MtB

Yes the whole idea strikes me as bizarre.

I think mrsmelly has it right. The best solution is to use clean tap water in the first place which does not need filtering, instead of canal water.

@Clare Peel What a kind offer. @Clare Peel

My heaviest internet use is posting rubbish on here.

On that, I was idly looking around a car lot flogging VW campers. I looked at a particularly nice one with £7,995 on the screen and I thought blimey that looks good value. Then I looked again and it was actually £79,995, lol!

4G is fine for run-of-the-mill internet, I find. 5G is fast but the latency is massive when my phone shows a 5G connection. Like 30 seconds to find a URL, but one found, virtually instant download of masses of data. Frankly I prefer 4G.

"Washing machine 4x weekly"??!!! That'll soon wear off, lol!! I reckon I run mine twice a month....

I've never met a poor insurance broker.... Quite a few seriously wealthy ones though. But underwriting is one whole level UP. Two levels even!

"Where are all the boaters?" I'd say they are all moored up for free on the public towpath. Given that CRT appears to have ceased all enforcement activity.

Listing says it's been a residence since 1984. I can't ever remember anyone living there. Been derelict for decades AFAICR.

Why does it matter if the pump doesn't activate immediately? I'd have thought the pressure switch would still turn it on when needed.

EBA? What are the Environment Agency rules on renting?

Illustrated by the other side of the coin, boats on that site available to rent. There is just one, a nice-looking cruiser for £1,200 a month. Its in a nice spot on the Thames at Chertsey in, I think, the weir stream. From memory it is miles from anywhere to park the car and a two-bed house in the same area can be rented for the same money. The boatlord makes it very clear in the listing it is for living on not cruising around. Good luck with that I find myself thinking!

In my experience there is no such thing as "popping" anywhere on a boat, especially not in a fattie. Moving, finding a space, getting moored up then walking back to get the car takes ages. You might like to explore Newbury too. It's a straight and fast run up the A34 to Oxford. About 45 mins.

So if keeping a coal mine open means a forest big enough to absorb the whole of its carbon output of the mine is not cut down, does that make the coal mine 'carbon neutral'? Just playing Devil's advocate. This seems to be the sort of stupidity underpinning the term.

Cockney rhyming slang!

Ah, so this raises the perenial question of what it means to "live" <somewhere>. Could you borrow an address to tell them you "live" at? Or is the actual question "What is your postal address?" perhaps? (It might be different from where you sleep most nights.) What if you tell them you live on your boat in the Oxford area and move around? How would they know where you were on any given night? Just questions for you to consider. No need to answer them here. Another idea if you need more space on the boat is to get an additional boat. Then you could be living in two places at the same time!

I was wondering if Stimpson was actually the author of that set of websites.

Unable to turn around, presumably?

In my world, the least capable engineers sink to working for insurance companies. I've no reason to think it is any different in the sphere of narrowboats.

Fatties strike me as quite unsuited to river use. Ok, unsuited for any sort of proper boating.

You wouldn't know if you've "Not been for a while"... Or you might have been suggesting its "Not been (wall-to-wall CMers) for a while". Similarly here. I married one person and after a number of years she had turned into five. Found out what was causing it though...

The panda eats shoots and leaves.

Ambiguous!

Isn't Dukes Cut wall-to-wall CMers nowadays? Would Reading be close enough? There is an excellent train service to Oxford. Thames and Kennet Marina has bags of widebeam berths and is the only marina I can think of on The Thames that turns a blind eye to living aboard. Or used to anyway.