Arthur Marshall

First flat I lived in, the telly went off if you trod on a certain floorboard. One house had been wired up by my partner's exhusband, a plumber, all the wires were just twisted together and if you left the immersion on too long the house filled with the smell of burming rubber. I do still enjoy fixing up bits of the boat, I just can't stand up very easily the next day. I still can't afford to hire someone. And I've got a landing stage to sort next week...

I think it said on the gubbins that came with the socket that legally it had to be installed by a registered electrician. It may well not have told the truth.

Apparently I have illegally installed an outside socket to run a pond pump. It appears I should have paid an electrician a few hundred quid to drill a hole in the wall and connect three wires. And I connected the cooker... The rules are daft, even dafter than the Boat Safety...

I did all my boat fitting because I simply couldn't afford to pay anyone else. Same with car maintenance and fence building. Of course you can't do cars now and my back won't let me do much with a fence. Maybe people who buy boats now are split between those who can afford to pay tradesmen, and those who can't afford anything at all including materials and tools? A friend wants me to make her a storage chest, and I had to point out that it would be cheaper to buy one than to buy the materials to make it - it's been this way for years now. I've just replaced the bits of wood that stop the back deck flooding into the boat, and I reckon it's cost about £80 in wood and fixings for something about two foot long and four inches high.

I've noticed more and more posts here and on FB asking for recemendations of tradesmen to do what look like fairly basic boat repairs - bits of carpentry, plumbing, wiring, fabrics or paintwork. I'd always assumed most of us do the basic DIY stuff ourselves - part of the fun (and sometimes hell) of boat owning. Is this the case for most of us, or have boats got so complex now it's not practical any more?

I don't think there's a limit, at least, I'm still here and I've rather lost count of mine. You have to be an offender in the Dunkley tradition of non-stop personal abuse and seriously offensive language before it gets to that stage. Straight-talking and the occasional misunderstood joke doesn't count.

Sometimes a decent life can be managed on a very low income. Most of my life my income was from playing in various bands, seldom netting me more than ten grand a year and, even with a part time job, never getting me into the tax bracket. If she owns her house outright, a pittance from something you enjoy doing goes a hell of a long way.

It's a bit like the peeing in the cut discussion somewhere else on here. I reckon if every single male boater used the system as a urinal it wouldn't add up to a googolplexth of what the cows put in it.

Your line was obviously advice phrased as a joke, if a fairly robust one. The responses were totally uncalled for and appeared to be from people who don't contribute anything else. I've never hard of one of them before, which does lead one to suspect their motivation and, possibly, real identity. Don't worry about the mods. They've got a job to do and we don't have to agree with them all the time. But I do hope they warned the others about their use of language.

Don't change a thing. Some people on here just like to pick fights and deliberately upset people.

I don't believe it. The four examiners prior to my last one were all seriously incompetent. I saw no point in reporting them, still don't. If virtually every one who has examined my boat has been either an obvious idiot or corrupt I think I can safely assume that the controlling body doesn't give a toss, as there are certainly no follow up checks on their ability or knowledge. There's no doubt as to why a "customer satisfaction survey" on these tests isn't done. When you are sure that no action will be taken except a cover up, you just sigh and pay up. Anything else is a waste of time and energy.

Fly-tipping is defined as the illegal depositing of waste matter on land. Not sure it applies to throwing stuff into the canal, or you'd have to arrest everyone feeding the ducks. And, of course, fishermen.