Puffling

Ah, telephone boxes! The sweet memories of going in to phone after job interviews, balancing a sheet of paper on the tiny horizontal shelf. That fragrance of charred telephone directories and recently-urinated concrete floors. You'll have me crying in a moment 😢

I don't want to talk up this piece of Sun clickbait more than it has been already, but I personally don't see anything wrong with washing once a week if you are not in a manual occupation. But this part doesn't ring quite true: Do that for long enough without the urine being broken down, and your "flowers" will be drowning in ammonia. Not to mention your nostrils when you try and enjoy a rooftop picnic surrounded by your 'flowers' on a baking hot day. I wonder if that cactus in the picnic shot is still alive? You can add urine to raw compost (vegetable matter and animal excreta), but

I'd encourage every canal user to whinge about dog droppings, there's really no excuse. But it was only an example. As Jen-in-Wellies suggests in the post above, couples quickly form a CCWS (closed circuit whinging system) with no requirement to shout their gripes out to the world. Unless they are vlogging as Minimal List, of course.

It's similar on YouTube boating vlogs: the Venn diagram of wafflers and whingers exhibits a degree of overlap with the entertaining and informative. Often, my mood dictates how much overlap I'm happy about. Other times I'm happy to put up with a lot of 'cotton wool' to get info on a particular route or (yes, matty40s, sorry) an informed discussion about toilets. Everyone has their bad days when there's a need to whinge about the state of the world. If you are a solo vlogger it's natural to whinge to your audience about (for example) dog droppings near mooring bollards being a health hazard

Ring Of Bright Waterpoint

You are not feeling sad. Merely scoffing and smug.

When someone comments "sad" it rarely means they are lachrymose about what they've recently witnessed. Instead, it is codified disapproval: "I don't like what you do or how you enjoy yourself." Spirit of Christmas, indeed 🎄 To those critics: watching boating vlogs is not lessening your enjoyment of canal boating in any way. If you don't like it, don't watch it. I should add that it's not only "expatriots and home grown wannabe boaters" such as myself and pomkitanner who are consumers of such vlogs. Many boaters themselves (funny how you will find fewer on here, though, isn't it, given th

Have to agree with you about the Foxes (I'm sure Colin and Shaun are delighful in person but their delivery seems rather theatrical). I forgot one more on my list Robbie Cumming. Well produced technically, confident narration, interesting topics (though I tend to fast-forward through his Crank-It crew listings).

A selection from my current watch list includes Cruising Alba, Cruising The Cut, Floating Our Boat, My Narrowboat Venture, The Liveaboard Family, Well Deck Diaries and The Narrowboat Experience. Cruising The Cut David's "Slow TV" pieces are often my way of relaxing after a troubling day down at t'mill. Used to follow Journey with Jono but he seems to have stopped posting new vlogs and removed all his video's comments. Was always good to hear his ideas on fitouts. Other lapsed vloggers include Narrowboat Helen (excellent restoration advice plus sharp sense of humour), Christine Anne The Buoy

I've just seen this on catchup. It was a trifle dull, but not as bad as I'd imagined from reading previews of the programme. Unlike many here, I can take quite a lot of Sheila and Giles. I liked the obvious love and affection between Tim and Pru, but the series were stretched out a little too much, feeling like a long goodbye. As someone else said, if having the series with new crew keeps canal boating in the public eye, there's nothing wrong with it. But which "public eye" is the target group? Clearly, few youngsters would be attracted to the scenes of Sheila lamenting her rheumat

This is excellent news. I'd say it would also support economies beyond the Stroud region, seeing that the presently-isolated canal will be connected to the main network. What about health benefits beyond simple visitor footfall as well? All those trees being planted has a much wider implication.

It would be rather a brutal act for an existing fridge, I agree. Best kept for when one is starting with an installation and has the insulated cabinet as a separate entity, with the cooling plate, motor, radiator and condenser able to be placed elsewhere. But I can't see your plan of placing the coils against the hull as being easily done without needing to de- and re-gas the system anyway. Or is there a crafty trick to it?

It would save power in summer too, I'm sure. Comparing an ambient cabin temperature of 23°C (often higher on really sunny days) to the canal temperature of 15°C, there's a lot of savings to be made, even accounting for the thermal resistances between coil-hull-water. But I would take your idea further. Why not switch off the fridge compressor completely in winter and have a cabinet out on the well deck for perishables, cooled by the outside air? In my student days in halls of residence it was common to hang your milk and butter out the window inside a little plastic carrier in wint

Sure, you can make one with what Australians call an "Esky" and some cooling blocks. But I doubt if a plastic tub would look as cool as an Osokool. In the specs, I just love the claim, "Nothing to go wrong." Hmm, would that be because it actually didn't do anything at all?