Richard Fairhurst

Rog - Yes, I've seen the thread, and like it. In the past few months (since I arrived at WW), we've introduced a "bright ideas" box in all the boat reviews we do, to highlight a few of the ideas that you can take out and use in your own boats. We've also started a dedicated monthly page ('Boating Forum') for technical questions and suggestions. I'd be delighted to print more suggestions that you, or anyone else, send in! I've not seen your original letter in WW, Rog - which issue was it in? (I can tell that some people will never believe me when I say that advertising doesn't control editorial... shame this board doesn't have the 'banging head against wall' smiley you get on some others. ) Pirate - I was on here for a year before I started working for WW, and have been contributing to other Internet waterway forums since 1997. So I won't be going away... but don't expect me to keep up the level of postings I've made over the past couple of days, or I'll never get any work done!

Gaggle - come and buy me a pint of the Black Rat here, and you can peruse the magazine pile at your leisure! Snibble - though it's not really 'core audience' stuff for us, if you could keep the write-up short and factual (say, a half-page or page), we could be interested. Good pics would be essential.

Ok, that surprises me a little, because I was flicking through last year's WW Annual the other day and noticed a special subscription offer which expressly said "available to current subscribers" at the bottom of it. I'll check what we're doing before this year's Crick. Pirate - Not sure about the doctor's waiting room, but I do always take a copy for the magazine pile in our local pub. As for the publication date, yes, all magazines do it. The logic is that (say) the February issue is on the news-stands from mid-January to mid-February: if it was called the January issue, the prospective purchaser would think it was out of date on 1st February and not buy it. That's the theory, anyway. I'm not saying I agree with it...

Dor - usually the offer is open to existing subscribers who want to extend their subscription, too.

You sure you don't want to write for us, Fuzzyduck? WW did do a comparison of similarly-priced narrowboats earlier in 2005, written by our technical editor, Graham Booth. It was a while before I arrived, so I can't remember the month, I'm afraid. But it was there. I suspect the reason why this has never happened much is that narrowboats have traditionally been built bespoke, which isn't really the case with cars! But with off-the-peg narrowboats becoming common, it starts to make more sense.

(Interesting and well-reasoned post - thank you!) Generally we won't review a boat unless we already have some experience of it, or its builder. Sometimes this will be seeing a boat at Crick or the National; sometimes it'll be experience of the same builder's earlier boats. The reason you don't see "this boat sucks" very often is simply because we aim not to review sucky boats. (This certainly also used to be the case at Canal Boat: they've changed editor since I worked there, so I don't know if they still take the same approach.) This isn't because we don't want to offend advertisers - as I said, I don't find out who's advertising in the magazine until it comes back from the printers. It's more that we only have limited feature pages in each issue, and I don't want to waste 10% of them on a pile of cr*p.

The best way to break into it is to get your articles published in one of the three magazines. All three accept freelance contributions (we have some 'Notes for Contributors' which I can e-mail you if you're interested). If your contributions are good, you'll then be better placed to take one of the full-time jobs. There aren't many of these, but one comes up every couple of years.

Laplander is owned by Sean Neill, who I think moors it at Newbold on the north Oxford.

Hang about, I never said that. You'd originally written that "the only thing that motorvates them is PROFIT not boaters interests or even the interests of canal enthusiasts as a whole" (my emphasis). I wouldn't deny that profit is a consideration, and with most magazines, very probably the main one - but it needn't be the only one. Not intentionally. I don't know whether you do it because it's trendy, Gaggle. If you have evidence that the press only ever reports the stories which will make the most money, then I'm glad you've founded your belief on facts. I only wish everyone else would do the same. (That's a comment about the wider world, not this forum in particular!)

John, I could write a detailed point-by-point rebuttal of that, but suffice it to say that at least three of those points are things we're working on at the moment. I've only been editor for three issues now, and changes take a while to work through (not least because a lot of readers enjoy WW exactly as it is). But if you can wait a couple of days until the February issue, you'll see that one of your very specific points there has been addressed already. I would, however, totally refute the idea that advertising bookings influence our editorial coverage. It makes a nice conspiracy theory, but it's not true. Advertising and editorial are totally separate here - I have no knowledge of what adverts are in the magazine until it comes back from the printers. There's one particular waterway business who repeatedly tries to get more coverage based on the fact he advertises with us (and I know he used to do the same when I was at Canal Boat). He doesn't... we treat him the same as anyone else.

Thanks to all for the comments - interesting and useful. Not writing about Anthony M was a mistake on our part for which I can only apologise. It had the bad luck to fall as I was arriving at the magazine and I didn't have my full attention focused on it. As it happens, we do have a news article on a successful prosecution of a boat-builder under the RCD in the forthcoming (February) issue; and we do open the magazine with a campaigning article, on a different subject, but one that very much needs airing. I understand that anti-media stereotyping is trendy these days, but to write (quoting Gaggle) that "as for mags the only thing that motorvates them is PROFIT" is simply nonsense. It might be true of the Daily Mail, which is a plc which has to provide the biggest return to its shareholders, like any other. Same applies for the IPC titles like MBM and MBY, which are owned by AOL Time Warner. But all three canal magazines are privately owned, not public companies with anonymous shareholders. If the owners decide that they would rather publish a quality magazine than fight for the very last inch of profit, that's entirely up to them - and WW's owner is a canal enthusiast with a long background in the trade. The effect of the Internet is interesting. I don't think it's had much effect on our circulation. Editorially, the web is strong competition for newspapers and TV, because they're fighting on the same ground - immediacy. But magazines traditionally provide more in-depth coverage and, as yet, the web isn't so great for providing that. As an example, the BBC website reported the funding for the Liverpool Canal Link (reproduced here in the news forum) - but if you actually want to find out in detail what's being built, exactly where the new locks and channel are going to be, that's where we come in. Incidentally, I can't afford a £100k boat either... and I firmly intend that the magazine will reflect the wide variety of tastes and budgets on the canals. Richard

Editorial is 71 pages (OFC, 1-3, 42-110 with two exceptions). Advertising is 101 pages (IFC, 4-41, 111-168, IBC, OBC, plus the two exceptions). That's 71 editorial, 101 advertising, 172 total. You'd originally said 170 total, 111 ads, therefore 59 editorial. Quite a difference! Anyway... Chris and Richard - disregarding the amount of ads, what would you like to see in the editorial? Moley, dor, Paula, Gary - thanks.

This is an interesting one. Out of our total pagination, we usually run 71pp-77pp editorial every issue. I've just recounted the (current) January issue and it was 71pp (plus the year-planner), so Richard, you've seriously miscounted if you think it's 59pp. This is by far the most of any magazine I've worked on in the past 15 years - when I was at Canal Boat, a couple of years ago, it typically had 56pp editorial each month. If you don't believe me, count up the editorial pages every month over the past 20 years of WW, and see if there are more or fewer now. The price is effectively the same it's always been. It's £3.25 now; it was £3.10 for the last 18 months; the costs of printing, paper and distribution go up just like anything else, so we have to have an inflation-rate increase now and then. I wish we didn't... but we do have to pay for paper. So a serious question: what would you like us to do? We could run fewer adverts. That wouldn't mean any more editorial - in fact, since the adverts subsidise the cover price, we'd either have to put the price up or run fewer editorial pages. We could change the way we lay the magazine out. At the moment, we put a bunch of ads (about 40pp worth) at the start, then run the editorial without any ads, then finish with the rest of the ads. Some magazines have fewer ads at the start (say, 20pp), but then the editorial pages are interleaved with ads... and then there's always the suspicion that the advertiser has paid to be "opposite" a particular article. What would you prefer we do? Richard Fairhurst editor, Waterways World

Pomona was an obligation. MSC Co wanted to close the Hulme Locks Branch link, through which there was a statutory right of navigation. A replacement at Pomona was the quid pro quo. Salford I don't know about, but I suspect that grand intentions haven't been followed through. Peel Holdings are the MSC Co. They are indeed a lot more friendly then they used to be (unless you own a shared-ownership boat!), but still a long way behind other navigation authorities. I agree totally about the lower reaches - restoring Runcorn Locks seems a much more sensible alternative to me - but I see little reason why the uppermost reach shouldn't be opened up to (say) all Bridgewater licence holders. With Phase 1 of the MB&B imminent, perhaps it will be. Can you tell me any more about Castlefield? You will, hopefully, have seen our big report a couple of months ago on the discussions between BW and Peel about taking over the Bridgewater. Access to the top reach of the MSC is all tied in with this and doubtless there'll be more to come in the next year...

In fact, very little is coming from BW at all. (This is pretty much standard for restoration/new-build projects - Transport Act 1968 doesn't let BW spend its money on unnavigable waterways other than for public safety). Agreed. But this is largely because MSC Co isn't keen on pleasure boats using the MSC. Access to the uppermost reach of the MSC will have to be sorted out when the MB&B is restored, anyway, so I'd expect some progress on this before long. Not in our bit of the canal media! We aim to print a representative selection of readers' letters. If you've boated through an urban area and feel it's not as black as it's painted, do write and tell us. On the positive side, you might have noticed a big article on the Liverpool Link in December's WW. I think it's a great scheme.

John, that's how I think (note the speech marks around "bloody silly idea"). If you want something, push for it. That's why I founded a restoration society for two of the longest-lost waterways eight years ago. But it isn't how BW thinks any more - look at the questions from the Bedford & Milton Keynes people to Robin Evans at this year's AGM. Things have changed since Unlocked & Unlimited. Since it was under BW's auspices that Kendal-Windermere was first proposed (even if not wholeheartedly), realistically, I don't see any life in the idea at present. I would love to be proved wrong.

I don't think BW was ever seriously considering it. As I recall, the then Waterways Minister (Alan Meale) threw the idea into a conversation. BW said "why not?" because, well, you don't say "that's a bloody silly idea" to the Waterways Minister, especially when he's the man who gives you an £80m cheque every year. It made a full page in the Daily Mail, which is good PR by anyone's book. But if they were serious about it, there'd have been a feasibility study (hey, they're still finishing off the feasibility study for Tewitfield-Kendal, never mind on to Windermere). There are always plenty of appealing 'join the dots' propositions on the waterway network, especially if you assume (as in this case) that you've restored the connecting waterway first. Little Ouse to Waveney... Caldon to Macclesfield... Grantham Canal to Sleaford Navigation... Oakham Canal to Stamford Canal... and so on. Maybe we should concentrate on getting the Cotswolds done first.

Not quite... The EU standard is that the same rate of fuel taxation should be applied to cars and to pleasure boats. However, that's just a standard, not a rule. Individual countries are free to apply for an exemption. At present, we have such an exemption (or 'derogation'): so do Ireland, Finland and Belgium (I think). The exemptions expire at the end of 2006. The present campaign is aimed at getting the UK Government to renew the exemption. At present our Government hasn't agreed to do so. Richard

Canalphone is for unscheduled stoppages - i.e. those that aren't in the winter stoppage programme. Both the Diglis and Gregory Basin ones are in the scheduled list. I do think this point could be made a bit more emphatically on the recorded message, though.

Just noticed that Waterscape's online renewal system has quietly appeared - thought I'd point it out as there was some conversation about buying licences online recently. It's at www.waterscape.com/renewal . Richard (no longer connected with the site but delighted they've got it done)

I suspect it's because it wasn't an official press release - just an e-mailed briefing to the magazines (and anyone else on BW's waterway media list). Both Waterscape and bw.co.uk are usually quite good at putting releases up there.

It was a briefing sent to all the waterways press. Yes, NBW printed it verbatim. (I'd have thought that reasonably obvious... journalists don't usually set stuff out as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc., and there's nothing else on NBW in that format.)

Impressed to see Tom's updated his story already - ah, the power of the web.

That's just plain wrong - point 1.7 refers.