BilgePump

I've worn a neckerchief for ages, on land, and I couldn't live on my boat. Not enough hair for dreads, but I understand your sentiments fully. Not being a liveaboad I have to slum it and buy jeans and t-shirts from Asda and boots from Screwfix. I love the way this article presents it as canal chic and it's really just urban expensive look with a green canal hippy twist. Bovine excrement!

The canals were built with horses towing boats in mind. It's called a towpath FFS. But now, horse towing isn't allowed, next bikes will be banned, maybe ban the joggers, how about those in wheelchairs, get rid of the fishermen sitting by the side. What a wonderful linear water park these twenty somethings will create for their own lazy lifestyle.

For a bit of balance, I have been hit by a cyclist on the towpath. Was pushing my own bike through Woodley tunnel, with its light flashing. MAMIL on expensive bike comes ploughing through in the darkness. Bit of a tangled mess. His other half comes through at a much more sedate pace and bollocked him in the darkness. Quite surreal. Nobody hurt. But this is the kind of person who would pay any licence, any insurance to cycle like an idiot. In the same way that lots would choose to ignore any licence requirement or towpath ban. The scumbags at both ends will ignore all the rules and make the decent people suffer.

On a towpath, a cyclist should be down to no more than walking speed before passing, unless say someone has stopped to let them past, and everyone is quite clear about things, Holding cyclists to account for their actions is perfectly correct but banning them from the towpath isn't the answer. It is one of the few places that offers gentle cycling for mixed ages along good stretches.

And that sounds like an idiot cyclist. Cyclist gives way to pedestrian every time if in any doubt. If I'm cycling, the bell from behind is pointless. We all just jump. I just slow down, shout out hello and ask if it's possible to pass on their left or right so they don't step to one side at an unfortunate moment. The article was written sounding like the ex-addict, kind of 'I was a towpath flyer but now I need to protect others from the dangers!' Are you very pro lots of laws and regulations and the expense that entails or just not a fan of cyclists?

The writer seems to be making a case to justify their own choice of route. It is nonsense and Last time I looked, this morning, Manchester was still in thrall to ICE vehicles. Cycling across it, I woudn't bother with the towpaths. The non-road centre is a chaotic but functioning mass of cyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians. Of course, if you cycle in on one canal and out on another, you never need to leave the towpath. The towpath anywhere on the network can be fantastic for having a long ride out on a sunny day. If I want to go to Manchester, I'll cycle the towapth. It beats the main road hands down for safety and spotting the occasional Moorhen coming out of the reeds. Why do journalists with a city centric idea think that their viewpojnt should be applicable across a network that mile for mile is primarily rural? One moron who removed his brakes killed a lady in London; did they ban bikes in the city? Of course not. This article should be about holding idiot bikers to account, but instead it's demonising the decent ones. The author writes Over the previous months, racing along the narrow waterside path had felt increasingly incompatible with other users. Swerving past mothers with prams or cutting up small dogs trotting languidly by the water made me feel ashamed. My desire to reach the office on time was patently causing misery to others. Then may I humbly suggest that the author was cycling like an idiot and it is not the fault of the rest of the world. We don't need laws to regulate it!

It's not cyclists who are the menace; it's only the moronic, self entiled, idiots on a bike who ruin it for everyone. I pay to cruise the cut on my boat, the fun of cycling to it occasionally comes for free. Which non-boating, non-cycling, non canal appreciating journo activist has got a bee in their bonnet now?

The podcast idea is fine. You have a good narrative voice and interest in the subject so please go for it. However, the single person curated news site/podcast is maybe a bit defunct now, even in a niche group like ours, and probably sells yourself short. The collective hive online knows most things before you can report it these days. How about in depth pieces interviewing people etc? Filming stretches? Audio tutorials? In the long term they also have far greater value in the web archive vs. re-phrased news stories..

Long story short. My old Land Rover got nicked, got found half trashed, written off, bought back from insurance, so was looking for a cheap running tow car. Went all over looking for an old but running Discovery and kept missing some good ones. Yesterday, saw one on gumtree, turned out to be maybe 100 yards from my parents' house, a guy who's lived there for probably 3 decades and my parents' age. My dad knows him to say hello on the dog walk. Chatting away while we're looking over the car, another one of their neighbours stops, starts talking about the canals and it turned out that the guy selling the car was brought up in a canal worker's cottage on the Rochdale. His dad worked on the stretch all his life. Bought the car. I think the word for today is serendipitous!

Surely logic would have you question why everyone's not already done it, before building such a box. Thoughts that come to mind are 1. Unless those windows can pop out in an emergency it doesn't look as though there is any means of escape at the bow, so as Dav and Pen notes, a BSS fail 2. If a big cube shape is what is needed then at least make it in such a way that it can be erected when moored long term and taken down when on the move 3. If you need a permanent structure, accept that it should fit within the profile of the boat, a design tailored to go through those arched things called bridges, and put in a bow door. If this is a fixed structure, it doesn't have an escape hatch and the plan is on going to the brights lights of Lunnun then it doesn't just seem ugly (an owner's prerogative and none of my business) but unsafe to both the boat's occupants and other canal users which is where it should become of concern. It would be too easy to get trapped in the bow in an emergency fire/sinking and the helm can't have anything like reasonable forward vision on the move so is probably going to be making contact with a lot more things besides bridges.

Isn't the blue badge scheme a one exemption fits all scenario, very badly executed. Maybe CaRT with their quiet accommodation and cruising adjustments are the more realistic and compassionate, dealing with each on a case by case basis?

Sorry to disappoint those looking for a gin palace . This post is just a shout out to encourage the people who want to have fun on the canals, with a nod to the builders and the enthusiasts who managed to bring them back to life. Cheapest - Canoe - £45/yr licence and insurance through BCU Rowing boat - about £75/yr for both insurance and licence as portable unpowered (maybe a rowing skiff with camping hoops??) Small 20' grp cruiser on the water, say £1250/yr with mooring Value of being able to disappear to the water 24/7 and talk to the ducks, priceless Seriously,I don't get this five year plan, saving up for a widebeam thought process. Apologies to those of you who have been or are going through the process of buying a very expensive boat, but what happened to having a bit of cheap fun to start with? I don't have sky, don't play golf and choose to spend less than those on paying to enjoy the canals. I remember sitting in a canoe at the back of Ferranti's and at Littleborough when the Rochdale was being resurrected. Be grateful to those before us who kept something alive, worth protesting for, that has become the network we have today.

surely manslaughter would be the charge and sentencing based on culpability, ie: you were illegally renting out an unsuitable and uncertified boat?

When people who haven't got a boat think it's money for old rope and you point out that the fleets struggle to make the maths work, they think they have all the answers. When someone tells me they could do it covertly, I suggest that the best outcome may be they break even, the worst they end up on a culpable manslaughter charge.

How much would it cost you to hire a luxury car for a week? Just punched in a fortnight with sixt for a Range Rover Sport for a laugh and it comes up with £1320. And I bet the proportion of annual time rented out is far higher for UK car hire than narrowboats. With a flight you are one of hundreds renting a few hours use of an expensive means of transport in each direction. And it makes up a good proportion of the cost of a holiday. With a boat or flash car or luxury motorhome you are renting exclusive use of that means of transport for the duration of the holiday. With the boat or motorhome, it also serves as the accommodation. With the flight, you need a tent or hotel. With the luxury car, the same.

A fake latter may deflect the attention of other boaters who are overly keen to judge others but I guess it wouldn't stay under CaRT's radar with boat logging for too long and it's really only CaRT who have any authority to tell the individual how to cruise and what rules may be flexible within reason. As someone mentioned before it may be a bit of a sad indictment of scoiety that some people feel as though they are being questioned by others too much and have the need to display an explanation.

Having spoken a few times with a chap recently he told me that his pattern was one of these. He has approval for a genuine cruising pattern that is along a stretch just over 20 miles long but has no locks and he can stop for three weeks at a time instead of 14 days. He is genuinely mobility impaired and not in the first flush of youth but does follow this continuous back and forth trip and is a nice, friendly guy. The area's busy but not under insane pressure boat wise. Geeing him along or making him and his boat get some help to clear a flight of locks to do another ten or twenty miles only to return a few months later and do the whole thing over again would be a bit pointless. Making him get a mooring would also be something he wouldn't use a lot I guess. I think he prefers life towpath side along the whole stretch. In circumstances like this CaRT seem to take a totally pragmatic and humanitarian approach.

8x4 nb style from the USA. If you've never seen this guy's shanty boat website, check it out.

Moored up today opposite a little 20' outboard powered steel NB. Was a lovely thing. Think the cabin side was about 10' ish long judging by the single window but space would go under its front and rear deck too. It sat correctly in the water and just looked very sweet.

Yes, they're okay. I paid less than £20 for one with delivery off ebay and use it as a portable thing. I mounted it on a piece of 6x1 that I can stand on. Outlet end over the side, the uptake pipe hold wherever you want and pump with the other hand. The pipe could well be as expensive as the pump. Mine's lasted three or four years so far and had a bit of use so would certainly replace it with another cheapie.

It's a compilation of the outtakes from '5 zombie celebrities go barging about Britain on a narrowboat' or whatever it's called. Give it its dues, if you're into zombie flicks, it seems to have it all eta: i called it a zombie film but the trailer has hints of Deliverance. Where was the boat trip? Yorkshire?

No, the smell of petrol would be too much, but I do keep my adze under the bed because it gets used so infrequently.

So, now, instead of us all listening for a drip from a roof vent or other trivial things we need to prepare against the zombie invasion on our boats. Thanks! Got a lot of respect for the makeup, kitsch, schlock, wry comedy and cinematography going back to Night of the living dead, dawn of the dead etc. but crows stomping on the boat roof are enough without thinking it may be a face-eating monster.

Checked, sadly it was post 1947