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The things that nobody thinks to tell you...


Starcoaster

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I've just finished labouring over my self-assessment tax return and your litany was just the tonic which my brain needed. Apart from your keen powers of observation, I did like your word "ponderful" which I shall now slip into conversations or articles as if I had invented it myself.

Your point 28 puzzled me as , if I remember your boat's photos correctly, she does not have an open bow. Do you mean that you've discovered why that false cratch is there, to stop the bottles from sliding into the water?

I have added to your fine display of greenies. You'll soon have so many that you will have to keep them on the roof with the mop.

 

:smiley_offtopic: Another wonderful word that I first got from one of the Argonet forums was "manywhere". It was used by a Chinese person to mean "all over the place". As in "You seen dark green boats manywhere." I think that this is such a good word that it should be in the dictionary, like "ponderful".

 

Nick

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Starry, brilliant. You've not included any reference to walking dog s**t into your boat because you hadn't noticed you'd trod in some on the towpath after a trip to the boozer

 

 

Hi Star

One was at Hillmorton when I remarked to a boater how I liked his leather windlass holder belt in which was a very expensive bronze one,he said he had been boating some forty years,whipped out the windlass,spun it round in his hand and it fled into the lock (being bronze,no magnet would ever retrieve it!!).

 

Which lock was it, top middle or bottom?

 

I'll get down there with me Keb.

Edited by Ray T
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One thing they don't tell you when you're thinking about buying a narrowboat (or they do, but you don't believe them), is that you go through the following stages within 40 days or less:

Stage 1: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 2 years time."

Stage 2: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 18 months to 2 years time"

Stage 3: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 12 to 18 months time"

Stage 4: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 12 months time"

Stage 5: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat as soon as I can sell my dogs, children, car, grandmother and a kidney"

Stage 6: "I like this narrowboat. Will you take my dogs, children, car, grandmother and a kidney in part exchange?"

  • Greenie 4
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:smiley_offtopic: Another wonderful word that I first got from one of the Argonet forums was "manywhere". It was used by a Chinese person to mean "all over the place". As in "You seen dark green boats manywhere." I think that this is such a good word that it should be in the dictionary, like "ponderful".

 

Nick

In Sussex, the real locals (who are now but few, having been largely superseded by speakers of estuary English) still say "somewhen" and "anywhen" to mean sometime and anytime. I love such colourful and expressive dialect words, now almost as rare as independent shops on a high street. How many words, for example, are there for "a path between two rpads or streets"? Alley would be the commonest, but I have come across eight or nine in various parts of the country. Perhaps I have spent too much of my time in alleys.

  • Greenie 1
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In Sussex, the real locals (who are now but few, having been largely superseded by speakers of estuary English) still say "somewhen" and "anywhen" to mean sometime and anytime. I love such colourful and expressive dialect words, now almost as rare as independent shops on a high street. How many words, for example, are there for "a path between two rpads or streets"? Alley would be the commonest, but I have come across eight or nine in various parts of the country. Perhaps I have spent too much of my time in alleys.

 

Mrs W (from Sheffield) calls them jitties, but I think I used to call them jinnels

(I think the J is interchangeable with G). I've also heard the term snickets around South Yorkshire but I think that's a more rural term.

 

I have recently been told by an expert that I have a Yorkshire accent/dialect which sounds like recordings made about 50 years ago.

I suppose this is consistent with where I lived then although I have made no attempt to keep or loose my accent and have been away from the area and even overseas for the last 40 years.

 

Do we hear our own accents?

I think not.

Edited by andywatson
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Mrs W (from Sheffield) calls them jitties, but I think I used to call them jinnels

(I think the J is interchangeable with G). I've also heard the term snickets around South Yorkshire but I think that's a more rural term.

 

I have recently been told by an expert that I have a Yorkshire accent/dialect which sounds like recordings made about 50 years ago.

I suppose this is consistent with where I lived then although I have made no attempt to keep or loose my accent and have been away from the area and even overseas for the last 40 years.

 

Do we hear our own accents?

I think not.

 

The best.

 

Edited by leeco
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Here's one for you

 

You argue fiercely with the git selling the Socialist Worker that, "the true class system in the UK is a rivitocracy" but that "advancement is possible, based on beards and silly hats"

Edited by fuzzyduck
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Bloody hell I am feeling rather famous today... But it's ok, Mr. Tree Monkey, Matty, Mike the Boilerman etc. will all take the pee out of me appropriately in chat later. :lol:

Thank you all for your additions to the thread, nice comments and all the greenies!

 

 

I think submariners would recognise an awful lot of this.

Thats funny you say that because a good friend of mine is an ex Royal Navy Submariner and he had a whole list like this of his own, that was equally bizarre but rather dirtier... :captain:

 

 

Your point 28 puzzled me as , if I remember your boat's photos correctly, she does not have an open bow. Do you mean that you've discovered why that false cratch is there, to stop the bottles from sliding into the water?

Indeed, I have now given in and started to make use of my weird and not really that useful false cratch thing, it's holding a couple of veterinary cages/ traps, which in turn hold most of my emergency alcohol supply. :D

 

 

Starcoaster for C&RT - she understands boaters !!!!!

**Runs for life**

 

 

One thing that people do tell you, but I only just realised the extent of the problem, is the difficulty with hanging pictures. For the cabin sides, I use the forstner bit/keyhole plate method on the frames (©carlt), but in the heads/shower room/bog* I hung a rather nice art nouveau mirror on plain old brass wire as this was on a vertical bulkhead. Yesterday said wire snapped, there was an almighty crash and I'm in the market for a new mirror. I can only imagine that the gentle yet constant movement had worn through it. In just under 12 months. :o

 

Delete as taste dictates.

Hah actually I came unstuck with this one. Matty said to nail pictures to the walls at the top and bottom of the frame (I have wood panelled walls) which I did do, but because I am a genius, :unsure: the first time I tried it, I did the main part of the hammering with the glass in the frame (rather than doing the hammering first, then slotting the glass in and pushing into the wall) and as I'm sure anyone else could have foreseen, it shattered into a million pieces upon my second strike of the hammer. :rolleyes:

 

What is this 'shaving your legs' of which you speak? As you will never wear a skirt again, can it not be dispensed with?

I refuse to fold over this one! I do most of my dossing about on the boat and in fact minor maintenance in one of my long loose gypsy skirts. As I don't have a car licence and generally get about on a motorbike, any time I am without a bike for more than a week on the trot, I use the opportunity to trawl out all of my skirts. Have people taken the mick out of me before now for this? Noooo. Honest!

Why yes, yes I am a princess, thank you for asking. :lol:

 

Are there 2 Starcoasters?

The one I met was expensively fragrant and immaculately presented.

Are there two Andy Watsons? Cos I didn't realise that the one I met was drunk at the time! :lol:

 

 

Starry, brilliant. You've not included any reference to walking dog s**t into your boat because you hadn't noticed you'd trod in some on the towpath after a trip to the boozer

I don't want to say 'I haven't done this yet' because I am just about to pop up to the village, and you just KNOW how that trip will end...

 

 

 

One thing they don't tell you when you're thinking about buying a narrowboat (or they do, but you don't believe them), is that you go through the following stages within 40 days or less:

Stage 1: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 2 years time."

Stage 2: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 18 months to 2 years time"

Stage 3: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 12 to 18 months time"

Stage 4: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 12 months time"

Stage 5: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat as soon as I can sell my dogs, children, car, grandmother and a kidney"

Stage 6: "I like this narrowboat. Will you take my dogs, children, car, grandmother and a kidney in part exchange?"

For me, this was literal... I joined the forum on the 7th September, with the intention of learning and saving money over the course of a year or so, then maybe looking to buy something small and cheap when I had the funds.

 

By the 29th September, I had placed a crazy throwaway ebay bid on a boat that should have gone to about twice what I had to spend, and that I had no chance of winning... And won it. :blink: 31st of October I moved aboard... And here we are!

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Mrs W (from Sheffield) calls them jitties, but I think I used to call them jinnels

(I think the J is interchangeable with G). I've also heard the term snickets around South Yorkshire but I think that's a more rural term.

 

I have recently been told by an expert that I have a Yorkshire accent/dialect which sounds like recordings made about 50 years ago.

I suppose this is consistent with where I lived then although I have made no attempt to keep or loose my accent and have been away from the area and even overseas for the last 40 years.

 

Do we hear our own accents?

I think not.

I were brung up in Gleadless (a Sheffield suburb) and we had a "gennel" (or jennel) along our road. I tahke it as being a corruption of a "general" right of way. When I lived in Hertford there was quite a system of them, known there as "twitchels", and I think it's in Sussex that they are "twitterns".

Elsewhere (though can't remember where) they are pleasantly referred to as snickles, in Bedforshire they are rather revoltingly called slipes (a term exported by our colonial forefathers - there is a Slipe Road in Kingston, Jamaica), and in the North East they are, rather single-endedly, called entries.

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Mrs W (from Sheffield) calls them jitties, but I think I used to call them jinnels

(I think the J is interchangeable with G). I've also heard the term snickets around South Yorkshire but I think that's a more rural term.

 

I have recently been told by an expert that I have a Yorkshire accent/dialect which sounds like recordings made about 50 years ago.

I suppose this is consistent with where I lived then although I have made no attempt to keep or loose my accent and have been away from the area and even overseas for the last 40 years.

 

Do we hear our own accents?

I think not.

We 'ad ginnels were I were dragged up.

 

Martyn

 

Star

First read your post late last night and I didn't have any greenies left. Just tried again and still have none. I promise to give you one when I have one.

 

Get that boat out and about. you can then draw up another list.

 

Martyn

As promised. You are now the proud recipient of a Martyn Greenie! (1829 o'clock). Edited by Nightwatch
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I were brung up in Gleadless (a Sheffield suburb) and we had a "gennel" (or jennel) along our road. I tahke it as being a corruption of a "general" right of way. When I lived in Hertford there was quite a system of them, known there as "twitchels", and I think it's in Sussex that they are "twitterns".

Elsewhere (though can't remember where) they are pleasantly referred to as snickles, in Bedforshire they are rather revoltingly called slipes (a term exported by our colonial forefathers - there is a Slipe Road in Kingston, Jamaica), and in the North East they are, rather single-endedly, called entries.

Twitten, I think, in Sussex. But you know, until you said, I never related that to ginnel, tenfoot etc.

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17. Whenever you go to work in an office, visit a friend in a house, or have cause to use a hotel, you need an extra bag to haul along all of the things you want to charge up from their mains while you’re there

 

I've just read through the thread and giggling away because I'm travelling in a car sitting next to said bag going to stay in a hotel tonight :lol:

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Starry, brilliant. You've not included any reference to walking dog s**t into your boat because you hadn't noticed you'd trod in some on the towpath after a trip to the boozer

 

 

 

 

Which lock was it, top middle or bottom?

 

I'll get down there with me Keb.

 

It was the bottom lock,towpath side about five years ago!!

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I hung a rather nice art nouveau mirror on plain old brass wire as this was on a vertical bulkhead. Yesterday said wire snapped, there was an almighty crash and I'm in the market for a new mirror. I can only imagine that the gentle yet constant movement had worn through it. In just under 12 months. :o

 

*Delete as taste dictates.

No, it was electrolytic corrosion, brass wire, steel nail, moist atmosphere!!!!!!

 

Steve

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When you run out of kindling you start eyeing up breadboards, wooden spoons and then the cabin furniture.

I've been fitting out my boat for the last few years. I am shortly to fit the solid fuel stove that I bought about 8 years ago. Luckily I have about 8 bags of small bits of plywood for kindling which should keep me going for a couple of years.

 

 

I gave you your 50th greenie Starry

Mike

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Well this is a new one - check out the OP - Starry's got a big gold star in the top right with the word Popular!! Is that the reward for 50 greenies in post :lol:

 

(She is getting so much stick in the chat room btw!)

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Fantastic! Haven't had time to read them all as about to get a plane home, but cannot stop laughing!

 

I'd like to add that a roll of toilet paper will last 5x as long as it used to.

 

You find yourself trying to get the people from Sky/BT to talk to you in the shopping centre just so you can shoot them down with 'I live on a boat' which they never have an answer to.

 

You spend more time looking on Apollo Duck then you did when you were buying a boat

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In Sussex, the real locals (who are now but few, having been largely superseded by speakers of estuary English) still say "somewhen" and "anywhen" to mean sometime and anytime. I love such colourful and expressive dialect words, now almost as rare as independent shops on a high street. How many words, for example, are there for "a path between two rpads or streets"? Alley would be the commonest, but I have come across eight or nine in various parts of the country. Perhaps I have spent too much of my time in alleys.

 

Twittens, of course

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