Mike Hurley

Nice little boat that, price reflects the available mooring in a highly sought after spot is my guess.

Me too, i have never been out work, i believe if you want a job you will get one, maybe not your ideal job but a wage nonetheless, i always did what i had to do. I was 53 when i landed a job on the EU gravy train, retired 6 years later. You just have to go for it not wait for it to come to you, thats where Jonny Foreigner wins. Any English fruit pickers on here? Thought not.

Depends on the skill i guess. Is an English surgeon paid more than an equally qualified German/Pole/Eastern European one? From my experience of several different trades over my working life i have found the non english people have a different work ethic than us. A lot of them are very good at the jobs they do but also many do not have any qualifications to show it, Example, i had 15 mechanics working for me in the EU mission in Kosovo, all very good experienced men being paid 3-4 times local wage rates, but not one of them had a piece of paper to prove it, so if they came to UK to work chances are they would not get top rate like a fully trained English mechanic with time served papers. I have also come across many Polish/Albanian/Romanian guys working on building sites and driving trucks for cash payments, 100 quid per day is not hard to find in some jobs. When you get your car washed for 5 quid, is it an english person doing it, probably not. ETA, my reference to work ethic of foreigners is that i have found they work well and do pretty much any job to get money to support their families.

Excellent.

Extremely unlikely to have a turbo on a narrowboat engine i would have thought.

Did you get a detailed invoice stating labour and parts used and a full description of the work done? Seems like a breakdown in communication somewhere.

2 sides to every story.

In my case the day i married my 18 years younger wife.

Maybe he is called Hans?

Chinese waiter asks me how is the meal, i said the chicken is rubbery, he said Fank you velly much.

Will runch be flied lice?

Whoosh.

Name it after Terry Thomas character, The Cad.

But you have not worked with boat builders, they do it how they do it, you will not change that. Go see boat builders instead of wasting time on here.

People have been building narrow boats for 100+ years without CAD, how did they ever manage? Maybe the OP can run a spreadsheet detailing what builders he visits and how long it took to get shown the door after mentioning CAD and telling them that they are hill billys for not using it.