Peter X

The technology no doubt exists for a boat to write its own log and even have a little screen to show all sorts of handy info about water and battery levels, imminent need for pump-out etc., with this information also being put on the Internet complete with a webcam to record anyone breaking in. But I suppose the potential market wouldn't justify the hardware and software development required for such overkill. Old technology is usually more fun though. If I had a boat and were a CC'er I'd pad the log out with all sorts of extraneous observations and decoration, just so that any CRT inspector would feel that filtering it to evaluating my boat's movements was too much like hard work.

This is a bit of a tricky one I think. As you've subsequently said your lease is with QMP. Any costs arising from a claim against QMP being struck out would be owed to the IP, and I'd expect the IP to be trying to collect the money, he has a duty to. However (1) you included PLM on the claim form, so perhaps the order for costs would include some costs incurred by PLM, and (2) if the nature of your claim (about electricity over-charging wasn't it?) meant that the real defendant was PLM, again we might be talking about costs incurred by PLM. There's a very true old saying that justice delayed is justice denied, but you might be able to make this work for you; if you stall PLM for long enough, they might not have the money to pursue you, or they might forget about these costs while focussing on the much bigger problem of a blockaded marina.

A couple of thoughts on this: (1) CanalPlan is much more seasonal, to be expected because more journeys will be planned in better weather. Conversely CWDF is steady all year because them as can't go boating talks about it (including me). (2) If, and I do hope so, there is another series of Great Canal Journeys, could the intrepid duo please be sent around some of the least-used parts of the network to generate interest in those? Definitely not central London. Samuel Johnson's famous saying about London was wrong; I say anyone who is tired of London has spent long enough there to understand that Croydon is nicer and far, far cheaper.

The chance of some plan was remote When they tried to rescue that boat. If they'd given some thought To the need to support The bow it would now be afloat

This is the great thing about this forum, there's always someone with some real knowledge of a subject. It certainly chimes with my experience of using the railways to say that we need more capacity, although a lot of that experience is on the suburban lines into London in rush hour, where it's hard to see how extra capacity can be created. Having said that, projects like Crossrail are helpful in that they postpone the day when the roads in London seize up altogether. You could build a new Underground line almost anywhere in London and it would fill up with people. People said 15 years ago that Croydon Tramlink would be a waste of money but it's a victim of its own success, frequently overcrowded. While London needs more railways to enable it to get on with what it does best, generating money for the Treasury, the UK also needs the North to prosper doing what it does best, making things. The government (and opposition too it seems) appear to have reached the conclusion that HS2 is the best answer, and there certainly appears to be a need for more rail capacity along its route, but does that extra capacity really have to cost so much? I wonder whether a number of smaller ideas put together might be better value, for example: If there are bottlenecks on existing lines going north out of London, would a bit of extra track or other minor works make it possible to run more trains? Would longer trains be part of the answer? I think these have been introduced successfully on some commuter lines in recent years, making it possible for example to squeeze more passengers per hour through the bottleneck of the lines into London Bridge. Why the emphasis on top speed, when the distances are not so great? Back in 1991-93 I used to commute out via Paddington to Reading, and it seemed that the train took many miles at each end getting up to top speed and slowing down again. And all too often it had to slow down in between due to some problem or other on the line. I suspect that money spent on signalling, track maintenance and line side security is unglamorous but effective? Then of course there's the idea that business people should use Skype etc. more. The technology has its uses up to a point, but sometimes a face to face meeting really is best. Having said which, big organisations are very over-fond of holding unnecessary meetings. I've been in a lot of these where I've come out thinking "that was a boring hour I could have spent doing my real job". I also wonder what infrastructure improvements businesses in the North think would most benefit them? Do they see better rail links to London as a priority, or are they more bothered about getting through trains to Ashford and Europe?

I see what you're doing, but you must have puzzled a few people who don't know French. For those interested, Moi is the French for "me" or "to me", or in grammatical terminology the accusative or dative case of the pronoun "I". Tree's combination of this and other evidently deliberately bad English does make her posts more difficult to read, but it takes all sorts to make a world and she doesn't seem to be trying to offend people, so good luck to her. Although I count myself well educated, I'm determined not to join the spelling and grammar police. The policy I try to follow is that I'll only comment on it if someone's asking, or if something posted needs its meaning clarified, and even then it's important to be tactful. Most posts on the forum have something worth saying, but many of them are in less than perfect English, and I really don't want to be discouraging the authors. Text speak does really irritate me except when used in a text message, to the extent that on the rare occasion that I send a text message I spell words in full. I only send them rarely, but that's more because it's such hard work to type anything on a teensy Blackberry keyboard and I never use all my monthly call minutes. But if someone is lazy enough to post to the forum in text speak I can always just ignore it, it's not worth complaining about.

I'm not at all upset, but for what it's worth: The Archers is set in Ambridge, and perhaps The Dog House was thinking of Dolores Umbridge, a character in Harry Potter. I'm also quite neutral in all this, being a fan of neither fictional world and regarding the OP as only a little frictional.

I thought we agreed a while back that only a freehold is registered with the Land Registry, not any leases or sub-leases? So if a transfer of the freehold has to be registered, then when QMP bought it in 2007 and failed to register it, who would be at fault? Probably whoever Mr Steadman hired to do the conveyancing?

I don't think the IR would be interested in small scale bartering of the sort described. No doubt there's a bit of a grey area, but surely tax only comes into it when significant money is changing hands and/or it's between businesses? Each year I use my neighbour's grapes to make some wine and give her a bottle or two of it, the rest being given away to my friends and relatives, mostly drunk by my son and his friends. If I sold it I'd not only be liable for tax, I'd need an alcohol licence! The odd thing is, I gave up drinking long ago and just make the wine for fun. I don't taste it, I just rely on comments to find out if I got it right. Apparently after two years of just about drinkable plonk, my 2013 vin de Croydon was pretty damn good.

Any programme like this in what might be termed the journey genre has to be somewhat artificial to accommodate the practical difficulties of filming, so it doesn't surprise or bother me that these things happen. Just like Michael Portillo on his Great Railway Journeys series, it has to be arranged for them to meet various local experts along the way, and there has to be some sort of plan for filming. I find it quite encouraging if the CRT were helping the whole process along, it shows that they understand the need to portray the canals in a good light and encourage more people into boating. But perhaps not the man who wrecked the lock gate. What matters it that the basic story being told is genuine, that of two people who love the canals and don't want to let old age stop them. Maybe the programme glossed over the problems of the K&A because the TV people wanted a feelgood programme and the CRT were only too happy to help deliver that, but evidently lots of people do take holidays along the K&A so they're coping somehow. As I don't need to, I don't know what generally happens if a boater asks a gongoozler to lend a hand at locks with pushing a gate or holding a rope. I guess it varies but would have thought most would help if asked politely? Especially if it's fairly obvious that you need help and you're not just being lazy.

There are so many variables that this seems like an impossible question to give a simple answer to. My boating experience is limited to punting and occasional crewing on a narrowboat, but I'd expect boat living to usually compare well to renting a house, especially in the south and very especially in the madness of central London, provided that you can move about enough as a CC'er to not fall foul of the CRT. However living aboard a boat seems to be very much a way of life that people either love or hate, which should strongly influence anyone's decision. Only someone really stuck for money would want to do it if they hated the lack of space, problems with utilities etc. It probably becomes a better option financially too if you have the technical knowledge to do a lot of your own maintenance work. Houses usually go up in value, and it's therefore usually best to buy rather than rent, but it's no certainty. Bubbles happen and anyone who buys at the peak can spend years in negative equity before the property gets back to the price they bought it at. The flexibility of renting can be very attractive for people whose housing needs keep changing, if they move about quite a lot due to their work and/or the size of household changes. For a while I rented a big house because my daughter + husband + son lived with me. If for some reason I had to retire tomorrow, I couldn't afford to keep my house in Croydon. But if I bought a boat and lived a frugal life on it, I suspect it might work out financially. My son wouldn't like losing the Hotel of Dad though.

Is there any buried treasure there for CRT?

It was only speculation that barges might have previously loaded from there, perhaps based upon that silvery-looking thing at the end of the winding hole in the photo. But I think you've thoroughly cleared up this point, thank you. This tends to suggest that Mr Steadman could not rely upon previous access to the canal to claim exemption from needing a NAA, but nevertheless I think given all the points which NigelMoore raised, and the possibility that Mr Steadman might get somewhere by seeking a judicial review, I can understand why the CRT may hesitate to push him into a corner by demanding money for a new NAA as I suggested. I still think the CRT would have a good chance of victory, but a good chance is not enough because the cost of losing would be huge. Sometimes in law you just have to accept that going to court is too much of a gamble.

From a combination of personal experience and what I've heard from others, I think these are factors which increase your chances of being bitten: Being near water, especially still fresh water. Not much you can do about this on canals, but my late father who was an ex scout master and very experienced at camping said he would always pitch tents away from any stream or pond for this reason. Being in the west of Scotland. Easily avoided. August/September. There's a lot more midges about then. Evening, specifically the twilight period. Some might feel this can be avoided by going to the pub at the end of a day's boating. Exposed skin. On a hot day, try long sleeves and trousers as the sun goes down. So, if you wear shorts and T-shirt near water at twilight in September in the west of Scotland, you are in the words of Private Frasier DOOMED I say, DOOMED.

In the aerial photo posted by NigelMoore #4375, there’s an interesting feature just left of centre, surrounded on three sides by a little ditch. Looks like a grassy knoll to me. So that’s where the exploratory talks between BWML and Pillings suggested by Allan(nb Albert) took place? If this feature survived the construction of the marina, where better for Paul Lillie and Philip Ridal to have stood in 2011 to debate the finer points of canal-related law than a vantage point offering a clear view of where the winding hole or whatever had been? I am of course offering this fatuous diversion to cover up my lack of effort in getting my head around all the ancient but potentially relevant legislation NigelMoore discussed in #4369. There’s enough material in there to see this topic smash all records (or has it already?). I’m off to look for the Leicester Canal Act 1791; that looks more relevant to me than the River Soar Navigation Act 1776, because isn’t the marina entrance on the canal (just)?