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Team Pugnipeek Virtual BCN Challenge 2020 Cruise Log


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I was going to wait until we arrived at our starting point tomorrow before posting this, but it looks as if we'll be struggling to make it there in time for that so I thought I'd introduce us now. There are just 3 of us in the team: myself Allan @Keeping Up assisted by Debbie @Pingu and Jessop the dog (who TBH isn't really much help at all). We are as usual on board our narrowboat Keeping Up, but all is not well here. All this week our gearbox has been causing all sorts of problems; finally this morning it got completely stuck in reverse and its effect is starting to spread to the whole boat as you may see from this photo (and hence our revised team name).

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It’s a rather unusual gearbox, type “051MRP”, and apparently it will be impossible to get the new parts in time for the challenge so we will have to spend the whole week travelling backwards. Steering is going to be difficult, mainly because we will have to rely on Debbie who is standing on the bows with a Pole (we don’t know much about him because he doesn’t speak any English; we just found him walking along the towpath, but he’s very helpful). One boatyard did suggest that we could steer by using our bowthruster, but we don't have one and anyway on a backwards boat that idea sucks!

 

I'll post again when we reach our starting point tomorrow.

 

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If you are going backwards, will not the time machine thingy mean you willen on  have got  to your starting point yesterday?

 

I believe the Big Bang Burger bar is planning to reopen shortly.

 

N

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Just now, BEngo said:

If you are going backwards, will not the time machine thingy mean you willen on  have got  to your starting point yesterday?

 

I believe the Big Bang Burger bar is planning to reopen shortly.

 

N

Now that's a useful suggestion, I'd better check my diary entry from yesterday to see what I'm going to write.

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Well, we’ve arrived at our starting point OK, travelling backwards of course; being stuck in reverse has already had all sorts of side-effects throughout the boat. For example, everything reads back-to-front when seen through the windows of the boat so we are apparently going to start the Challenge from NOTSA Junction.

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Somehow the Junction looks a bit weird, but at least the sigboards confirm that we are in the right place.

 

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And the signpost shows us which we need to go in the morning.

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As soon as we arrived Deb went back to bed, while Jessop the Dog now thinks he’s a God so he expects us to worship him and keep providing him with meals in a golden dog-bowl. We have also had to transfer all our food to the oven to keep cool, but at least our Sunday lunch is now happily cooking in the fridge.

I have a suspicion that being stuck in reverse is going to present us with a whole load of interesting problems over the next few days – but never mind, we intend to complete this NCB 42-Hour Challenge, whatever it takes (thinks - I wonder if the National Coal Board will sponsor us?). I just hope it all goes better than the trip described in this little song that David Blagrove penned after one of his visits to the BCN!

 

 

Edited by Keeping Up
Edit to mke the song link stand out more
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Finally, I've arrived at the boat. I've spent the last 3 years with my relatives in the Antarctic; it wasn't going to be that long, I originally planned for just a 3 week stay there, but when it was time to fly home I discovered that even though I've got wings, being a penguin I can't fly. Luckily some of our friends came on a cruise to the Antarctic so I hopped on board and they hid in me in the fridge in their cabin until we got back to the UK. 

 

Anyway, I soon found Notsa Junction by holding my BCN map in front of a mirror, and waddled down the towpath to join the boat. At this point I was kidnapped by another team, an unfair tactic about which I have registered my complaint in the Stewards Enquiry thread. So now I'm back on board and ready to settle down for a quiet game of ODUL with Allan Keepingup this evening; that's a board game where you attempt to move counters from the centre of the board to the outside corners by throwing dice into a small cup. 

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3 minutes ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

Welcome! Have you noticed on Zoom meetings that you appear to yourself back to front, but everyone else is the right way around? 

No, we haven't got Mooz installed on our CP.

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Poor Pingu! There she was, sound asleep on the towpath and enjoying the icy cold weather, when a whole army of Vollies tripped over her! She's all covered in bruises now, and has had to don her winter clothing to cover them all up.

 

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I'm lucky, she'd brought me a nice new jacket as a present from Antarctica:

 

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So at least I've been able to dress properly against the cold

 

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You may notice my cunning secret weapon against the snow and ice: I've got a portable fan-heater as well!

 

As you can see below, we were thoroughly frozen-in this morning. But by running around on the ice with my fan-heater going, I was able to melt the ice quite quickly - so as oon as I've dried off and warmed up, we shuold be ready to set off. The Vollies are waiting for us at the lock, the sun is shining, and we are ready for the Challenge.

 

1526392734_IcedIn.jpg.7dee11e68c09e96a4deca1cf141d1cfa.jpg

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Look, it wasn’t my fault, OK? Well, yes, all right, maybe it was PARTLY my fault – but it was the Vollies fault too. Yes I know that I should have kept an eye on them, but anybody can make a small mistake after a night without sleep, can’t they? Anyway, let me start at the beginning ...

It’s this darned reversing effect, caused by our broken 051MRP gearbox; it seems to be affecting more and more areas of the boat. We settled down to sleep last night, and were immediately woken by the sound of various “low-voltage” alarms from our electrical system. It seems we have to leave all the lights on overnight, otherwise the batteries go flat. I can’t sleep with the lights on, and I even had to get up after midnight to go outside and throw a blanket over the solar panels when our neighbours complained that the panels were giving off so much bright sunlight. This morning I was roused by Pingu’s shouts as the army of Vollies tripped over her – and finally after my involuntary swim while melting the ice around us, it’s fair to say my mind wasn’t really focused and I wasn’t concentrating properly when we set off this morning. The Vollies were such a welcome sight, but I think the fact that we were facing TOWARDS the City Centre must have confused them as they proceeded to help us up the Aston flight. They really speed things up but, of course, starting from Aston Junction (or NOTSA as it appears to say through our windows) we should have gone DOWN the flight not UP, and I didn’t notice until we reached not Salford Junction but Spaghetti Junction and landed with a great big bang across all the lanes of the M6 motorway.

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 Luckily nobody was hurt in the ensuing traffic chaos, and I think we’ll take a lunch break here while we try and find a way of getting ourselves back on to the canal

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Sitting eating our lunch, High above the canal on the M6, of course we just had to play this music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oOmBgQ2gro

It was fortunate that we had landed right next to a passing low-loader; once the Police had cleared the traffic jam and the lorry driver had recovered from his initial shock, he was happy to agree to take the boat down through the spirals of Spaghetti Junction to that scrap-yard beside the canal junction, where we were able to re-float the boat with no further delay.

Our journey back up to Notsa Junction was via somewhere that I think said Nosy-rag (is that Brummy slang for a handkerchief?) and the ominous-sounding Dethsa Tunnel. This was quite uneventful, and finally we continued onwards and upwards to Old Turn. The area around the Junction was ridiculously crowded – no social distancing in evidence here – and there was even a small boat moored on the island itself.

 

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But suddenly we realised that we had another problem. Our high-flying Spaghetti Junction incident had scared the $h1t out of us, so with the effect of the reversal our holding tank was completely empty! Luckily the mobile services boat was there near the junction; we pulled alongside so he could give us a thorough pump-in and now we have a comfortably full tank again. I took this photo of him in action. I’ve discovered that as long as I stand outside the boat I can take pictures that aren’t reversed, so things should look a bit clearer from now on.

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We were quite exhausted after watching the Vollies doing all those locks for us, so inspired by our lunchtime music we decided to call into that nice Mr Harry Webb’s restaurant for a Brumburger. Ugh – whoever recommended these, they tasted awful, I’d swear they were made from recycled meat; maybe it’s this darned reversing effect, it turned my Burger into Re-grub.?

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Foritified by the food, Pingu hopped up to the Sea-Life centre to visit some relatives, while I took a quick trip to the library to look at their old books. Here I found a 1973 Inland Waterways Guide book, with this photo of Farmers Bridge in it.

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Finally, still having plenty of cruising time left to us, we decided to set off backwards down the Birmingham & Worcester Canal to Selly Oak. As we were travelling in real time (the time machine was still in its box) and we had left the BCN to travel this non-scoring section of canal, we had hoped this would mean we were outside the influence of the masters of the BCN and could travel the next 3 miles at the dizzying speed of 4mph but no, we were dismayed to see a 1.5mph speed limit sign at Worcester Bar. As we slowly revered down the B&W canal we started to get worried in case we wouldn’t have time to reach Selly Oak, but we made it with just over 10 minutes to spare. We couldn’t find the Junction, but we moored at the place where CanalPlan says it used to be and no doubt it will re-appear when I switch on the time machine tomorrow morning.

 

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photo by Nick Atty on Canalplanac

 

 

Edited by Keeping Up
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37 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

As we slowly [reversed] down the B&W canal

 

@Keeping Up is slowly reversing down the B&W canal, but the Black and White Canal is the Leeds and Liverpool, and it's forbidden for cruising in this challenge.

 

@cheshire~rose or @Capt Ahab will need to sort this out, so I think this needs to to be Stewards' Enquiry #4: Right there in Black and White

 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

@Keeping Up is slowly reversing down the B&W canal, but the Black and White Canal is the Leeds and Liverpool, and it's forbidden for cruising in this challenge.

 

@cheshire~rose or @Capt Ahab will need to sort this out, so I think this needs to to be Stewards' Enquiry #4: Right there in Black and White

 

 

 

 

NONSENSE. There are plenty of photos showing that this section of the canal exists in Black-and-White. Here are just a coiuple of examples

 

Edgbaston.jpg.0797ff7048395c8e37149e21f598e56d.jpg

 

1844589979_UnivBridge.jpg.4176f530162ef9ba45d72e2236f7c4c9.jpg

(Taken by David Tunbridge & placed on CanalPlan)

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After wrapping all the lights in tin-foil last night, so that we could get a good night’s sleep, we awoke this morning feeling properly ready for a Challenge in reverse. The first thing was to turn on the Time Machine; having wired it in to the boat’s electrical system I dialled in the year 1802 (just 4 years after the Dudley #2 Canal opened) and pressed the switch;  there was a flash of light and a loud bang as all the fuses blew, but the Junction did not appear. In fact nothing looked very different, although there were a few obvious changes such as when a Mag-Lev train passed quietly along the tracks beside us, and the Time Machine was playing us this music.

 

What could possibly have gone wrong? Aha, realisation dawned: the reversing effect had caused the Time Machine to propel us FORWARDS to the year 2081 instead. A hundred yards or so to the South of us we spotted the site of the new Selly Oak Junction, and beyond it we could see the restored and re-opened Dudley Canal waiting for us. Excitedly we untied our ropes and reversed along to the Junction before turning into the new canal. An intriguing sight met our eyes and I managed to get this photo of it.

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 Photo from Lapal Canal Trust

Note how it mimics the upper Llangollen canal by being in a long narrow concrete trough as it passes the shopping centre. That little lift bridge posed us a problem as we couldn’t work out how to operate it, but luckily we met an old gentleman pushing trolleys around and he showed us the slot where, just like with the trolleys themselves, you have to insert a £5 coin to release the locking mechanism. He even lent us a coin until we had passed (of course you get the coin back when you close the bridge).

 

And so we set off happily along the beautifully-restored canal, until after a couple of miles we met a real problem: there was no Lapal Tunnel. Instead was an impressive flight of 10 locks climbing the hillside. They were beautifully constructed, and I’m sure people will be interested in them – but unfortunately the camera took them using the GPJ format which won’t be invented for several years yet so you’ll just have to wait. Well, no way was I going to do an extra 20 locks without scoring points for them, so I sat down and thought about how to get the Time Machine working properly. Tentatively I tried the obvious solution (“it’s an old trick but it just might work”) by connecting the red wire to the boat’s hull and the black wire to the battery positive supply. With fingers crossed I pressed the button, and sure enough it took us straight back to the year 1802 so now we could go through the LAPAL Tunnel which would be easy for us because it’s palindromic. Unfortunately the steam-driven water-pump system wouldn’t be installed for another 40 years, but we just let the engine propel us and the narrow tunnel itself steer us while we all sat inside and had a nice cup of tea brewed from some leaves that we’d picked up on the prop yesterday near Typhoo Basin.

 

One minor issue was that somebody had left a water tap running overnight, with the result that our fresh water tank was now overflowing. Still, we just turned off the tap and siphoned away the excess while we travelled, so our tank is suitably empty again, but this made me think about how hard the engine had been running in the tunnel. Sure enough when I checked the diesel tank after leaving the Tunnel I found that it was dangerously close to overflowing; hastily we turned into Hawne Basin to try and find a way to deal with this problem while we pause for a spot of lunch.

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Photo from Coombeswood Canal Trust

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Well that was handy, we made a tidy profit selling our excess diesel to the boaters in Hawne Basin. Strangely I noticed another backwards effect here, that as we emptied the water and diesel tanks the boat actually settled slightly lower in the water; I decided to name this the AKERUE effect in honour of the great Archimedes.

While I was doing that, Pingu had a go at re-making the beds, and ended up by making something that looked just a little bit like a swan.

Swan1.jpg.16e627e114b2f61359c25252d8419e6e.jpg

 

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Backing out of Hawne Basin, and back in “normal” time, we continued our journey through Gosty Hill Tunnel. Not for the first time, our trip through the Tunnel was greatly helped by the Pole (the previous time had been in 1988, when we broke down in the Tunnel and had to pole our way out). On the way I took a couple of quick photos.

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I particularly love the one commemorating how in the 1900’s a visiting circus’ elephants were found frolicking in the canal. So now we are just backing around the junction at Windmill Beginnings – ready for the final segment of our journey this afternoon. Incidentally I understand that some people are getting very confused by our backwards progress. For the avoidance of doubt, remember that if we appear to be ahead of you we are actually behind you so please feel free to undertake us. Also, if it looks as if we are being locked up, don’t worry it just means that we are in a state of lockdown.

 

Meanwhile I've also been thinking about the bird locations in today's quiz - so far I've thought of these:

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal (or doesn't the Liver Bird count?)

Fowlridge tunnel (not fowl - it's owl - although I'm not sure if I've spelled it right)

Everywhere that has an aquaduck (of course, but that's too easy)

Brockhall Spinney (I'm proud of that one - or don't mythological birds like the Roc actually count?)

and finally ... all day we've been seeing Joey boats, and my budgie was named Joey when I was just a kid so that makes it the name of a bird doesn't it?

 

Edited by Keeping Up
Minor, unimportant typing error
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5 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

my budgie was named Joey when I was just a kid so that makes it the name of a bird doesn't it?

 

I have to admit I did think of renaming the ships' parrot to "Bridge."

 

This would immediately give me many thousands of places with the name of a bird in them ...

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Decision time! Which way to go from Windmill Beginnings Junction? OK, let’s go for it! Turning to face northwards, we reversed our way back along the Dudley #2 Canal and under Fox & Goose Bridge (Oh Boshboil, I think I’ve just given something away there) and continued back to Blackbrook Junction where we could switch on the Time Machine and explore the Two Locks Line. I was really happy to be able to do this, I’d even bought the T-shirt as we passed through Warwick on our way here.

Twollocks.JPG.1020f65cc04f6a26499b80aaefb34c6f.JPG

 

Ignoring the references to “Blackwood Junction” on the Score Sheet, we turned sharply at Woodside Junction and climbed the locks up to Pensnett Junction (where the signs, through the window of the boat, informed us that we were at Pot-Head Krap Lock) to meet our guide, Willam Ward the 1st Earl of Dudley, who in the year 1840 was keen to show us his nice new canal. He told us one surprising but rather depressing fact, that the average life expectance in Dudley at the time was just under 17 years!

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 (Photo from Wikipedia)

Returning to the present day we now came to the tricky bit. Keeping Up has an air-draught of 5’ 8” at the front of the cabin, and 5’ 4” at the rear – and of course the same applies as Pugnipeek except that it is the rear end which goes first – and we have a nice shape with plenty of tumblehome to the cabin sides and a good curve to the roof. This means that all we have to is to lower the front end by 3”, which would be easily achieved normally by loading two layers of bricks – weighing 1.5 tons – across the whole living room floor. Following the approach used by the Tuesday Night Club many years ago, we had ordered the necessary 750 bricks on a sale-or-return basis from a local builders yard, intending to have them delivered to us at the south end of the tunnel and then returned to them from the north end. This afternoon the builders yard had phoned and informed us that due to the current lockdown situation, they would not be able to supply us with the bricks after all, and it seemed as if all was lost.

 

But not so, for the AKERUE effect which I had observed when we were in Hawne basin this morning meant that we could sink the front end of the boat lower in the water by removing 1.5 tons of weight. This of course was quite a challenge in itself, for even after removing the anchor and chain, plus all our coal and other supplies from the bow locker, and the small amount of trim ballast that was easily accessible in the bows, we were woefully short of our target. There was nothing else for it but to strip the interior completely by removing all the furniture, the stove, the cupboards and shelves, and even the T&G planking from the walls. This just brought us down to the required depth, and luckily we found the BCLM trip-boat moored at the Tunnel entrance so we could put everything in it to be towed through the tunnel. Here you can see the “before” and “after” states of our lounge!

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It was a real struggle to leg the two boats through the tunnel, even with our Pole helping us, so we kept ourselves motivated by singing David Blagrove’s “Dudley Tunnel” song – it’s not the most cheerful of songs but it does at least have the right rhythm.

Dudley.JPG.158a4f7d54b9ffba39f036cb64c193cf.JPG

 

Arriving at the north end of the Tunnel (as you can see, the trip boat is opposite and we had temporarily turned our own boat around to make re-loading easier) we marshalled the Army in the Black Country Living Museum and persuaded them to rebuild the interior of the boat while we called into the Bottle and Glass for a well-earned beer.

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The Army were great, and even took the boat to the safe mooring at Tipton Junction for us before joining us in the Bottle and Glass; we thought we’d give them a treat, and took the Time Machine with us into the pub so that we could demonstrate the art of time-travel to them and to the Museum Staff.

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A rather miserable view of our overnight mooring at Tipton Junction – from CanalPlan, copyright David Tunbridge

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What a Night at the Museum that was! Drinking in the Bottle and Glass, we decided to demonstrate the Time Machine to everyone by taking it out of the boat and plugging it behind the bar. After a couple of pints in the present day we dialled back to 1978 when the Museum first opened. Oh how we laughed when, after a few drinks, the pub regulars did not realise that the old worn doorstep had been replaced by a brand new one and one-by-one they solemnly tripped over it (this is a true story). Then, wanting to see it before the reconstruction, we dialled back a few more years to get this picture.

BottleGlass.jpg.5c7b0bc1fdbb964d83f4c118d88542da.jpg

(Photo from BCLM)

Getting slightly carried away with the success of our demonstration, we dialled back to the year 1835. Things were certainly rather different there, and we were surprised to find that the pub had changed its name to “The Bush”. The beer continued to flow until the evening was interrupted by a rather tall, brash 16-year old lad who came in through the door and immediately started fighting with everybody. The landlord threw him out and unfortunately, because we were also strangers to the pub, he threw us out as well. That was when we realised that we had a problem; the jump in time had, of course, relocated the pub to its original location at Brockmoor beside the Stourbridge Locks. To make things worse the batteries in the Time Machine had gone flat and of course there was nowhere that we could plug in to recharge it; it was a dark night and there were no street lights; and we were between 1 and 2 hours’ walk from Tipton (and we didn’t know the way).

 

Luckily, it turned out that the young man who had been thrown out of the pub with us, knew the way to Tipton and offered to walk with us. He even helped us carry the Time Machine. Chatting as we walked, we found out that his name was William Perry; he lived in Tipton with his parents but was thoroughly bored with life there which was why he had strolled over to Brockmoor to pick a fight. We suggested that if was looking for excitement he should move to London; he seemed to think this was a good idea and said he would look into it. I wonder if we'll meet him again; he looked a bit like this

 

 

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from Wikipedia

 

We collapsed exhausted into our beds at about 3 am, after plugging in the Time Machine to recharge. This meant that we missed all the overnight excitement, waking late to discover that we were sitting in a pool of pollution on the closed Old Main Line, surrounded by booms, and would be unable to travel anywhere by boat today. Ah well, there’s one obvious answer; we’re heading for the pub!

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After a few beers in the pub we felt a bit more cheerful, Pingu decided to waddle up to Dudley Zoo and visit some distant relatives while I set about today’s task. Obviously with our reverse drive effect, we can only travel with a bladeful of rubbish, so our task today was to find pristine examples of things that we could get round the blades. So using only objects around the house (which of course includes our computer) I found the following items with which to create a bladeful (I’ll stack them on the towpath for now and throw them into the canal before we set off tomorrow morning:

 

Poly.jpg.815ca762b75dd639b6329a922ad68ce3.jpgBrolly.jpg.e2b1c24e00f04a61d356a8765168b663.jpgtrolley.jpg.4a451fa3e265831befff03587734b7f8.jpglambretta.jpg.e129e1cbc1dfb9635537af32f66aa5f7.jpgsweater.jpg.77079a103ef0f184c15aae897039a0da.jpgFrench.jpg.1632af332a376bf829c3b4e687a987dc.jpgPorno.jpg.ceee2f269fec5b0bdf1a48e9fc526eab.jpgarmchair.jpg.20c13f56e183745c8e996a3e6cc1332b.jpgcable.jpg.7db871f57cf4d2ccae56a44302df675b.jpgstockings.jpg.2dceec0ef54d5392c3e9e099a075cac2.jpgcastrol.jpg.0c8b6f35eb43cd91b063d10eb1ce295c.jpgdunlop.jpg.c20258e6eea65b98d3f17ce22b43ae03.jpgtrousers.jpg.580feee5047c893554c1164051ad6314.jpgpushchair.jpg.f9986558aaa32054f03bf6b6e0023e12.jpgtwintub.jpg.8b8acc2de834bb5f68a3ed1e69bdb3ed.jpg860665066_sleepingbag.jpg.a52890e280b4f1d0f8e1d85cd015901b.jpgmattress.jpg.4c991c8e9d13207a141baac7b2f9a16f.jpgdog.jpg.de41cec28a5216f82dff11581f8d0677.jpgline.jpg.972b9d197902d49737f52af85794bda8.jpgPoly.jpg.69e7b6e3a899194ff705eebca12a3685.jpg

 

 

   

I wonder if you’ve recognised the song yet? In case not, here are the words:

 

If you fancy a bit of boatin’ now and then,
Take our tip, doe goo on the BCN,
’Cos it may be years before you are discovered we assure you,
And they doe tek pris’ners round by Windmill End.

Chorus:
We’ve got miles and miles of poly round the blades,
We’ve got miles and miles of poly round the blades,
We’ve got miles and miles of poly, a battered yellow brolly,
and a supermarket trolley round the blades.

Got a rusty old Lambretta round the blades,
Got a rusty old Lambretta round the blades,
Got a rusty old Lambretta and a purple mohair sweater,
And a six foot long French letter round the blades.

We’ve got an eight mil porno movie round the blades,
And we want to watch it quick in case it fades,
Down to Titford we will fly, in the middle we will tie,
Safe as houses from Constabulary raids.

There are bags and bins put out by Council men,
But the local folk prefer the BCN,
All the rubbish they have chucked in this great big linear dustbin,
But it could do with being emptied now and then.

We’ve got an orange vinyl armchair round the blades,
And to get it off we struggled round to Brades,
But the steering was affected, ’cos on the way there we collected:
12 yards of cable,
11 nylon stockings,
10 Castrol oil drums,
9 Dunlop tyres,
8 pairs of trousers,
7 push chair handles,
6 twin tub washers,
5 sleeping bags,
4 mattresses,
3 dead dogs,
2 washing lines
And another mile of poly round the blades

 

Tune : She'll be Coming Round the Mountain.

I am indebted to Tony Gregory for providing the original lyrics and Peter Dodds for additional information. "Miles & Miles of Poly" was composed by Ann Peters and Peter Dodds whilst struggling up to Dennis Cooper's dock at the far end of the Wyrley and Essington, a canal rarely risked by the likes of their boat ex-G.U.C.C.C 'Merope' with its 3 foot draft. Peter states "We collected more than a few of the articles mentioned in the song, taking some 16 hours from Horsfield Junction to Norton Canes". The song was premiered and sung around by "Gasworks Revival" (Glyn Phillips, Peter Dodds and Tony Gregory) at the Black Country Museum and Ellesmere Port working boat gatherings throughout the 1980s.

 

I’ve struggled to locate a recording of it, and my own copy seems to have gone missing; this is the only one I’ve managed to find. However I can recommend that you play it and sing along using the song-sheet that I have provided (just give me time to get out of earshot!)

 

 

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53 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

 

 

sweater.jpg.77079a103ef0f184c15aae897039a0da.jpg
But the steering was affected, ’cos on the way there we collected:
12 yards of cable,
11 nylon stockings,
10 Castrol oil drums,
9 Dunlop tyres,
8 pairs of trousers,
7 push chair handles,
6 twin tub washers,
5 sleeping bags,
4 mattresses,
3 dead dogs,
2 washing lines
And another mile of poly round the blades

 

 

 

You forgot the 5 gold rings. And the lady in your pic seems to have a head exactly like a fir tree.

sweater.jpg.77079a103ef0f184c15aae897039a0da.png.25f1efcd44ff118ebdad3bda5950736d.png

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You can't get gold rings on the blades, they would be far too small and anyway whoever would dump them in the canal - but the sleeping bags mentioned in the song are there.

 

(I edited out the face because I didn't want people to be distracted from the sweater)

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Ah, sorry, I meant to post this earlier:

 

Last night we decided to use the Time Machine again, to go back to the year 1857 and meet our friend William Perry (now affectionately known as the Tipton Slasher) in his favourite pub the Fountain in Tipton. We had heard that he might be there, as he had lost his pub at Spon Lane after wagering it on the result of a title-fight against the newcomer Tom Sayers. “It was unfair,” he told us. “That referee was biased against me.” We tried to persuade him to go back for another attempt but he replied that although he had successfully done that after he lost the title in 1851 to Harry Broome, now that he was nearly 40 years old he just couldn’t do it. Instead he said he was going to buy another pub and spend the rest of his life as a landlord; he had been told that the Bricklayers Arms in Wolverhampton might be for sale. Wishing him good luck we returned to the 21st century and walked back to the boat, pausing on the way to admire his statue in the park.

Slasher.jpg.388dda7415ff465a05b9ef2d56166708.jpg

 

So this morning, having left our hangovers in the 19th century we were awake early. There was no time to lose, the anti-pollution booms had been removed, we were ready to start cruising again. Our first job was to throw all of yesterdays accumulated rubbish into the canal so that it could get wound around our prop; as soon as I started the mighty 34 Etab engine there was that satisfying sound of polyprop wrapping itself around the shaft, followed by a healthy crunching noise as the blades bit into the mattress. Quickly I cast off and we rocked nicely as we passed over the shopping trolley and set off on our days travels.

 

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