stuck in or go forth and procreate which, rather to my surprise, got a round of applause. I suspect most of the "working" boaters know it's a fairly daft hobby and have as low an opinion of the plonkers as some of us do. But the plonkers do hit remarkable heights of plonkdom.

Interesting Monbiot article in today's Grauniad, which quotes a historian as saying, basically, that money and power always, in any society throughout history, get concentrated at the top, and the only times inequality has been reduced, ever, is through either mass warfare, violent revolution, state collapse or plague. Logical enough. I have no doubt there will be a few millionaire Labourites caught with their fingers in the till in the next few years , assuming they win the election. It's just what people do. What governments don't do is look after their population, or its infrastructure, unless seriously kicked, any more than the law does. They just look after themselves. The trick is to find the weak spot and keep kicking.

I’m sad to hear the op had a bad experience. Hope the bad memory will fade. However wasn’t the boater who held up the op and winded in front of him yet couldn’t let the op past despite obviously going slower than other boats as well as planning to stop for lunch the root of the problem? The Historic owners I know are great, do much volunteering, look after the area help other boaters as well as maintain the historic perspective to canal life. I’m sure we can all come up with stories but compared to historic boats I’ve had many more stories about non historic owners.

The Latin name is Panthera (Pl)Onca. I have been boating for over 50 years, indeed my first two holidays were on camping boats, so I am familiar with their handling, but have not encountered such arrogance before. I know some of the historic boat owners at Alvecote, who passed my mooring regularly and they are nice normal people who exchange pleasantries as they pass. I can only assume that a fisherman must have left his stash of misery pills behind and this individual found them and took the lot in one go.

The irony being, the dredger is an actual, working, boat, and is fully entitled to being given priority in your situation. While the "historic"* boat owner is just pretending and is no better than any other boater. *They're not even really historic, they're just old. They're not that rare, and the canals started out and ran a long time with horse drawn boats. They are just a point in time some time after the invention of the diesel engine but before the canals stopped being used for commercial traffic.

If they are going to allow other tradesmen to work in their marina they are entitled to take reasonable steps to ensure that the tradesman is insured and not a risk to the marina itself or to the other boats moored there and is not going to cause undue disturbance to marina staff, other moorers or neighbours. It follows that they can make a reasonable charge for verifying the tradesman's status. Whether £50 per day is a reasonable charge in the circumstances is a matter that could ultimately only be determined by a court. The easy answer, as suggested above, is to have the work done outside the marina.

This presumes that everyone only cruises during “office hours” which is incorrect. Especially in winter when it gets dark very early, just because it is dark doesn’t mean it’s ok to moor on services/lock landings etc. At night it is even more problematic to find such things blocked by moored boats. Anyway, it is contrary to the “rules” so why do historic boat owners think they are exempt? What would happen if everyone did it?

Na, if the high buildings go ahead we will have to contend with wind surfers... 🤣

I had a run-in with four of these arseholes about 15 years ago, haven't forgotten it and won't, I have a long memory for such incidents. If I came across any of them now, in trouble, I would gladly watch them struggle. In my case, there were four full length historic boats with multiple crew, I was on a 40' tug on my own so absolutely nothing I could do to stop them. Something big calibre mounted on the roof would have been handy!

Thank you all for the overwhelming number of replies, really appreciated! Sorry for my late response, I've been really busy since the op and I haven't had time to read through everything yet, will catch up this evening. I did go to a marina yesterday and was given free roam of 4 boats to look over. 😃 This was the first time I've ever been on board, and was a great experience! It certainly hasn't put me off at all. Yesterday was, I believe, the hottest day of the year, and perhaps not the ideal day for inspecting boats that were closed up and sitting in the sun 🥵, but it was so good to get a feel for the internal space. I've spent some time living in motorhome in the past, and all the narrow boats I went on felt really quite spacious in the galley and living room areas. Corridors less so, but then they are narrow boats, it didn't feel like a problem. I'll read through everything you have all kindly posted and reply later. Cheers

Today 2024 That telegraph pole.

This one?

Well the Metro runs at the end of the Street and buses too. Whilst the Pinafore Factory/Furniture Warehouse/ Toy Factory is perhaps a basic factory building the stable block has heritage value being a a canal stable that occupied the lower part of Gas Street beside the canal with levels at the canal and at the road. It became a night club- Opposite Lock and then Bobby Browns. To loose this structure for developer profit intent on creating a modern tenement block needs investigation. This is a popular walk and mooring spot and perhaps deserves better. A view of the stable block looking up Gas Street.

^^^ The perfect description of a selfish prat

If everyone did it, there would be plenty of room to moor on the normal VMs. And the canal would be totally blocked overnight!

Must say that’s been my favourite pub so far. Very pleasant walk to and from. And I like the Young’s Special.

We stayed in Rembrandt Gardens again ... lovely mooring but the trees make it less effective for solar. Had a terrific week, thank you. We had a day travelling the Thames on the Clippers which was very enjoyable, jumping off and on. Our top three pubs were The Grapes, at Lime House, the George Inn near Borough Markets and the Prince Alfred in Maida Vale but that is mostly based on the buildings ... they're all expensive. Walking from the boat, the Prince Alfred and Warwick Castle were our locals ... only ten minutes walk. Enjoy your last week ... it's a terrific place to visit but it's great to leave behind too. Rog