Abandon hope, all ye who enter here

I only made it to Slough Canal Festival by bike this year, only having one day off that weekend. A few days later, however, I took Tortoise down to the road bridge to collect (a much delayed, but anyway) wood delivery. Having heard rumours of logs further down, I headed west. Access as far as the festival site a couple of bridges further down wasn't too bad, having had a few boats up and down (the trip boat did a sterling job of picking up rubbish on it's prop), but from there onwards, it was a nightmare. The rather unclear picture above is the view down the weedhatch; there's prop in there somewhere, but I'm not sure where. There's just so many platic bags, basically, and it's not going to get any better; more boats would at least pick them up out of the way for the rest of us, but there's nothing to go to on that stretch anyway, and the canal's full of plastic bags...

I gave up on finding any stashes of logs, but settled on a couple of flytipped pallets and the odd log or two which seems to have been fished out of the canal and dumped. It's a start.

man swims, press grounded

A late start at work allowed me to wander down to the Thames to see David Walliams swim past on the ebbing tide:


To be honest there wasn't much to see - a dot surrounded by support boats; it's the human endeavour that is the spectacle rather than a momentary glimpse. A few people were following him down the Kew side towpath, and on the Brentford side a smattering of pot banging, whistle blowing and flag waving marked his passing.

As Mr Walliams moved on, though; the following boat, containing the gentlemen & ladies of the press, er, didn't, just sat there revving it's outboard. There's a bank of gravel where the Brent joins the Thames, and they found it. At first the fourth estate took the opportunity for a photocall:


but, as the Walliams entourage disappeared around the corner to Kew Bridge, it was clear they weren't going anywhwere this side of the tide. Eventually the PLA launch 'Chelsea' came to the rescue and took off the journos:



The launch & crew just had to sit there; they were still there at midday as I left for work, and had another few hours to wait for the water:


Meanwhile, the tiny dinghy originally following the whole lot, protesting the levels of human effluent put into the water (but alas only so there's more fish for them to torture, being an angling organisation):


got into trouble itself, running down the outside of the press boat and beaching themselves on the island, before eventually heading off again:


Many thanks, by the way, to Mike Mason of dutch barge 'Serendipity' moored at the mouth of the Brent, who emailed me the press boat photos, which all happened after my camera battery had died. I've published them small deliberately; if any press types want to use any of them, I'll happily put you in touch with Mike but you can't nick them from here...

Oh, and...

Nice to see some of your have been using the little tickboxes below the posts, and possibly not without irony, either.

The were originally added to gently satirise another blog's self-aggrandisement options; but, like Lehrer giving up satire when Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize, that very blog I realise has either finally tipped into insanity or must be satire itself, it's the only explanation. So, bye bye tickboxes. Few noticed or cared.

testing, testing

after nearly a week of [mostly] traditional music, morris dancers, mud and cider, it seemed only appropriate to dig out something I did many, many years ago, albeit largely as a test for fun yet to come.

With apologies in advance to Kath & Neil...

Books: priceless

The image above was being pointed to on the internet here and there, and I approve wholeheartedly.

Books are a comfort, a reassurance that there's always more to discover. With a paperback in my pocket, I'm prepared for the most tedious of journeys, even being stuck for an extra two hours sitting just outside Crewe. I have more books than I have time to read, but that's OK, as I can see myself having a phobia of the opposite condition. I'm OK about weeding out the chaff, occasionally, stuff I'll never read, or more likely never read again. There's plenty more, and more will come in, from car boot sales, charity shops and the like.

Chatting to a homeless guy in Shepherd's Bush - about the book he was reading - he pointed out the free bookshop that was running in an empty unit in the shopping centre - Books for free*. You could debate whether money could be made for a charity for those books, but the concept that stuff can just be passed on is vital; whilst we have freecycle, and local arrangements such as leaving stuff out on the pavement, free shops should be much more widespread. Too much is thrown away as being no use to one person, when it's perfect for another.

And yet - at the other end of the spectrum - those books need to be made, and paid for. We found ourselves almost duty bound to support the little independent bookshop in Uxbridge, struggloing just off the High St. I love being able to go online to Amazon or Abebooks to find exactly what I want there and then, and I know I'm just as much as part of the problem as anyone, not to mention having a book as a few hundred kilobytes of data on our gadget of choice. We saw a lovely traditional bookshop in Deal in it's closing down death throes. Much as I love words, and the books that hold them, I don't pay enough for them. It's just like food; we should pay more for good food from local suppliers, and we don't, we buy crap from the supermarket.

To avoid finishing on a complete downer, here's how much I waste words; a colleague redacted a recent email, leaving the bits he considered relevant. Although I like to paint the bigger picture, he was largely right:



* more waffle - the book I found in here, like in a lot of places, something I would have never been looking for - is a book by Fred Basnett, a social romp based on his experiences as a young worker at Sellafield. I grew up in the area a few years later, but it's a serendipitous find, and a book I'll probably hang on to.

Another canal that isn't

This time, the Royal Military Canal




These two pictures are from Hythe, near the eastern end; it continues around what was the old coast, kind of, skirting the expanse of Romney Marsh & Dungeness. It wasn't really built for transportation, and last did any in 1909, I think, but now you can at least get an electric boat from town to the steam railway terminus. It has regular kinks to allow soldiers to shoot straight down it in the event of a Naploeonic invasion.

Back at Dungeness, taking dramatic pictures is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, although I know which activity I'd prefer. Here's a shot I suspect everyone takes*, taken around ten or more years ago, and a few days ago. It's a pretty timeless place anyway, only the missing mast shows the passage of time.






* even the mats on the bar in the pub where we waited for the bus had a variation on this view

Pallet Furniture

by the East London Furniture Pallet Project, seen at Camden Green fair last weekend. It's not just firewood...

If anyone had boating plans for the weekend...

I really hope this is Metcheck's weather model throwing a wobbly, and not the end times. I doubt the rapture will be coming for me, mind...

Glow Plugs

Jobs you haven't done before, especially when the internet is full of forebodings of woe, seem a bit daunting. When it all goes well and may even appear to have been some use, I wonder what all the fuss was about.

Starting isn't one of Tortoise's BMC's fortes at the best of times. One thing I wanted to check was the glow plugs, so I hoiked them out one at a time and had a look. They all glow nicely when powered up (albeit taking a while to get to red hot), so there doesn't seem to be any rush to buy new ones quite yet.

Three out of four, though did seem to be pretty much bunged up with carbon - I cleaned out the holes with a 4mm, then 4.2mm drill bit, which seemed to do the trick. Tony Brooks et al suggest 11/64", approx 4.35mm, so I should be OK. I did worry about losing the drill bit inside the engine block, though.

Afterwards the engine started OK, but it often does, so at least I hadn't made it worse. The electrics leave something to be desired though - the voltage at the starter battery (itself an old domestic one of unknown history) when the glow plugs are running is less than 12v, and there's a 0.7v volt drop to the glow plugs. A new starter battery (anyone used a smaller 40Ah car battery as a starter - any reason why not?), and/or thicker wires for the glow plugs (or even better a local relay connected to the starter volts into the solenoid) would improve things no end.

No pictures, although I really should have taken some.

In other news, it's Towel Day on Wednesday, and just in case you were wondering, wikipedia have a lengthy article on the meaning of life, so we need wonder no more.

I'll have a wander around Rickmansworth festival on Saturday; it beats working.

Open racism on Narrowmind World

narrowboatworld.com/index.php/narrowboat-hire/2869-boat-hiregrand-union-canal?start=4

'Telling it like it is?' Thankfully some of us aren't a bit like you lot.