Sabcat

Yeah, I do enjoy cruising but partly because of where I am - northern tip of the BCN, I either go down into Brum or I take the 21 and get out onto the Shroppie - there's a lot of time to get to somewhere that interests me and I don't know every blade of grass on there's easier ways to amuse myself not least of those things is the camper van I built last summer. The boat, for now at least, is a home and nothing else. I love it as a home though.

I'm unlikely to move from my home mooring at all and if I do it'll be for a few hours round trip.

More boaters is, I would argue, an objectively good thing for a number of important reasons. Boating on the cut is a minority activity but requires the support, via the grant and the commercial property revenue given to CRT, of national government. An increased number of boats and boaters helps with this most obviously by increasing revenue from boaters thus making us more self sufficient but also the more of us there the more people there are with an interest in keeping the system navigable. Other tangible benefits to more boats is more investment in canal based business, boat services, marinas etc and of course boat building. Yep, there's no overcrowding here at all for miles around.

Why does it worry you? Surely more boaters is a good thing?

I think the guys name was Norman but that might just be because we called him storming Norman. Oldish chap who's boat was kid of trad (might have been cruiser) at the back with a pitched roof greenhouse type arrangement at the front. He had a young lad with him who had a raft with an outboard they towed along. His boat was nuts and he used to have proper jumping up and down stamping his feet tantrums. I liked him though. No idea where he went. Another guy - Secret Squirrel (not sure of his real name) - was moored here for a bit who was colourful. He made some "parkit" flooring out of un-planed roofing lath and claimed to be a secret agent, an artist with work displayed in "the luvre" and that the water on his mooring was 14ft deep. His boat was pretty normal apart from the flooring. A young lad who was moored next to me until a few years ago was properly insane. He used to have stand up screaming matches with himself in his boat and I found him on his mooring one day butt naked standing next to his clothes in a pile that he'd set on fire. He was harmless enough though. I'm pretty sure he moved to China or maybe Thailand.

I've been living on a boat for 17 years this year and I don't know if it's just my little part of the world or if it's the whole system but there seems to be a distinct shortage of odd people compared to years ago. Where have all the crazy people doing crazy things on crazy looking boats gone?

They'd recognise my scent, and webbed feet. I'm from that gene pool.

So you're completely discounting the possibility of time travel then?

I stopped in a lay by on the road between St Just and Penzance last summer. I wouldn't exactly call it wild camping though. More like my phone's flat, I've no idea where the camp site is I've paid for without checking the address on the email, I'm knackered after driving for hours, I'm full of fish n chips. Sod this I'm having a beer and going to sleep. No hassle from plod. Never saw any plod. Not sure if they saw me or not though, I was asleep.

This is too funny, I've seen him before. He took it on himself to remove a smoke bomb at a demo recently. ######

On this point of how VAT works Dave's actually right and I'm wrong. As for the implications or otherwise of this, I don't know.