Bacchus

I wonder what "working hard over the past two years to build their own narrow boat from scratch" means? Will the be milling their own steel plates and welding them together? Or mining iron ore and smelting it to make the steel in the first place...?? Oh. "Maxine and Steve’s boat is currently being finished fitted out in the Stenson Marina in Derbyshire". It means paying someone to fit out a boat. Shame, sounded like quite an exciting project otherwise.

As @Alan de Enfield says, there does seem to be an element of exclusivity between working really well and being environmentally friendly, but I find the Ecover range of products offer a pretty good compromise, and are widely available

(oldie alert...) Reminds me of the first Irish president of the US - Barrack O'Bama

Officially known as O - McCron?

I thought it might be about the Top Trump cards we used have as kids... I must confess that Top Trump washing machines might be a little esoteric, but I do have a friend who restores Dyson washing machines, so you never know!

Just had a google - and I have to agree*; they are really good looking boats *once I had got past google trying to sell me these:-

Indeed; and don't get me started on a couple of single-handed 70' narrow-boats taking up an entire town mooring designed for half a dozen visiting cruisers... and l they can all look a bit precarious trying to get under a bridge when there is any kind of flow on! To be fair I actually quite like a lot of wide-beams, will probably own one myself one day (or a barge) - some of them can have very pleasing proportions (I think up to about 9-10' beam seems to work well, much over that and they can start to look a bit breeze-blocky) - and have nothing against most boats.

They don't fit* on the Thames unfortunately. *They fit physically, but aesthetically -- bleurgh! No!

Of course it's Omicron, not Omricon, however having seen this meme pop up in a number of places, I find it interesting to note that an actual anagram of Omicron is "moronic" (c:

I completely agree with the OP - it's just not acceptable when the outdoors gets dirty. Somebody should clean it for me.

I wonder whether there is a simple, practical reason for this -- namely that the roof of a GRP cruiser isn't strong enough? My boat is a steel cruiser so a foot in both camps. It has two centre-line rings on the coach roof which I find very useful, especially when single handed. I sometimes use centre and rear which gives tremendous control, but it can be necessary to take a turn or two in strong-ish streams to prevent the boat from removing my arm from its sockets.

I'm driving from Huddersfield to the Thames tomorrow if you want a lift? (c:

I am not going to claim to have invented the phrase universally, but a girlfriend and I certainly invented it for ourselves when cruising on the Thames in a little Shetland in the early nineties. We made it a policy only to stop in towns with a McDonalds for that very reason - for us the phrase rapidly morphed into "a big McEartha" -- mockney rhyming slang with the American singer... (and came into common usage even off the boat)