Richard Fairhurst

I'd second this. Turning into the Erewash, coming downstream on the Trent, with a wind blowing counts as one of my least favourite boating experiences. I'd be tempted to continue into the Cranfleet Cut, find somewhere to turn round and approach it that way if doing it again.

Caldon every time. The Bridgewater has the historical cachet but I find it a pretty boring cruise until you reach Manchester; whereas the Caldon is full of interest - Leek, Cheddleton, Hazelhurst, Froghall, the Churnet river section, the steam railway, the urban bit through Stoke. The Bridgewater's worth doing as a transit route on the way to somewhere else, but I wouldn't choose it as a destination.

Until 2013, the situation on the Severn, at least, was that the river in such conditions would be deemed to be "in indemnity". A slightly jargonish phrase, but a good idea. If the lock could be worked, but the river was at a level that might cause navigation difficulties, the keeper would require the boat's skipper to sign a form indemnifying BW/CRT from any damages. Effectively, "we're advising you not to proceed - but if you insist, on your head be it, and sign here to say you understand the consequences". One would hope that might give even the most pig-headed boat-owner cause to reconsider. This system was quietly dropped in 2014 and I've never found out why. I thought it was a good idea and one that could usefully be extended to other river navigations.

I only finished drawing the map for it today! Off to the printers on Monday.

Waterways World aggregates a number of brokerage listings, search engine-style, at http://www.waterwaysworld.com/boatsearch/.

Beat me to it! There are a few open-source tools around to solve TSP problems, but the only digital, routable waterway database that I know of is Canalplan (there's also OSM, but the canal data is too patchy).

And this is actually one of the things that Richard Parry has got right. BW management under Robin Evans was constantly being reorganised - it was almost Marxist in its "permanent revolution" approach. Offices were merged and demerged, chains of command constantly shifted, bankside staff moved from pillar to post. It was absolutely the "management as profession" approach you describe, Arthur, and it was a disaster for BW. Commitment to the canals was no longer valued, and commitment to the organisation was impossible when that organisation would bite you in the ar*e at the next inevitable reorganisation. Every rejig was done in the name of "efficiency", but it was obvious to anyone watching and talking to BW that the staff were less dedicated and less efficient each time. Richard Parry has taken a much more gradual approach. No, CRT does not have the same exact layout as it had when he took over. But the changes have been gradual rather than a series of big bangs, and the approach appears to be pragmatic rather than textbook-led. It seems happier and more harmonious to me, and that makes for a better and more customer-responsive organisation.

For the potential number of boaters, I've become convinced that the no. 1 prospect is the eastern Wilts & Berks, the North Wilts and the eastern Thames & Severn. A week-long ring with a bit of everything (gentle river, narrow canal, broad canal), not too many locks, plenty en route (not least Oxford), lovely scenery, and in an area already established as popular boating territory. I think it'd give the Four Counties a run for its money. But as I'm sure you know better than me, getting the big grants isn't just about the number of boaters, and the regeneration argument in rural Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire is much less strong than in the Black Country. Still, W&BCT seem to be going great guns around Swindon these days...

Depends on the locks, I find. Iago (40ft) bobs very happily around on the Worcester & Birmingham without hitting either end. But on the northern Staffs & Worcs there's a ricochet effect from one end to the other. I'm sure there's a knack to avoiding the latter but I've not found it yet...

Ironically, there is actually a tug moored up in Worcester at present, though I doubt it's very serviceable - it's at Diglis, by the Anchor and about five berths along from our boat. I fear however that even the most skilled of pilots might have difficulty getting it under Worcester Bridge right now:

I don't know how well you know Worcester, but as a moorer there, I can assure you that powered boaters (i.e. those who pay something to CRT as navigation authority) are decidedly in the minority as river users. If the narrowboat hit the railway bridge, that is automatically a several-hour closure of the mainline from London to Hereford while the safety of the pillars is assessed. If the narrowboat hit Worcester Bridge itself, that's damage to a 250-year old historic structure and potentially another closure of the only road route across the river in the city. Good luck sending the entire city traffic round the southern bypass. If the narrowboat hit a vessel from any of the rowing clubs based around the racecourse - including several school ones - that's a very serious, potentially fatal, accident. (Fortunately, the rowers are unlikely to have been out with the river at today's levels.) If the narrowboat collided with something, went under and leaked oil or diesel, that's not going to be too great for the three-figure number of swans by South Quay and the Cathedral. An out-of-control narrowboat on the river in Worcester is a public danger and as such it's entirely appropriate that the public Fire & Rescue Service is involved. SARA, of course, is another organisation which undertakes rescue missions on the river, and those of us who use the river are very grateful to them. It may not be what you're used to on the Trent and the more artificially managed channel through Newark, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

The mobile bike repair business that visits our little town every couple of months seems to be thriving. A bit of advance publicity and people are queueing to take their bikes there - so much so that it regularly has to take bikes away to be fixed later.

The Bridgewater's closed until March: http://www.bridgewatercanal.co.uk/news/navigationclosure

Personally I would say you're nuts if you try to cycle from Chester to London by towpath! There are lots of lovely country lanes, NCN routes, and the like which will give a more enjoyable cycling experience. If you choose to plough your way through Grub Street Cutting or along the muddy bits of the Grand Union in preference to quiet, smooth back-roads, that's your choice but it's not how I'd spend my leisure time. Yes, by all means use the towpaths when they're suitable - sections around Chester and Nantwich, Bilbrook through Wolverhampton to Birmingham, the bit round Leighton Buzzard - but don't be hoodwinked by those into thinking that all towpaths are suitable for cycling, because they're not. Use a proper bike route-planner, not a canal one, and it should give you a decent route weighing up all the variables. Here's one option, but there are many more.

For those not familiar with bike forums, this is pretty much the cycling equivalent of pumpout vs cassette. (Whereas h*lm*t arguments are the cycling equivalent of CCing debates.)

They're on there - https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network Though you won't find any on the map between Leigh and Preston Brook/Manchester, because the Bridgewater Canal isn't run by CRT.

Not so much. Newsagent/supermarket distribution is the killer: that's why magazines always try to get you to subscribe. The cost of postage is much, much less than going through the three tier chain of wholesalers, distributors and newsagents.

If I remember rightly, last year CB also increased their cover price by a pound for one issue. There was a reason for it - maybe the bundled wall-planner or some such. It was back to usual the next month.

One of many reasons to have a 40-footer! Though in my experience people are often happy to budge up a bit if you ask them (but, of course, we're English, so we'd never ask...). I did enjoy getting our boat into a 41-foot space at Audlem this summer despite the "helpful" advice of those on the opposite bank that "you'll never fit in there".

Yes, absolutely. (If I were to get really pedantic about names and addresses I'd go into sui generis database rights at this point, but no-one deserves that...)

Generally I'd go for b, of course. But there are several canals - notably the Shroppie - where I'd think "hallelujah, that guy has found somewhere where you can actually moor up to the bank. I've been looking out for that for the last hour..."

Not quite. "Public domain" in the American English sense means "free of copyright". This usage has gained widespread worldwide popularity through the open source software movement. "In the public domain" is a British English phrase used to mean that something is not a secret. Information published on this forum can therefore be said to be in the public domain, though each posting is the copyright of its author. For what it's worth, England & Wales copyright law does not have an explicit concept of "public domain", hence the existence of legal tools such as CC0 and PDDL to allow people to effectively renounce the copyright in their works. Collections of names and addresses can actually be copyrightable in the UK, but that's another question and an exceptionally complex one.

I don't usually rush to the defence of NBW and it genuinely pains me to have to agree with Chris Pink "Alenafour", but I think Allan is in the right here. CWDF is no less the public domain than NBW. Both are free-to-view websites covering canal news inter alia. If I were editing the news pages at one of the news-stand magazines, as I did for several years, I would personally feel negligent not covering this story. It's not just 'soap opera' stuff that you read about for interest: it's genuinely relevant to anyone who takes their boat through a volunteer-controlled lock on CRT waterways. If a similar incident happened next month, potentially with loss of life, and I had passed up the chance to write about Alan's near miss, I would find it hard to justify my decision. (That said, I wouldn't personally have written the story in the way that Allan wrote it - I'd probably have left the names out, been a bit more concise, dropped the editorialising, and requested a quote from CRT - but I'm sure that Allan would say the same about plenty that I've written!)

Absolutely. And this is largely because, in Oxford, cycling is normalised - a higher percentage of people cycle in the city (17%) than anywhere else except Cambridge (29%). It's also a nightmare of a city to drive in (this is a good thing, by the way ), but with excellent bus services, so people are also more likely to be pedestrians than elsewhere. The result is that there isn't a them-and-us atmosphere. Most probably either you're a cyclist, or your spouse is, or your neighbour - people you get along with. You don't demonise cyclists, because you know some, and they're just like you. There aren't really any "tribes"; people on the towpath relate to each other as people, whether they're cycling or walking or being towed along by a dog or whatever. Contrast that with the attitudes occasionally displayed here where, to quote from earlier in this thread, "i always find a pole through the spokes stops them nicely". Yes, well done. That must really help.

Um, that's Vaughan Welch's list with "Seek network expansion and adoption of EA Waterways" removed, isn't it?