The Toad in the Hole

Oddly enough I live in Nottingham and my boat's in Wales. We probably pass on the A38

Think I've had a notice that they're repairing the railings on the aqueduct soon as well, but I've deleted the email!

woosh! They are, it doesn't stop them killing cyclists on an almost weekly basis.

I think it's important that all these construction industry trucks operating in central London are clearly marked with some sort of registration number and insured. If only they were, I'm sure that many cyclist deaths and severe injuries could be halted overnight.

magnificent explanation. I might nick this

oh, hasn't this been done to death? Apart from the old cliches about lycra, there's the difficult bit about them actually paying as much as any other non-boater. Given there are apparently so many boaters searching for the ever elusive free lunch (or mooring), why does this hoary old trope keep getting brought up?

Other than one occasion when I'd stuffed my back up, it's always been the case that my wife steers and I do the locks. There's no real reason for it other than I've a slight physical advantage in manual activity. Anecdotally, this arrangement does seem to attract a number of sexist comments - there do seem to be a number of boaters who believe a womans place is on the lockside.

Ive done it, but as I mentioned in the comments, I think there is some (unconscious?) bias in your questions. I say this as someone who has supervised undergrad geography dissertations and worked with Phd students on research design. Again, as I suggest , you may want to run this by your supervisor to ensure your data is more robust

dead straightforward, I often do this with my wife, and yes it's easier from the Trevor/ northern entrance

I'm not a big fan of speculating without the facts, but I notice that the article included a request from the police not to reveal the boat identity before next of kin are informed. And then a helpful photo of the boat concerned...

By "playing around", do you mean "searching for mentions of me"? Ed Balls!

mine do, but then they drink canal/ river/ puddle water as well* * I am careful with algal bloom in lakes etc, mind

Over the years, I've had a few problems with the convoy of day boats that come out of Trevor, heading en mass for the Poachers Pocket, including one unlit one in Chirk tunnel, however today they seemed to be family days out and impeccably behaved, so no complaints. The only real problem was an overly cautious shiny private boat who was probably more at home on a broad, straight canal, like the shroppy. Poor boaters come in all shapes, I suppose, and it isn't all about inexperience, drink and excess speed.

I've always been convinced that these poles should come in a "in an emergency, break glass to open" type case on the roof of the boat - this would stop the hapless numpties balancing on the roof of their boat like The Great Valerio as their boat digs itself ever deeper into the mud whilst their engine threshes what little water is left under their transom like a piranha feeding frenzy

I have met some proper idiots on the Llangollen. The majority of them were on hireboats. Therefore most hireboaters are idiots. Except of course they aren't. The majority of boats moving on the Llangollen in Summer are hire boats, therefore the boats you are going to meet are hirers. A proportion of these are first timers and most of them meet their first lock at New Marton. So at New Marton you have a stressful busy section of canal, with a number of inexperienced boaters. The idiot count therefore seems quite high, but in reality it's just busy and sometimes a bit slower than it might be. The real idiots are a very small proportion - all the cliches - the drunks, the speeders, the arrogant tosspots, and because of the sample at New Marton being mostly hirers, it would appear that the population of hireboaters has a high proportion of buffoons. So lets look at a different set of locks - Hurleston has a number of hire boats, but because of the big marina at the top, and the logistics of a weeks holiday, the sample of boats here is usually much more diverse. The proportion of idiots is probably the same, but the number of hiring idiots is smaller. tl;dr There are idiots on boats. How many of them are hirers is a matter of perception, based on location, time of the year, day of the week, time of day even. Oh, and personal prejudice.