Richard Fairhurst

Plans here. The last page is the most helpful. It's... imaginative, I'll give them that.

WRG and SNCT have been working at Berwick Tunnel, but it's debatable whether it would ever form part of a restored route. The A5 cuts across the canal either side of the tunnel, so you could save a lot of money (as in £3m-£5m) by staying north of the tunnel for a short while. Runcorn is the sort of project that could potentially get regeneration money - obviously there's the wider Mersey Gateway context, but also an ambition to do something with Runcorn Old Town. That relies very much on the local authority being on board. The industrial land is sufficiently low value that you could in theory bash a route through to the Weston Canal à la Liverpool, but in practice a traffic-light system on the MSC would do the job – light-controlled passage, monitored by CCTV, and only permitted when there are no ship movements.

what3words is a venture capital-backed company. Investors have sunk $14m into the company. They want a return on their investment. They are not a charity. It does work in the UK, as Google's chief map technologist has confirmed today on Twitter. But you're quite right. If you're in an area without phone service then what3words is much better because you can phone the emergency services and give them your what3words address.

Your phone already tells the emergency services your location, by default, without you having to do anything: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076 https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/how-it-works/ Absolutely no need to use a third-party app like what3words.

Diglis canal locks still closed - we’ve just seen an ABC hire boat turn back.

The ongoing closure between Diglis and Bevere locks is indeed for the poor kid who jumped off Sabrina Bridge. Last I heard was that a tractor was going to try to pull the boat off the weir today. (We’ve just come down from the Camp to Diglis unaware of the closure - fortunately CRT let us up onto the canal!)

We got a similar email about improvements planned in Diglis, also including new electricity bollards. Hopefully they'll be replacing the paper card system with something less fiddly... it's been a PITA since the card vending machine was removed.

Great post. Fully concur with the eastern T&M and northern S&W (in a 40-footer).

Or indeed you can moor at the Camp House itself, though the mooring's not huge and it's occasionally reserved for a trip-boat from Worcester.

Certainly WW popularised it. The single-word form was occasionally seen beforehand: there was a pre-1972 firm called Lapworth Narrowboats, for example, who used "Narrowboat" in their publicity material. But looking through the Canals Book 1972 this is the only occurrence I can find: everyone else used "narrow boat" or, now and then, "narrow-boat". So you can probably thank/blame Machin, Arnold & co. for "narrowboat" becoming the most common form, even if it wasn't their invention.

Perhaps, now they're owned by Lloyds, BWML will let me pay my mooring fee via Direct Debit. A revolutionary concept in 2018, I know...

You don't say what sort of bikes you'll be riding. I've done the Coventry Canal on a hybrid and it was survivable but not the most comfortable of rides. A mountain bike would mostly be fine though there will be muddy sections. Road bike - forget it.

CRT have confirmed Locks 1 and 2 will still be open.

Seems unlikely given the amount of work done on Diglis Locks (1 and 2) recently. I've just asked CRT on Twitter to clarify. Richard (also a Diglis Basin moorer)

The problem is that (as explained by @Anonymaps, inter alia, on Twitter) that what3words isn't going to become profitable any time soon on its current burn rate and revenue. It's owned by venture capitalists who'll want a return on their investment - sooner rather than later. That return will almost certainly come from selling w3w for $$$ to a large company: there's no other exit that makes sense right now. So, ask yourself who that will be. Amazon? Sure, you can use w3w for free as long as you sell your products on our site (for which we take n% commission) and use our Logistics provider. One of the big mapping companies like HERE or TomTom? They'll put a clause in that says "must be used in conjunction with one of our maps" (which you have to pay for). Uber? Mmm, that'll work out well. And so on. w3w is nice and fluffy now because it's spending other people's money. When the venture capitalists want their return, people will regret building their products on it - just as people are now regretting building entire businesses around Google Maps before they massively hiked up their fees.

I'm not sure that follows. OpenStreetMap is open source and is now used by Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and a few other little-known names... you don't have to have revenue to get big, that's just how w3w have chosen to structure themselves. Plus codes have only just been integrated into Google's core maps product and I've no doubt that in itself will give them a massive boost.

Google Maps now has a little "Plus code" (starts with a + sign) which does exactly the same as what3words. what3words is patented and lawyered up to the hilt, so as soon as it becomes popular, they can start charging you and others (e.g. application developers) for the right to use it. It's a massive scam and pretty much everyone I know in the geospatial/mapping industry is rightly wary of it. Plus codes are (unusually for Google!) an open standard and not charged for.

Which weir is that, out of interest?

On the other hand, if you time it right, you can get the tide to push you upstream from Gloucester to Upper Lode. We managed that last year - slightly surreal speeding upstream at 4mph+ while other boats were very slowly labouring downstream on full revs!

It does also depend a lot on the power of your engine. Something with a bit of oomph will make short order of a current that smaller boats would struggle against. (That said, that's only really an issue when the river's in the amber or heading that way.)

"Mr Loophole" is, of course, an entirely reliable observer on matters of road safety, which is and has always been his paramount concern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Freeman

Indeed, they don't. I have been in meetings where that very issue was discussed between BW (as was) and Sustrans. I realise that for some on here cyclists=Sustrans=bad, but it's a whole bunch more nuanced than that. Sustrans is as concerned as anyone about excessive speed on shared-use paths. They have exactly the same issue on the Bristol & Bath Railway Path, which is owned and managed by Sustrans, and which has higher levels of use than probably any towpath apart from the busiest bits of the Regent's.

I read it as an implicit criticism of what BW was 15 years ago - not that different from today's Scottish Canals. We could have it so much worse...

I've heard Moira Lock, certainly. The Droitwich Junction locks don't have any signs up, but CRT's asset registry appears to call them Staircase Top/Bottom, Body Brook Lock, and River Lock. Prince's Lock and Mann Island Lock on the Liverpool Link appear to be formal names. Pomona Lock on the MSC is newish. There's Black Sluice Lock in Boston, too (but is that a restoration?), and the new lock near Denver onto the Flood Relief Channel...