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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!

AND were having a bloke service your car out in the car park at the same time?!

August '21, bit less tree

Yes I’d forgot they’d gone bust. I understand what you’re saying but we don’t have to like it and can object. I think the title here is correct and Gas Street would be destroyed by this monster.

Had forgotten Braunston was this weekend, guess we're heading onto the Coventry then to avoid the shenanigans. Never had any real problems with them personally, always give them plenty of room when passing though. Only real issue was one we passed on the Cheshire locks, seemed a bit grumpy but thought he must have seen us coming and he'd been kind in leaving the gates open for us as he left the lock. Turned out the next four or five locks we came to he'd left all the top gates open and paddles up as he left

We are in Manchester right now and its all surrounded by new high rise flats. The moorings are all looking a bit unwanted and downmarket, this might or might not be related to all the high rise housing but I suspect it is a factor. Historically B'ham has got it right and Manchester has got it wrong, but this is high risk.

A pitch made all the more difficult to get people to believe since Rishi found and shook a Magic Money Tree to the tune of £320bn (IIRC), to fund furlough, the useless Track and Trace scheme and all the crooked tories with their fingers in the till like the charming Lady Michelle Mone and that waste of oxygen of a husband of hers.

Island Queen. Noel Road N1 Just behind Islington Lock and the East portal of the tunnel. https://www.theislandqueenislington.co.uk

And don't they flash brilliant blue in this wonderful sunshine? It was the flash that caught my eye and yes it was flying ahead then waiting until I caught it up then off again, made me smile big time 😊