Is living on Canals as Complicated as it sounds!?

[Tony Brooks]

Stop it, please.

 

Darren has had several different e-mail replies, including from me.

 

I think what is happening is that he is trying to cope with a "jumble of different information" and that the jumble is probably confusing him more than helping him at the moment.

 

I take grave exception to your simplistic remark that you imagine that Darren might think different people might answer him and blah blah.

 

Have you had the humility to consider that the guy might be a bit tongue-tied and unsure about how to pose his questions?

 

If you have not had the humility to consider that possibility then why not, please? Does one need a degree in Communication Skills in order to be a member of this forum? It did not say so when I joined the thing so stop it, please.

 

Gill

 

 

But what was his question?

 

You say it was to try and gather information about the cost of living aboard a boat in the 21st century.

 

He seemed to be asking why it was so much cheaper in his view in the past.

 

These are two completely different questions and it does not need a degree in communication skills to see that. It also does not need a degree in anything to see from the responses to his first question that it was not getting the response he had hoped for so why did he pose it again in the same way? When things like this happen on news groups the poster often gets accused of being a troll, and to be honest I could see evidence of these being typical trolling posts.

 

Until he can formulate the questions he wants answered about the cost of living on a boat TODAY and be far more specific in what sort of boat he thinks he will get the replies will be confusing because of all the iffs and butts. For an example someone suggests the Leeds and Liverpool canal and on the face of it that is reasonable BUT if he buys a narrowboat the length can probably be in excess of 65ft. If he buys a wide beam barge he will be limited to about 57 ft.

 

By all means help him formulate his questions but do not castigate those who respond to an apparent troll in a suitable manner. I think you would be far more help to him if you got him to understand why he got replies as he did rather than being rather insulting several on the forum.

[Gollywobbler]

But what was his question?

 

You say it was to try and gather information about the cost of living aboard a boat in the 21st century.

 

He seemed to be asking why it was so much cheaper in his view in the past.

 

These are two completely different questions and it does not need a degree in communication skills to see that. It also does not need a degree in anything to see from the responses to his first question that it was not getting the response he had hoped for so why did he pose it again in the same way? When things like this happen on news groups the poster often gets accused of being a troll, and to be honest I could see evidence of these being typical trolling posts.

 

Until he can formulate the questions he wants answered about the cost of living on a boat TODAY and be far more specific in what sort of boat he thinks he will get the replies will be confusing because of all the iffs and butts. For an example someone suggests the Leeds and Liverpool canal and on the face of it that is reasonable BUT if he buys a narrowboat the length can probably be in excess of 65ft. If he buys a wide beam barge he will be limited to about 57 ft.

 

By all means help him formulate his questions but do not castigate those who respond to an apparent troll in a suitable manner. I think you would be far more help to him if you got him to understand why he got replies as he did rather than being rather insulting several on the forum.

 

 

Hi Tony

 

Have you e-mailed Darren and heard from him yourself? if not, you are in no serious position to regard him as being a "troll," are you?

 

Gill

[ditchcrawler]

Hi Tony

 

Have you e-mailed Darren and heard from him yourself? if not, you are in no serious position to regard him as being a "troll," are you?

 

Gill

Well he has posted the same posting twice and not responded to any of the replies he has received.

[Gollywobbler]

Now, Tony

 

Having got your "troll" allegation out of the way, let us get down to brass tacks.

 

In a way, I do understand Darren's belief that one begins at the beginning. It is a logical place to start from, after all. With canals, the beginning was the Industrial Revolution about 250 years ago, I believe.

 

I've been trying to research the whole canal business myself and I have found it next to impossible to succeed. One can find out about the history easily enough. One can discover why the Mechanical Horse eclipsed the furry variety commercially.

 

One can discover LOTS of other things but it is almost impossible to understand the jargon used by modern "boaters" and anyway I thought that a boater is a type of straw hat.

 

So I can understand Darren's problems completely. The canals strutted their stuff. Then they disappeared. Then they came back to life with a new type of user and a new type of jargon. The new jargon is what makes it so difficult for an outsider to understand how it all works nowadays.

 

Darren is doing his best to describe what he thinks his problems are. There is zero doubt about that in my mind. His descriptions might not be clear enough for your taste but who's got the problem if that is the case?

 

From what I've seen on this forum recently, I think Darren's best bet is to forget about the inland waterways and to head for a coastal Harbour instead. Everybody in a Harbour understands that there is no place for preciousness because all of us are potentially lunch for Old Nick if we get it wrong with our boats. Being the old geezer's lunch is a seriously powerful incentive not to make mistakes and to help anybody and everybody else to avoid that fate. Therefore nobody who keeps a boat in a Harbour would ever even dream of stooping to some of the sheer spite and stupidity that I have seen from some of the users of this forum.

 

I think this forum needs to pull its sox up, frankly.

 

Gill

Edited September 8, 2011 by Gollywobbler

[Tony Brooks]

Hi Tony

 

Have you e-mailed Darren and heard from him yourself? if not, you are in no serious position to regard him as being a "troll," are you?

 

Gill

 

 

First of all do not go on about communication skills when you have deliberately misrepresented what I said. I said his posts had the appearance of being from a troll and that is a completely different thing. Judging from some of the replies I would suggest that I am not the only one who wondered about that. Added to that is the suggestion that the MSC may be place to moor/live. I would suggest that this taken with what went before is so off the wall it would not be unreasonable to attribute a degree of trolling to that as well.

 

"I have been doing a lot of research, internet, magazines and stuff". Well has he? If he has I am very surprised he has not already contacted me via the magazine, on the magazine forum, via Canal Junction, or directly. The fact that he has not suggest his research is somewhat lacking. If someone wants to use a public internet forum to obtain private advice that is denied to the rest of the users then I am not going to email. His conduct seems selfish and if he wants private advice he should be willing to pay for it.

 

You do his case no good by casting aspersions about other forum members. Your efforts would be better spent trying to get him to understand why he got the answers he did and how to avoid a repeat situation.

 

The bottom line is that his conduct leaves something to be desired and your aspersions about other forum members only made the situation worse. If you had simply explained what he wanted and confined your self to the questions I suspect the outcome would have been different.

 

PS I also monitor the WWW forum and he does not seem to have asked on there either.

Edited September 8, 2011 by Tony Brooks

[carlt]

 

I think this forum needs to pull its sox up, frankly.

 

Really?

 

This is one of the best forums of any kind and, by far, the most popular inland waterways forum.

 

This is a discussion forum and, with the helpful advice, comes a level of humour that makes it stand out from the drab blandness, of the others.

 

If you really think the level of harmless banter, on this thread, is unacceptable then you need to ask yourself if it is you, who are being over-sensitive, rather than others being nasty.

 

Personally I would rather address the OP, directly, rather than some Mother Hen, cluck clucking, trying to defend him from a non-existent assailant.

 

You are not doing him any favours.

[Gollywobbler]

Well he has posted the same posting twice and not responded to any of the replies he has received.

 

From his e-mail reply to me, I wouldn't surmise that Darren has a degree in English - so the idiot on Darren's last thread who suggested that he might be a journo is a bit of a mutt, frankly.

 

Darren responds MUCH better to e-mail than he does to internet forums, in my recent, personal experience. That is why he ASKED people to send him e-mails but he got shouted down by the insenstive twit on his first thread who made the pathetic assumption - sic, assumption only - that Darren "must be" a journo, so it is hardly surprising that Darren has not chosen to try to go there twice, now is it?

 

Instead of whingeing, carping and making excuses, please try to give me a CONSTRUCTIVE hand about this. You will find that idea much more satisfying personally, I assure you.

 

So far, I think that I have both understood and asked the questions clearly enough but I think it is probable that intelligent, thoughtful, helpful answers might well spawn further questions. If so, learn to live with it, I recommend.

 

In theory, you guys can help. I am the person saying "inland waterways" rather than "canals" because - like Darren - I'm not sure where one begins and the other one ends. I'm used to "tidal waters without locks," if that is any help?

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest]

100% wind up merchant...

[carlt]

 

Instead of whingeing, carping and making excuses,

I believe your whingeing and carping have turned this from a thread with a mix of advice and light hearted banter into an argument.

 

It is you who is being precious. Lighten up a bit and get back on topic.

[ditchcrawler]

 

Darren responds MUCH better to e-mail than he does to internet forums, in my recent, personal experience. That is why he ASKED people to send him e-mails but he got shouted down by the insenstive twit on his first thread who made the pathetic assumption - sic, assumption only - that Darren "must be" a journo, so it is hardly surprising that Darren has not chosen to try to go there twice, now is it?

 

 

I thought he had posted twice, the same question.

[Tony Brooks]

From his e-mail reply to me, I wouldn't surmise that Darren has a degree in English - so the idiot on Darren's last thread who suggested that he might be a journo is a bit of a mutt, frankly.

 

Darren responds MUCH better to e-mail than he does to internet forums, in my recent, personal experience. That is why he ASKED people to send him e-mails but he got shouted down by the insenstive twit on his first thread who made the pathetic assumption - sic, assumption only - that Darren "must be" a journo, so it is hardly surprising that Darren has not chosen to try to go there twice, now is it?

 

Instead of whingeing, carping and making excuses, please try to give me a CONSTRUCTIVE hand about this. You will find that idea much more satisfying personally, I assure you.

 

So far, I think that I have both understood and asked the questions clearly enough but I think it is probable that intelligent, thoughtful, helpful answers might well spawn further questions. If so, learn to live with it, I recommend.

 

In theory, you guys can help. I am the person saying "inland waterways" rather than "canals" because - like Darren - I'm not sure where one begins and the other one ends. I'm used to "tidal waters without locks," if that is any help?

 

Cheers

 

Gill

 

 

Do not try and alter facts after the event. Darren DID go there again when he asked virtually the same question again. If he wants private emailed answers his research should have shown him ways of getting them - why did he not find them?

 

Both his questions seemed to be jumbled and were titled to show an interest in history not the present day. He did not bother to even try to help get the answers he needed by entering into a meaningful dialogue to try to resolve things.

 

If he wants a constructive hand perhaps he had better come back and apologise on your behalf for the aspersions you cast at forum members and also clearly define what his questions are. Oh and accept he may not get private advice.

 

No one actually insulted him by suggesting what his questions appear to say about him and if he got so upset about being mistaken for a journalist perhaps it is he who has the problems. In fact the way you seem to describe him and his conduct to date suggests to me that perhaps the help he needs is not available on this forum (or a sea boat forum come to that).

 

I note that you THINK you have understood and asked the questions clearly enough yet you profess to no great understanding of inland waterways. The two things do not sit happily together.

 

The whys and wherefores do make getting to live on an inland boat and stay within the regulations complicated - it is your turn to get over that - the forum members can not decomplicate them but we can respond to questions that have an answer. From the questions given it is clear to me that Daren has NOT done much research otherwise he would know the BW Continuously Cruising regulations and until he can tell use how he intend to use the barge/boat/narrowboat we can not be very much help. You can assert that we can help until the cows come home but until Daren starts responding to questions we can not say much more than we have already. He has been given the information needed to get started. He has had time to have a look at the websites for the EA navigations - has he? I advised that he starts investigating moorings - has he? He was told about Waterscape.com - has he looked at it? - have you looked at it?

 

He has been given some very rough prices and he can not get much more until he clarifies the details so why has he not replied to questions?

 

After your first post I think you have done Darren's case more harm than good. I am certainly far less disposed to reply to him now than I was at the start.

[Gibbo]

I think an IP check on some posters is in order.

[Guest]

I think an IP check on some posters is in order.

 

A previous forum I used to post on used to have a poster who when they replied was able to display posters ISP and their IP address in their signature...not sure how they did it...

 

 

 

..

Edited September 8, 2011 by MJG

[Joshua]

My head is hurting.

 

 

I have no doubt that Smudge38 is a Troll, probably a bored youth, low self esteem, no friends etc, etc, let him have his fun I say.

 

But then I started putting 2 and 2 together, the forum has been very ‘unstable’ recently, posts have been variously vitriolic, obsessively argumentative, abusive and even outright threatening, there has even been talk of reporting a member to the police for a murderous drowning that hasn’t yet taken place!

 

All this started at about the time someone posted what appeared to be a new government policy to spirit away all of the UK’s undesirables on the inland waterways.

 

But is it?

 

I have evidence (from an undisclosed source) that Shapps is actually a Troll himself, not a real politician, and that working together with certain other, ‘deep sleeper’ Troll members of this forum, has a cunning plan to incite the waterways community into such a frenzy of suspicion and mistrust that the waterways grind to a halt, at which point, Shapps and his gang of Trolls will take over, acquisitioning all the boats onto which the entire UK population of Trolls will be moved and from which they will launch their bid to take over the world.

 

I can’t give you all the names of the Trolls working with Shapps because the gangs leader and very, very deep sleeping troll ‘Lady Muck’, to cover their trail, has locked the thread that contained all their names, devilish!

 

Save to say that all those people who have so recently joined the forum (suspiciously coincidental with Shapps original breach of the peace) including ‘Gollywobbler’, are obviously members.

 

I’m watching you.

 

 

 

Joshua

[carlt]

 

I’m watching you.

 

 

 

Now my head hurts.

 

A previous forum I used to post on used to have a poster who when they replied was able to display posters ISP and their IP address in their signature...not sure how they did it...

 

 

 

..

 

This only showed the ISP, etc. to the person who was looking at the signature. It didn't display it to the person who had it in their sig.

 

Software is available for this, though, and the mods can check such stuff.

[Guest]

 

I'm watching you...

 

Joshua

 

I'm bricking it...

[Gibbo]

A previous forum I used to post on used to have a poster who when they replied was able to display posters ISP and their IP address in their signature...not sure how they did it...

 

It just shows you your own IP as you're looking at the post (everyone else sees their own IP address). Baldock got in trouble for it earlier this year because some girly who didn't undertstand it (and thought knowing an IP address was like having your NI number and birth certificate) reported him (and the mod didn't understand it either).

 

For clarification, an IP address is worthless. Right now mine is 2.103.71.200

[Guest]

Right now mine is 2.103.71.200

 

We are coming for you...

[Gibbo]

We are coming for you...

 

[Gollywobbler]

My head is hurting.

 

 

I have no doubt that Smudge38 is a Troll, probably a bored youth, low self esteem, no friends etc, etc, let him have his fun I say.

 

But then I started putting 2 and 2 together, the forum has been very ‘unstable’ recently, posts have been variously vitriolic, obsessively argumentative, abusive and even outright threatening, there has even been talk of reporting a member to the police for a murderous drowning that hasn’t yet taken place!

 

All this started at about the time someone posted what appeared to be a new government policy to spirit away all of the UK’s undesirables on the inland waterways.

 

But is it?

 

I have evidence (from an undisclosed source) that Shapps is actually a Troll himself, not a real politician, and that working together with certain other, ‘deep sleeper’ Troll members of this forum, has a cunning plan to incite the waterways community into such a frenzy of suspicion and mistrust that the waterways grind to a halt, at which point, Shapps and his gang of Trolls will take over, acquisitioning all the boats onto which the entire UK population of Trolls will be moved and from which they will launch their bid to take over the world.

 

I can’t give you all the names of the Trolls working with Shapps because the gangs leader and very, very deep sleeping troll ‘Lady Muck’, to cover their trail, has locked the thread that contained all their names, devilish!

 

Save to say that all those people who have so recently joined the forum (suspiciously coincidental with Shapps original breach of the peace) including ‘Gollywobbler’, are obviously members.

 

I’m watching you.

 

 

 

Joshua

 

Joshua

 

I expect I am less boring than the television.

 

For the rest of your nonsense, I recommend investing in a thing called a brain.

 

Speaking purely personally, I don't give a flying f*** about whether Shapps gets his own way with his idea that people should be encouraged to live on boats on the "inland waterways" (his expression this time, not mine) in England. Using these inland waterways is not something that I, personally, have ever done except once when I helped to deliver a boat from Windsor round to Portsmouth by sea. Very little of that trip involved inland waterways, plainly, and anyway that trip happened more than 20 years ago.

 

However I do think that Shapps is wrong to present the idea of boat-living as some sort of Nirvana because I don't think that it is. I also think that his ideas might well involve vastly increased prices for the people who already use the canals and other inland waterways in England.

 

Ultimately, it might also involve hugely inflated prices for people who keep their boats in Harbours instead but I think the Harbours are probably less of a worry. There are all sorts of legal problems with trying to order a Harbour Authority around. Also, most of the boats in a Harbour are capable of going to sea. It is not rocket science to take a sea-boat to a cheaper Harbour in another country.

 

The vulnerable boats - and therefore the vulnerable owners - are the people whose boats were not designed to cross open water safely, it seems to me.

 

Please, do go ahead and believe whatever you like with your perceived fantasies about Grant Shapps and me! I wouldn't dream of trying to stand between you and your fantasies, my friend.

[Gibbo]

I still think some IP checks would be in order. This is ridiculous.

[Guest]

I still think some IP checks would be in order. This is ridiculous.

 

indeed - is this a new phenomenon, tri-polar disorder...

[Gibbo]

indeed - is this a new phenomenon, tri-polar disorder...

 

Or someone talking to themselves on a forum. Not even remembered to change one his names.

[DeanS]

Right now mine is 2.103.71.200

 

OMG. Mines 2.103.71.201 ....are you in the boat next door???????????????????

[carlt]

OMG. Mines 2.103.71.201 ....are you in the boat next door???????????????????

Have a look in the backcabin.....