Mike Todd

I was just about to make the same comment!

It would have made better legal drafting to have made that clause right at the end and say that any rule can be allowed exceptions.

What struck me was the amount of reconstruction needed to the opposite bank.

I know nothing about this particular spat as I don't inhabit the Virtual Pub (I assume that is where the 'fight' took place) but for the first time (!) I have actually read the full Rules. Moderation of anything like this is never easy - nor is it in any context as the hardest thing is what to do with minor infractions. At the time it seems heavy handed to enforce them but when it is clear that they have led to something bigger it can be too late to put the genie back in the bottle. For example, "A single link to a personal and non-commercial website, such as a blog or personal site, is allowed in a members signature" sounds innocuous but at least one member regularly breaks this rule and it seems that more than two such links is permissible. Now that is no big deal but what if someone starts to increase their link count over time until it contains more lines than any sensible post? How can the rule be used to restrict this without seeming to be heavy-handed? As I said, site moderation is a difficult task - even if moderation in all things is a 'good idea'.

Just watched David John's latest vlog (https://cruisingthecut.co.uk/2018/11/20/152-senyek-notlim/) and noticed just below Soulbury a boat that had a similar large superstructure - perhaps (although it did not look too easy) in could be dismantled for cruising.

Your friend in such debates is often found at the National Library of Scotland's collection of old OS Maps which is readily searchable. The oldest one in this case is https://maps.nls.uk/view/102341080 which shows that several salt works were in the vicinity, plus the inevitable brewery, but alongside the lock was a 'milk condensing factory'. If you look through the subsequent editions you can see the sequence in which they were replaced by housing or other developments.

Does that mean that unpowered butties are also excluded? Should CaRT require such conditions of marinas? In which case, should they be allowed to accommodate wideeams on a narrow canal? The rows of houseboats on various waterways, especially around London, no more look like a boat that this example.

see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39130530

A little while back whilst on the Shropshire just south of Chester I left a windlass on a lock beam and did not realise until reaching the next lock. I quickly ran back (I could at that time!) and found another boat in the first lock. I asked if they had seen my windlass and they somewhat sheepishly produced it, saying that they thought that no-one wanted it. I doubt whether that response would have passed the test set out in a previous post!

That's theft! Better not to confess so openly . . . you never know who is listening

You do have some front! (as they say in some parts)

We started canal boating in July 1967 (I can tell you the date and time if you really want to know!) with a hire boat that had a sea toilet (ie pumped out into the canal) and a year later our own very tiny (20 ft) ex BW hire boat which was equipped with bucket and chuckit - I became very proficient at digging discreet holes under hedges. (Although I could tell an amusing anecdote about one occasions when using someone else's boat with similar provision) So: much less than 100 years ago . . .

At least cars have to pass an annual MOT which includes emissions. Gennies can be on any condition without check.

I don't know the answer to your specific situation but maybe it depends on whether the hire fleet is large enough to do all of its own maintenance and replacement. On the canal system, it is important to determine which engines have the best coverage in terms of engineers and spares, unless you are especially competent yourself (I am not!) As far as I can see, Beta still win on those grounds even though others, such as Canalline seem popular with hire fleets where the capital cost will be much more important. Depending on the business model of the hire fleet, it may also be that they operate on a fairly short life approach, selling them on after five years once the asset starts to depreciate quickly. Larger firms are sensitive to their total capitalisation especially if they depend on shareholder investment. Most private narrowboats will be expected to last a lot longer, even allowing for their lower level of usage per year - long term availability of spares is a consideration.

But the use of misinformation, both deliberate and accidental, is far from new - it as been a part of warfare for as long as history is available. (The Trojan Horse was a form of fake news!) The arrival of cheap and fast air travel meant that diseases spread further and quicker and the internet similarly allows misinformation (bad news always spreads quicker than good, for some reason) to reach places that hitherto it would not, just because it attenuates with distance. Now there are few places on the earth where internet (mis)information does not reach.

It somewhat depends on what is mean by 'the internet'. The first fully functional wide are network is usually said to be ARPANET which began life in the late 60's. X25 came in a similar time frame but TCP/IP overtook it in popularity (money talks louder than logic!) . It was a much more 'hard-wired' approach back then with specific applications using the packet technology to send data over telephonic links. In Europe especially, the main impetus was for email to enable communication between researchers working collaboratively on large projects with teams in many countries. Many people think that internet = WWW but it was not until around 1992 before that latter became available and turned the internet into a repository of information as much as a means of communication.

Something about 'ability to pay'? One problem is that if you set the charge at a level that everyone can pay then you raise very little from those on better incomes or resources. Not for nothing is our system called a 'progressive' tax.

If you zoom into that map quite a bit it appears that there are services at the upper end. Only when zooming in a lot more is it revealed that the services are actually on the Cut not the river. I recall that it was not long ago that a boat had to be rescued much closer to the weir (from below). I am wondering (and there are better experts around on the Forum to reply) whether this section does still have a right to navigate, going back yonks and never extinguished. In which case the notice at Wilford is perhaps advisory and not mandatory. There are plenty of places where sections of both rivers and canals are not advised for navigation but which various people see as a challenge. Compare the reactions to this story to those about the cruise up to Welches Dam and the inclusion of some points on the IWA Challenge list. The part which MartynG linked to clearly indicates that the river around Cranfleet and Sawley Cuts are not navigable whilst it explicitly shows the par above Wilford as navigable.

That depends on the examiner using the correct email address. It may have bounced and she/he did not spot it. (We had this a few days ago when a quote for some work on the house was sent by email and the chap was chasing, somewhat indignant that we had not responded. Turned out that he had inserted an extra x in the email address. If it is a corporate sender then the bounces may just go to an IT admin person or be dumped altogether)

If a surveyor finds a problem, they will tell you (it is in their interests so to do unless corrupt). What they don't find they cannot tell you about although in some case they can warn about where they have not looked. So you at least get something - usually more effective when it stops you buying a bad boat and less comfort when buying a better one.

Straight out of the laissez-faire textbook? (other political philosophies are available!) Yup - the problem is that (which I realised as I wrote wot I did) is that one person's tax avoidance is another person's tax planning.

It is not quite that simple. Such logic works well in a commercial 'selling' organisation and helps to maximise turnover (which often incorrectly is used a measure of success). However, in organisations with largely fixed income and whose whole ethos is about how well they spend their income, it can have a detrimental effect as it appears that the organisation has lost income (rather than reduced expenses). I know as I have been responsible for a multi-million charity that keeps going through this debate. It is tempting always to end up deciding to do the opposite of what we decided last time. That is the nature of 'democratic' decision making: it attends to the problems and ignores the existing benefits.

'any well run business' would do all of these things, depending on the specifics of their market. How else, do they gain a 'good grasp of their business'? Of course, personal contact is important and ensuring that it feeds up the food chain but a large business, in numbers and in geography, has to resort to more than word of mouth as it can be quite distorted - as can listening here at times! I may have misunderstood an earlier aside about the survey but it does no good at all to ridicule respondents for their answers - it makes it look as if i was set up to achieve a specific outcome rather than an objective measurement.

Difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. One is criminal and both are immoral.

As I have read it, the intention was to allow broad beam to Birmingham (actually just south of Camp Hill which was never planned to be widened but that the works only got as far as widening the locks. Then the traffic and demand for wide barges did not materialise enough to justify investment in what happens between the locks, especially in terms of width (especially for passing) and depth as well as loading/unloading facilities. This also makes more sense of the Hilmorton situation. We do also have to remember that it was not necessary to allow for moored boats other than at recognised transhipment points, where it would probably be widened anyway. This is what makes today's context rather different and more contentious.