Arthur Marshall

There's an elsan at Venetian marina on the Middlewich link by the marina, and a water point.

The last few words sum up why they haven't got showers any more! You get what you pay for, and if you choose to travel light, that's your choice. You wouldn't expect showers and laundrettes to be provided for you if you decided to cycle from Lands End to John oGroats, why should canoeists? I don't think any boat that can be lived on doesn't have some kind of washing facility. As CRT point out, they were introduced when boats were a lot more basic than they are now. And they get trashed all the time (as, of course, do the elsans).

Last time I went through Colwich it was impossible to open the gates without using the boat to push them. Couple of years ago the same was true at one on the Llangollen - the coal boat advised me to go full tilt at them. He'd reported them to CRT the previous year.

Ah... nor did I...

Quite a lot of the Macc is built on small embankments, and the piling is in pretty poor repair on most of it. One place I passed this morning had a fairly large section of rotten piling with water happily flowing through it into a developing hole under the towpath. It's adjacent to a section which has been fettled with bags of concrete, presumably due to a previous leak, or the danger of one.

That's assuming anyone bothered to report him. Usually everyone just assumes someone else has.

What are you posting but the same old stuff? You haven't posted anything either constructive or different in years. Give it a rest.

I think it's the switch. Headlight not working at all on main beam last night, fine this morning. Worked fine on the dip (it's an old car headlight - one of the two remaining original features of the boat!).

It's just his usual attention seeking clickbait. At least it makes a change from another thread about the commission. I wonder if he's ever thought about starting another forum where all the anti-crt whingers can get together?

Indeed. And, of course, once the emergencies start building up (as they are bound to in structures that are centuries old and have been underfunded for donkey's years), you have to spend all your money dealing with them and haven't either the dosh or the staff left over for routine maintenance. That's why the country's full of ruined castles and decrepit mills and factories. All once busy and productive. It's what happens. It's called time. Actually, it's happening to me, too...

I think the real problem is that the mods are volunteers and I see no reason why the behaviour of a few ill mannered louts should add to their workload. When (presumably the same) people got banned last time there was a lot of outraged handwringing by their supporters, but since then we've been pretty well behaved. Perhaps these unnecessarily nasty posts should just get reported immediately rather than either left to fester or argued with, as the latter just feeds the trolls. Enough reports might get them booted out again.

I think it only might become relevant when you want to sell the boat and if you then do it via a broker. I don't know much about it as my tub is so old the people who invented the RCR weren't born. I'd be surprised though if sticking a solid fuel stove in would make any difference to anything except increasing the value of the boat. There's a long thread about RCR if you use the search icon for "RCR again". I'd post the link but have no idea how to do it...

It won't cos it's obviously not a link. Just underlined. But you still didn't answer the question, so can't really see the point of your post as I can't believe you really thought it was a link. Not did I, of course but I did politely point out your error. I'm not sure any narrow boat owner actually give a toss about the RCR anyway. I'm fairly sure that I wouldn't rely on any advice on here about it either.

Which advice may, I hope, help me to work out why my headlight went out halfway through the Harecastle this morning!

Partly though I don't think anyone took them, or him, very seriously any more (especially CRT) but also the endless slanderous comments made about him, possibly by some of those who have returned here under various names. Personally, I was glad to see the back of his rants when he left here, but in person he was always very different. Anyway, shan't discuss this any more, TBs gone and good riddance. Only a shame some of its inhabitants came back here. I'm sure BLuN is very pleased with the outcome of his postings and the attention that his trolling has got himself. Enough said.

I assumed it was some idiot who wanted to post under several fake identies. Much the same as a troll. Pointless, stupid and fraudulent. I gathered TB was rife with it which is why it ended up appearing to only have two contributors under twenty different names and poor old Tony Dunkley who, having been really the reason for setting the forum up in the first place, wound up being victimised to the extent that the plug got pulled.

What is apparent is that "people like that" only tend to have a go at the inexperienced members. They don't have the guts to pick on anyone who is more used to boats, the forum and its rules. Perhaps it's time we started reporting these aggressive posts and the mods started banning those who only seem interested in picking a fight and never offer constructive advice. The forum certainly improved years ago when we kicked a few of them out and the rest went off in a huff to destroy their own creation.

Couple of years ago I had to get from just north of Middlewich back to Congleton on the Macc, about 3 days down the T&M. Except they closed the T&M, so had to go via Nantwich, Great Haywood and Stone instead. It's what happens these days.

I just tie two links together with a bit of string. It does mean it breaks on its own sometimes, but I really can't be bothered cutting through a steel link, and if I did I wouldn't have a clue how far to cut. That being said, in 30 years I've never got close to getting hung up on a gate as I keep well away from it. I wouldn't do this "riding the gate" thing if I was paid for it.

Maybe the canals up north are full of clowns who think they know it all and just like to sneer at anyone showing an interest in learning. Time you either gave up the ale or grew up.

As someone who has remained pretty ignorant about engines and electrics for the past thirty years, I am consistently grateful for the patience most people on here have with my personal numptiness. There are a few bad tempered folk who just like insulting people or sneering at what they see as ignorance, but they can usually be ignored as thry rarely have anything constructive to say. Most of us just want to help.

I think I'll postpone my trip up the locks for a bit. Rather glad I shifted my mooring to below Bosley, though I only did that as I got fed up with the swing bridges breaking down, not the whole damn canal.

You can't really blame CRT, not any more. There hasn't been enough money for regular maintenance since well before BW left the scene and there never will be again. It's been fire fighting for twenty years and when the rest of the country's infrastructure is falling to bits we come a long way down the list. You have to remember they're only still here at all because of huge amounts of free volunteer labour, and were only built in the first place so rich people could make money out of them. And unfortunately we're unlikely to be able to sell them to the Chinese, Indians, Saudis or Russians who seem to own everything else that has or once had the word "British" in its title.

For those who view the devil incarnate that is Facebook, here's a video taken just before it went splot. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18tzXJ6tp8/

And the autumn refurb is cancelled, so...