adam1uk

Canal World Forum. ie, here.

Also, if you've got a trad with the engine boxed in under the floor, you have to fold yourself double to get out the back door. I hadn't really realised this until we started going to boat shows, where you can have a good look over lots of different boats side by side. I don't have a bad back, but I'm certain I would develop one if I had to contortion myself everytime I wanted to leave the back of the boat. I'm amazed that so many people apparently don't mind doing this. My conclusion was that if you want a trad, an engine room is the only way to go.

Couldn't you use the tape designed for repairs to car exhausts? Something like this* *Bearing in mind that I know very little about this sort of thing.

Which makes the £5 from a chandler or BW (which includes postage if you order from waterscape.com) seem like good value.

I think "rather garish" is a total understatement. Never mind him complaining about the noise from your engine, you should have been complaining about the visual noise from his colour scheme!

I work in radio, and we have similar discussions about how to get a younger audience. Obviously magazines and radio stations want to appeal to as many people as possible, and a situation where your readers or listeners are literally dying is eventually going to leave you with a problem. We all have to adapt to cope with that (without putting off too many of the existing readers or listeners), and not to do so would be foolish. However, it's also quite clear that people's tastes change as they get older, and it's possible for people to grow into your product. For example, I didn't listen to Radio 4 ten years ago, but I do now; the young boaters you know might not buy magazines now, but they might when they reach a certain age.

There are quite a few hire bases on the north Oxford, including Rose Narrowboats, which others on here have used. There's also Viking Afloat, Willow Wren, and Clifton Cruisers at Rugby. The guides suggest the Ashby is about 9 hours one way end to end. So if you started about 9 hours away from the start of it, you'd have your 6 hours a day for 6 days (which is what a hire week is, really) by the time you'd got there and back. So you could start at Braunston, where Union Canal Carriers are based. Must add that I haven't used any of these companies.

Fradley Junction is one of my favourite canal places. We made this the most northerly point on our trip a couple of weeks ago. Turned in the junction and moored back on the Coventry. That day, all the boaters were very jolly. Great place to sit and watch the world go by.

From what I've seen and heard, an awful lot of the moaners make absolutely no judgement at all about anything, they moan regardless. Some don't even look sheepish when they realise you're barely moving.

Looks as though you're right. I was going on the quote from a nearby liveaboard, published on narrowboatworld. It's clearly been a long running battle.

As I understand it, BW have been told to do this by the Ombudsman. It seems the argument went that reed beds had been taken out to provide moorings, and the Ombudsman decided the reed beds should be reinstated. Why the Ombudsman went back only that far in time I don't know. Surely the reeds wouldn't have been there without the canal, and the canal wouldn't have been there without boats. Canals were build for boats, after all.

I have to agree with you. I lost track of the number of Merlots and (even worse) Chardonnays I saw last week. And I cringed every time. I remember reading somewhere (and I can't recall where) that renaming is meant to take place while the boat is out of the water. Then you put the old name on a little paper boat, and sink it. Obviously it's nonsense, but if it makes people feel better, why not? Edited because replying to two things at the same time buggers up the formatting.

But then the Warwickshire Ring spends quite a lot of its time in the West Midlands and Staffordshire, and the Avon ring has only one side actually on the Avon! Clearly they should all be renamed!

I can vouch for the fact that the moorings on the Main Line near the Sea Life Centre (there are moorings on both sides of the canal) are much quieter than the ones by Gas Street Basin itself. It's a residential area, as opposed to a collection of nightclubs. As far as getting in to the centre of Birmingham and back out again, there are a number of options. The Black Country Museum has good moorings; we've also stayed near the Fox and Anchor at Coven. In the other direction, Curdworth is a popular place to moor, although when we did the Birmingham and Fazeley, we started from Old Turn Junction early in the morning and as it was a lovely day keep going and got right along to Fazeley -- 38 locks in one day!

The full winter stoppage programme is here.

The O and S thing stopped in 2000. The boats are still quite easy to spot when you know what you're looking for - but my experience so far is that most people don't!

Saw Oasis Too at Stockton Top on Friday, and she looks as good as new. I gather she's now out on her first trip since the Avon incident. I assume the owner using her will return her to Swallow Cruisers at the end of their holiday.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry! Incidentally, if I've picked up your location correctly, we'll be coming past either tomorrow or (more likely) Saturday (depending on what time we get away from Stockton top). I'll wave, or duck.

It's quite possible to jump to someone's defence when they're under fire for their opinions, even though you may disagree with those opinions. Indeed you say you've done it yourself. It therefore follows that people who defend each other don't necessarily share their opinions. So I still think you slightly misrepresented what Maverick said when you asked:

He didn't say they supported one another's opinions. He said they jumped to defend each other.

There's an update on Oasis Too on the OwnerShips site:

Exactly. If they'd wanted to, they could have proposed that boats stop using red, that everyone would have to have new tanks and systems to get rid of the dye, and retailers would have had to sell red and white. But they haven't. They've proposed a system that, as you say, is incredibly difficult to police. But don't forget that the government never wanted to impose this tax in the first place, and it will raise peanuts in government terms. As such, they're not going to put a great deal of effort into trying to enforce it, as the consultation document itself implies. It'll be pointless dipping the tank, because they'll know you'll have red in there.And just look at the figures from the consultation document. The potential revenue from this will be 0.06 per cent of the total revenue from fuel taxes. They say the effort to enforce it will be proportional, which to me suggests that they'll be putting in very little effort. It's not worth spending the time and money for such little return, and on a tax they never wanted in the first place.

I'm glad it's not just me! I'm in sleep-deprived, getting-over-nightshift mode, but even so I think I'd have noticed a new format. And I haven't.

Of course we can't, because no decisions have been made. People have until 31 October to submit reposnses to the consultation paper. I'm not sure I've seen anyone saying it would be OK to dodge the tax. I do think, however, that there won't be a huge effort on the part of HMRC to enforce it. They'll probably try to make an example of a couple of people, probably retailers, but they've got much bigger fish to fry. My reason for thinking this is this paragraph in the consultation paper, which emphasises how small the yield would be, and how the effort must be proportionate:

Actually it won't be a loss at all compared to the situation now, as they currently get nothing from this source because it doesn't exist. If they get any revenue at all, it'll be a gain. Isn't that the meaning of "at worst"?