Mike the Boilerman

Closes at 9pm iirc, so don’t let that catch you out!

Ive not been treated unfairly, that is not what I said. Rules are not uniformly applied over the whole rule set. Some rules are applied rigoourously by mods, other rules studiously ignored by mods.

Demonstrably not true.

Ah yes. I took a walk yesterday along the thames outside tesco in Reading, and already those signs are being ignored. Must have been five boats right on the new pontoon and another five on the same stretch but off in the rough mooring. But I digress. One of these boats on the tesco pontoon was one of these Thames end-of-garden type big-uns, a twin screw Birchwood 37 IIRC. Anyway he slipped his lines just as I walked by and as he started making way I heard the whoop whoop of his bow thruster. WTF? A bow thruster a twin engined boat? The world is going to the dogs, I ask you.... grrrr.....

Yes and most of them boats lie there unused, month in month out. Always seems sad to see a riverside house with an unused boat at the end of the garden. Another effect is when one plonks a boat at the end of one's riverside garden, it immediately obstructs one's view of the river. So although one is paying for a riverside garden, one on longer actually quite has one.

Look also as though it might have originated in The Muppet Show, inspired by the character "Swedish Chef". From the Urban Dictionary: "borked Something is "borked" when it doesn't work correctly or misbehaves, generally due to negligence by the person(s) that are responsible for it. Etymology: Combine one part "broken" and one part Swedish Chef and you get "borked." This website is borked. That mechanic borked your car. by gfm November 18, 2004" But whatever the etymology, 'tis a delightful word.

Update: It's an 1980s term from the USA. Huh. Bork is the name of an american judge who rubbished the reputation of political opponents, broadly speaking. So borked meant your reputation was dragged through the mud. It was immediately adopted by Unix computer programmers too, to describe something (anything) that used to work but now doesn't, for no apparent reason. E.g. "Oh no, that expensive new 1.3mB hard drive we installed for the customer last week is borked". As illustrated on this very forum, lots of of the functions in Windows machines get borked these days.

I've noticed "borked" in widespread use amongst boaters for at about ten years, but it sounds to me like one of those words coined by say, the RAF during the war. A corruption of 'broked', being the past tense of the verb to break, I suspect. Gonna look it up now!

Get a Mac...!

Once upon a time I was cruising the cut, and there was this terrible banging noise from my blade.... I opened my weed hatch (no sniggering) and what did I find but a CRT logo stuck around my prop. Brilliant I thought, well worth the £60k they lied about creating it. Oi Richard, do you want it back or shall I call RCR to cut it orf and bin it?

I'd have drawn it for £59k....

Thart good ol' humour bypass kicking in again...

No it ISN'T! Its an old car tyre, waiting to get stuck on someone's blade.

That's odd, I find most people smile at me too. Or perhaps it is a snarl? Politics passes me by, other than The Barge and the Cross Keys both being closed. That man is a GEIGHLORD. Huh.

Fishy....