coolcanals

Community Pubs Month

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:32:00 +0000

Rotund midriffs don't really tally with the image of long-distance walkers. We've rambled here, there and everywhere along the 2,000 and more miles of canals, and have calf muscles of iron, but the stomachs tell another story! I blame those landlords and landladies of canalside pubs serpenting us with their best ale on almost every turn of the canal.

Our floating office has been moored in Stourport Basins for over a month now, which feels like an eternity for our itchy feet (we're in our usual typing frenzy getting our next book ready for our printer's deadline!). But Stourport is making us welcome - it's a canal town, and so a good community goes without saying. Maggie, the landlady of our Stourport local, has her own narrowboat of course.

April is Community Pubs Month and her pub, the Hollybush, just a stone's throw from the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, has what a good pub needs - a landlady who cares about her pub, fab real ales and a community welcome that's real.

The local pubs have welcomed us strangers in town, and already the looming goodbyes will be sad. It's a reminder to me of the vital role real pubs play in nurturing community. It's a hard and frankly worrying fact that, according to CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale), pubs are closing at a rate of 16 per week. Canalside pubs have the bonus attraction of the water and summer tourism, but still need to manage year-round trade to keep them open.

"In the old days, you just had to stand behind the bar with a jug of ale and people would come flocking in", Maggie jests, "but now pub landlords and ladies have to reach out and give people reasons to come: pub quizzes, curry night, jamming nights". And Maggie's energy spreads into social media networking too, and of course her good beer, lager and food... and a smile.

GOOD landladies and landlords make GREAT pubs... and create vital hubs for their communities.

Support your local:
Community Pubs Month is an initiative by CAMRA to increase awareness of local community pubs this April.

Pub is the Hub

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale

Walking boaters or boating walkers?

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:23:00 +0000

Of course when I write our Coolcanals guide books, the 'point' is to focus on the 'best' of the waterways and tell the story in tourism language – a job that's easy... we're walkers, and what's not to love about trundling the towpaths! It has occurred to me though, now that we're living on a narrowboat again and continuously cruising the canals, we'd think that walking the same stretch of towpath that we've cruised in a narrowboat would be a tad tedious. Never! Walkers and boaters experience the canals from different viewpoints.

Take Bratch Locks for instance. We've walked through the famously popular Bratch Locks lots of times. On foot, we always enjoy a good gongoozling session if we're lucky enough to catch a boat on the move. We spotted two kingfishers in the hedgerow last time we walked this bit of the Staffs & Worcs Canal and spent ages over a picnic, sitting with our legs dangling from the wall outside the old toll office at Bratch. This week when we boated through the locks, the journey was a much more serious affair. The primary aim was to avoid death by drowning, and the secondary aim was to complete the course without the unwanted embarrassment of becoming 'The Boaters Who Flooded Bratch Locks' because we didn't follow BW (British Waterways)'s warning signs. For a boater, Bratch is all about the coded blobs of blue and red paint on the paddles. This is BW's bid to help simplify the unusual lock procedure. It's easy once you've read the signs: open the blue-blobbed paddles first and then the red, or is it the red and then the blue? Or both together? (Aaargh... we wish those darn gongoozlers weren’t watching us)

Can't believe it's been a whole month since we piled all our belongings into our new sailaway narrowboat at Kingfisher Narrowboats in Trent Lock. There hasn't been much time to build the interior yet. We've been on the move, heading southwards to the Midlands, before the canal freezes in winter. So far we've travelled the River Trent, the Trent & Mersey Canal and the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal. As continuous cruisers we have to move regularly to meet BW's regulations – but that doesn't stop us mooring long enough to explore the towpaths and revisit some of our favourite walks.

The only hitch at this time of year is that there aren't enough hours of light to fit in enough walking and boating into a day. Counting down to Dec 21, things will be looking up after the shortest day of the year. We're outdoor people, and hate being trapped indoors. I'm almost (I lie) tempted to join the mad cyclists we hear pedalling past our boat in the dark! They cycle in clumps, and chat together as their lamps flash past at ridiculous times of the night, rain or no rain. Who are they?!

No, we're content to stay boating walkers, or are we walking boaters?

Canal & River Trust

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:57:00 +0000

Momentous! A new era is dawning over Britain's Canals. British Waterways has announced the name and logo of the New Waterways Charity set to launch early 2012.

In 2012, the new 'Canal & River Trust' will take the baton to protect the future of our canals for all waterways users - boaters, walkers, cyclists, wildlife watchers, sightseers.... Ahead lies a fabuously challenging task for the new charity to preserve the past and fund the future... and the changes ahead will surely rank amongst the biggest on the timeline of UK canals. Exciting times!

[Canal timeline in a nutshell:
It all started over 200 years ago with the opening of the canals as a revolutionary trade route for the Industrial Revolution. The success of canals depended fundamentally on the determination of canal engineers and entrepreneurs (Brindley, Telford, Wedgwood, Cadbury....) The decline of canalmania came with the legendary arrival of the speedier steam train. Canals were redundant, and left to crumble. After World War II, a group of people, passionate about keeping Britain's canal networks navigable for leisure boats, launched an era of direct action. In 1946, Tom Rolt and Richard Aickman formed a voluntary organisation, famously known as the IWA (Inland Waterways Association). 1948 brought a landmark change as Britain's canals were nationalised and BW (British Waterways) became the governing body of the waterways.]

'Conker'ing my fear of spiders

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:33:00 +0000

Five years is a long time in one place for me. The house is sold and I can't wait to move back to a home on the canals again.

John & Mick at Kingfisher Narrowboats have been building our 57-foot narrowboat (a semi-trad Sailaway with additions). All's nearly ready for moving on day. But... there's a problem for me. Someone's already moved in. A spider is hanging maliciously from the porthole and I know he's got friends in dark crevices.. I can see a repeating film in my head - waking up in the middle of the night, trapped in a 6-foot steel corridor with something tickling my chin. And this chap isn't the revolting type with crisp black legs, it's worse - he's the most repugnant variety, with tiger stripes and a bulbous boily body. Just heavous!

Can an animal-loving veggie let the sole of John, Mick or Martine's boot solve this problem? According to John, some boaters say that placing conkers in the portholes stops spiders from crawling in. Is this a spam joke that someone gets kicks out of every time they see a boat cruise by with piles of conkers in their portholes? Or is it rooted in scientific fact?

Does anybody know for sure?
What shall I do?
Boot or conkers?

The conkers have started dropping off the trees now - I've started my collection.

August

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:10:00 +0000

Where on earth did August go?

It flew by in a whirlwind of excitement, planning, preparations, M&S hats, sobbing and champagne - my son got married!!!

Poor George is the long-suffering ear to his Mom's canal mania. How ironic then that he and Donna chose to be married in the canalside church in Wolverley on the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal... by Carol the vicar (who owns her own narrowboat, of course!)

The Droitwich Canals have reopened! But what's next, now the shovels have been hung up?

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:53:00 +0000

I was at the ceremony, 1st July 2011, when the Droitwich Canals were officially reopened... 40 years since restoration began.

"2,500 volunteering days to get here, £12million to make it happen, 21 miles of extra boating... Allow me to declare this restored canal open." Caroline Spelman (Secretary of State for the Department of Environment) unveiled the Droitwich Canals. The hurrahs that followed could never be more than an understatement of the achievements behind this moment.

Amongst the crowd there were work-worn faces glowing with "We did it!" and there were curious new faces that had sauntered across the road from town to see what the fuss was about.

Some of the big names in the waterways world could be spotted brushing through the bunting, and VIPs included Peter Luff MP and British Waterways' chairman Tony Hales. A marvelous day of suits and ice creams.

But the real red carpet treatment had to be meant for the 'volunteer'. This opening ceremony was a gathering of ordinary folk who had achieved extraordinary things over decades of enthusiasm and hard work for the restoration of the Droitwich Canals. Max Sinclair, the local canal enthusiast who launched the campaign to restore this canal over 40 years ago was there... his presence was the heart of the ceremony. The day drew old friends and gave tumultuous thanks to everyone who had clubbed together to make the reopening of the Droitwich Canals possible... and, for the cherry on the icing, the press got a stonking story to tell.

Martine and I gate-crashed the marquee to hear the opening speeches. Tony Hales spoke with his official hat on, and a personal smile for the achievement of a canal he knows well. "Vision, determination, skill, partnership" his words chorused the positive mood of the Droitwich canals, "obstacles can be overcome for a common cause working together".

Each VIP speaker struggled to thank every individual who'd helped the restoration project - yet the single word that hailed loudest from every corner was 'partnership'. The success of the Droitwich Canals Trust and the strong partnership behind it, was the tip-of-the-day for the future of all of Britain's canals. Where would our canals be without fundraisers and fund-givers, without people who care and people who 'do', without skills and shared knowedge, without local support and central consent?

But none of this is ground-breaking stuff, is it? The case for the benefits of 'partnership' is as old as the canals themselves. After all, a working partnership steered the Droitwich Barge Canal when it was first built by James Brindley, and opened in 1771... Entrepreneurs, engineers, navvies, land owners, local people and politicians.

So everyone seems to agree that partnerships are important. But partnerships without purpose are like ducks without water. Substancial commercial funding only comes to build a canal when it can rely on its future use, its raison d'etre. The mills and factories of the Industrial Revolution were the original business of the canal networks, and now the big industry is tourism. Heritage, wildlife, boating, walking, cycling, sightseeing and waterside attractions are brinking on an exciting new era for canal tourism (especially as the New Waterways Charity launches its PR campaign and public interest is set to boom).

The local area supported the Droitwich Canals because tourism is the 3rd largest industry for the County Council. It is estimated that the canal will bring 320,000 visits over 5 years and £2.75million per annum to the local economy with new jobs.

The pride of a nation is grateful to those behind the success of the Droitwich Canals... Now it's the language of tourism that must help guard the future of this canal, and every other canal in Britain.

"THIS IS OUR, THE WATERWAYS, BIG MOMENT"

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:36:00 +0000

CRICK BOAT FESTIVAL 2011
At the seminar talking about the new waterways charity set to launch 2012.

The annual waterways event. Crick. Sat, May 28. The hordes headed for the dancing gazebos of festival-fun and glam boats on the water... while the 50, or so, few took their seats inside the more sombre seminar tent at the festival. I sat near the back, a habit since school.

The panel was chaired by Richard Fairhurst (editor, Waterways World mag), with speakers - Simon Salem (Marketing Director, British Waterways) and Paul Roper (Inland Waterways Association).

"NEW" was the buzz word batted from the panel. The 'new waterways charity' will have new trustees, a new brand, new events, a new mood, new hopes, new-news.

Paul Roper publically announces from, and probably to, the IWA camp, "We will have to change our attitude". A weapons amnesty? (IWA is a campaigning organisation launched in 1946 to help keep our waterways navigable, with part of their role as a pressure group being to challenge some controversial BW decisions). Simon Salem gives weight to the magnificent task ahead, "We're working for the next 100 years, not tomorrow".

The rousting and refreshing tone must have silenced the handful of hobby-grumblers who traditionally turn up at events like this (where they can plebishly pop BW heads into medieval stocks and throw tomatoes). Nobody barked out loud with self-interest about their blocked Thetford or anything else they insist BW should put right for them. Perhaps the collective voice of the new waterways charity can leave the misery-mongers of yore out on a limb.

The earnest audience clung to the parcel of words unravelled by the panel, while the noise of Crick carried on outside. The festival hords, unaware, disinterested in the stuff of the seminar, symbolise the challenge for the 'new waterways charity' to engage the minds, hearts, skills and pockets of the waterways public, and the wider public. The job ahead is for us all to spread the word, and help build local volunteer bases for the future well-being of our waterways.

In 7 iconic words, Simon Salem lit the seminar's spotlight, "This is our, the waterways, big moment". The modest crescendo was usurped as 2 people wobbled into the tent with hot chips and cold chomping gums. Then all our empty seats filled in a flash as the new cohort arrived for the next seminar – 'Boat Buying and Ownership'.

Martine and I walked down the canal towpath, beyond the moored boats and the hum of the show. In the flurry of peacock-puffing waterways politics, it's easy to lose sight of what's so important to protect.

www.waterscape.com/things-to-do/volunteering
www.waterways.org.uk/support_us/volunteer

Big waterways Society?

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Fri, 06 May 2011 12:33:00 +0000

We shall fight on the canal banks, we shall fight on the mooring grounds, we shall fight in the tunnels and in the locks, we shall fight on the aqueducts, we shall never surrender… is this the mood of live-aboard dissenters of the Big waterways Society?

As the amoebic rumblings of the 'new waterways charity' invite debate, fresh gunfire from the live-aboard corner is smoking predictably. And, true to form, the live-aboard remains either loathed or loved (ho-hum, better than neither loathed nor loved?)

Of course, the generic title has its contradictions – is the 'live-aboard' an economic migrant, a quirky misfit, a tourist attraction, a secretly envied escapee? The truth is, people who live on boats along Britain's inland waterways are just as diverse as any other community - old Mrs Jones and the new kid on the block, artists and writers, builders and mechanics, vicars and sinners, city bosses and jobless old-timers. Bless us all, we're one Big waterways Society!

When I was a live-aboard with a continuous cruiser's boat licence (significantly cheaper than permanent mooring fees), I kept on the move all year round. (Don't tell British Waterways but...) I cheated and overstayed at some of my favourite moorings... if I thought I could get away with it... and I happily stuck to the rules... when I had to. That was the way it was.

The Guardian (Andrew Mourant, April 27) tells us that live-aboards now fear for their lifestyle as the new waterways charity herds us to the future with plans to tighten rule enforcements. I've known canal-life since the 1970s when rules were less stocky and the waterways code only had to be implicitly passed on from boater to boater. But this is no time for selling rose-coloured specs. Since the 70s, derelict waterways have been restored (at unimaginable expense) and the networks are healthier, making our 'rights and responsibilities' operate differently today.

Thankfully, rule-abiding live-aboards who care about the canals will speak up for themselves, despite the loudest rogue live-aboard shoving his 'something-for-nothing' banner in the way. But, parallel to the debate, I wonder what will become of the silent squatter – the unknown boater, the lost soldier of landlubbers' conformity, the vulnerable soul that might be labelled a mental health service user if they were just the other side of the hedgerow in landlubbers' patch.

His half-tarpaulined floating shack has been moored in the same spot forever, and become the local Robinson Crusoe Wreck. He is the invisible dweller no one sees, yet his mark is stamped. His towpath patch is worn threadbare, his tyre-free bike is growing into the hedgerow, and his dangled contraptions (of unknown purpose) decorate the gunwales of his boat. He and the wretched few like him, spoil our views with their filthy noise from ungodly generators and wafts of salmonella from the portholes of their maggoty galleys. The Crusoe blight has been championed as the eye-sore of Britain's canal landscape. A common enemy, a fabulous scapegoat. We'll moan about him, safe in the knowledge that he'll stay inside his boat, passively ignorant, keeping his murky curtains drawn and his daily solitude to himself.

The Big waterways Society is home to these countable few. Now, as the battle for the new status quo on the waterways gets brutal, and passions roust for everyone's opinion (and cash), we'll find out if our unwilling Crusoe castaways from landlubbed society should become castaways from the waterways too? Is the 'new waterways charity' really the enemy?

(Please don't shout at me for my laziness: no gendered politics implied – read all he as he/she)

SMELLY BOOKS

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:12:00 +0000

They've arrived and a box is sitting on my desk. The new Cool Canals book - Britain's Great Waterways Outdoors. BW tweeted about us - "BWcomms. Just seen the fantastic new book from coolcanals... Looks good. Feels good. Even smells good!"

Aahh yes...that's what it's all about...smelly books. I know there's been an ebook revolution and, as a micro-publisher, I'm excited about the e-possibilities: but do I think ebooks will one day totally take the place of real books? (Guardian) Well... ebooks are cool, neat and functional, but you don't fondle them, you don't sniff them with deep indulgence and you don't turn the page with fumbling anticipation. For me that's the utter pleasure of books. Stop. I'm obsessing. Back to the question - do I think ebooks will ever totally replace real books? Absurd! No.

Anyway, on a similar note, my rant of the day: most folk agree libraries are the delicious place of safety where children want to roll to the edge of their imagination. Passion for books is contagious, and libraries spread the bug. As libraries face cuts and closure, should we take away the right of every child in Britain to experience the joys of books? Libraries are trusted, accessible resource centres for the whole community. Should Mr C's Big Society shout and make a noise about the loss of the real pub, the post office and now the neighbourhood library. Campaign

Dfrrrrxszdddd (Oops. Tufty, the coolcanals cat, wrote the last word with her paws as she walked over my laptop keyboard. Not sure what her point is)

School holidays on the canals

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:17:00 +0000

It's holiday time and the canals have something in the air again. The kids have broken up!

I've just put down my Bill Bryson book (Notes From a Small Island) and his train of thought has sent me drifting into a pointless muse over how foreign visitors to our island might interpret the Brit phrase - "The kids have broken up".

What does that mean? Broken in most Pavlovian respects doesn't sound too good to me. Broken (by definition implies out of order), broken-down (in despair, needing fixing), broken-up (as in disintegrated, or worse, potentially ruined).

So when the kids break up, do they scatter into chaos from their safe homogenised mass? Does it scare us that they come to sunny canals all across Britain in ones and twos, with bikes, on boats, in flip flops and wide-eyed smiles on the towpaths?

Answers on a postcard.

Can Art help get Britain's canals out of their current financial crisis?

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:23:00 +0000

Ignore it, adore it, spit at it or laugh out loud at it... Art always contributes to every society's consciousness. From an English village where playschool pinnies come out for paint play, to the scars of Iraqi slippers on the vandalised statue of a fallen dictator.

But what has art got to do with any campaign to save our waterways? (IWA campaign: http://www.waterways.org.uk/campaigns/campaigns/campaigns) Well, everyone knows canals have Roses & Castles – the traditional folk art of the people who worked and lived on canal boats in the Industrial Revolution. Decorated pots and pans add to the tourist attraction, and make neat souvenir trinkets. Good stuff for small craft businesses across the waterways.

But we're not silly, we know pots and pans aren't enough to get the waterways out of their financial crisis?

More public support for the waterways is what matters at the moment. More press coverage. More visitors. Every so often, British Waterways sets artists loose on the towpaths to prick public interest and hopefully prod the press into precious media coverage. Fake holes on the towpath and controversial installations of dog-poo in trees do the trick http://www.waterscape.com/features-and-articles/news/2453/for-arts-sake-slow-down. But imagine the impact of a much grander, iconic, public art project.

My point is this:

Antony Gormley sculptures. http://bit.ly/9gTsGT Take 3 of his most famous projects:
1) The Angel of The North rolls around every speeding heart on the A1.
2) Iron Man stands silently, with the audacity to rust away in Birmingham city centre.
3) Another Place, Crosby Beach, near Liverpool, where the statues of 100 iron souls gaze out to sea, with hope beyond the tides.

Mr G's sculpture and the spirit of the waterways would go together like jam and Victoria sponge cake. After all, Britain's canals were our first motorways, made for boats during the Industrial Revolution - and now they offer a vision of hope for urban regeneration, and an accessible escape to rural Britain. Right up Mr G's street!

Imagine Gormley's Iron Men of the Waterways, and where they might stand...

The Angel of the Caen Hill flight wistfully watching over travellers?

Iron Waterways Man daubed in Roses & Castles outside the waterways museum? http://bit.ly/c6lXEE (attracting visitors as the Puppy sculpture does outside the Guggenheim in Bilbao - http://bit.ly/z5os9)

Statuesque souls half-immersed in river silt at the moody brink of the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal? (Crosby Beach has been inundated with visitors since Gormley's sculptures arrived there)

Or what about a solitary Iron Waterways Man on a lonely bit of the Pennine cruising ring? Or Iron Waterways Man graffiti-sprayed by Camden's community?

Imagine the monumental tourist attraction and what that could do for the canals, politically and financially. Imagine the thrill of one day meeting Iron Waterways Man on your travels.

Canals should always be about boating, but they were born and have survived through a tradition of entrepreneurialism and creativity. The real Iron men (and women) of the waterways.

Am I alone on this one?

Waterways for everyone: boats, bikes and walking boots?

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:09:00 +0000

All ducks are equal. But are some ducks more equal than others?

"Pah!" say some boaters - but economic need and ethical responsibility is driving the mood of canal folk to properly share our secret national treasure of 2,000 miles of linear heritage. The future of Britain's canals can't be ruled by boaters alone – canals are increasingly used for waterside outdoor pursuits too. Towpaths are being improved, and sometimes even controversially hardsurfaced, to make flat cycle routes and easy canal walks.

IWA, the Inland Waterways Association, have just published a typically rational, informative and ever-so-tactfully provocative article (by Mark Bradley and Keith Goss) www.waterways.org.uk/waterways_magazine on the changing status of Britain's canals... i.e. how we can use them for everything from holiday boating to jogging along the towpath. But when pedal power, boat power and quiet people in walking boots all syphon together in one narrow zone, surely that spells conflict?

Speaking from my own canal experiences as: 1) live-aboard narrowboater 2) long distance canal walker 3) slow canal cyclist.
When I'm in a canal boat, I'm not keen on coach-loads of strolling gongoozlers getting dangerously in my way at the lock gates; when I'm on my bike, I loathe pedalling in first gear behind gaggles of walkers hogging the towpath; when I walk canals, I rage at bike-bells and lycra gusts of wind knocking me into the canal. All 3 of me want it our own way! That said, as all canal goers know, everyone meets up at the end of the day in the local canalside boozer, to share the best of canal life - a pint of mild in a good old-fashioned canal pub solves everything.

And in the same solidarity, cyclists, walkers and boaters are willing to join together on the campaign to Save Our Waterways from blunderingly short-sighted goverment funding cuts. In my bones I know it's an excitingly tough time for canals... and I am (despite selfishly wanting to keep the canal world all to myself) really glad more folk than ever are discovering the secrets of the canals. Yet, in the success of popularizing the waterways, my heart would break if every beautifully clumpy canal towpath was tarmacked so it could be described as accessible to all: canal nature, integrity, heritage and slow manners jeopardized! Off-the-beaten track adventures for canal trail walkers like me would be ruined. Imagine the outcry if Britain's other footpaths, the National Trails, the Offa's Dyke Path, the Pennine Way or the Cotswold Way were smothered in Tarmac! Horror NO!! I'm an activist to protect long-distance canal walks. "Let me smell the soil, scuff the grass, KEEP CANAL WALKS GREEN!"

It goes without saying that bringing investment to the canals is the task ahead. Yet what's special about canals to me is not what money can buy, but more pressingly what we might lose without proper funding.... irreplaceable heritage, unique landscape, slow culture, stoic solitude and a special sense of community that another Britain has lost. Balancing everyone's needs and respecting the territory is the trick. Canals can offer a perceived escape from the hierarchies of consumerism that's priceless. So when it comes to planning for our waterways future, should we be mindful of who gets the biggest say? The Mallard with the loudest voice, the fat Goose who waves the largest wad of money, the decoy Coot... or just a bunch of us daft Ducks?

Canals - ignored or hot news in the broadsheets?

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:47:00 +0000

As I'm doing my unhurried 2,000-mile canal walk across Britain, the question I get asked most is "Who would even want to walk every canal in Britain?" CANALS... shopping trollies and knifings. No, start again. CANALS... the immeasurable slow pleasures of Britain's historic waterways rambling idyllically coast to coast and end to end. Under-valued, under-used and under-funded.

The great British 'staycation' continually bulks the travel section of the national newspapers, so why are my goosebumps rotting in the wait for canals to get proper, enthusiastic coverage? "The canal boat is right up there with the postbox as one of the iconic images of British life." says Tony Hales, British Waterways' chairman http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/08/british-canals-aquatic-national-trust. His words alone punch the point that canals are a red-hot tourist attraction and Britain's travel media should break its veto.

....But I smell a trend revving up. Even if canals were made for narrowboaters, they are perfect trails for cyclists and walkers too. The Telegraph are covering our coolcanals mission to change the way people see canals http://www.tinyurls.co.uk/U2159 (and our guidebooks shot to the no 1 spot with the helpful coverage!) And now, even eclectic outdoor-type Guardian Travel readers who like to climb Himalayan mountains and follow Mauritian rainbows are being asked to send in their tips on the best canal walks http://ivebeenthere.co.uk/articles/jessops.jsp.

Hoorah! The canal walker's message is getting out there. Canals... priceless, slow adventures. The great British walk. So the next bod who asks me "Who would even want to walk every canal in Britain?", I'll say, "Why would I risk ankle-cracking moors and skin-twisting crags, or getting lost, being eyeballed by a cow, or chased by a farmer - when I could simply follow the water all summer." http://www.coolcanalsguides.com/what-to-do/on-foot.php

PS Maybe, just maybe, hope is on the horizon for the world of canals and the unsung canal volunteer, bastion of a stalwart fight against political indifference and Britain's outrageous neglect of its waterways' heritage http://www.waterways.org.uk/campaigns/campaigns/sos2010/sos2010

Girls and beer

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:47:00 +0000

Is it just me, or is everyone talking about women trying to like beer these days? Supping a pint of mild has never been so girlie-cool. Can't see what all the sudden fuss is about myself, but I was one of the lucky ones...I had a mother who weaned me to beer. A family generation later, in the maternity ward when my son was born, the nurses encouraged us new mums to sip small amounts of Guinness to help the milk. And my son, too, makes his own CAMRA banners now he's old enough.

Dea Latis is punting the pleasures of ale to women. This feisty lipstick-beer movement drives new ideas such as fancy glasses with stems, paler golden ales and seductively named brews specially marketed at women. We're told ale is nutritious and beneficial. We're comforted that it's not a sealed contract for a rotund figure and unwanted hair growth around the chin.

But why so defensive? Is the beer and gender debate really more about a stale mandate of femininity than actually how masculine a drink is! Come on girls, let's not apologise for ourselves... if we don't like beer, don't drink it... and if we do - then let's embrace those white frothy moustaches and hoppy bellifuls of wholesome fart-inducing ale.

girlsguidetobeer.blogspot.com

The SLIBA awards (Stolen Library book Awards)

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:12:00 +0000

Hmmm, so you don't have to be a goody-two-shoes to want to read books these days. Ok, I confess we just made SLIBA awards title up in the coolcanals office, but it's true that there really are charts for the top 10 most stolen books from libraries.

How fierce is the competition in this field? An article published in The Scotsman last week by Michael MacLeod said, Roll over JK Rowling – library thieves want rival author's books. http://tiny.cc/ui5ti Apparently Jacqueline Wilson has overtaken Harry Potter author JK Rowling as the writer whose books are most stolen from Scotland's libraries.

Top 10 in the 'stolen' chart

Jacqueline Wilson
SQA school books
James Patterson
Francesca Simon
Nora Roberts
JK Rowling
Enid Blyton
Julia Donaldson
Matt Groening
Jodi Picoult

(Crickey! Enid Blyton readers in there too!!)

Titter or tight-lipped tut?

Amusing, yes, a bit disturbing, yes.

And will I secretly be peeping to see if any of our Coolcanals books reach these charts ;) ?

Should we put the Government in the Dragon's Den?

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 10:54:00 +0000

I'm no Deborah Meaden, but it doesn't take a Dragon's brain to work out this financial clanger for Britain’s crucially needed tourist industry...Stratford, birthplace of Shakespeare, the most visited place in Britain (after London), a tourist hotspot of diamond proportions.... Yes, it beggars belief, but it's true, this Easter the tourist office in Stratford is shut! Not open for business. Why? Because Stratford-on-Avon District Council decided to withdraw funding. Stratford's four million or so tourists each year are currently being directed to an alternative information desk at the town's leisure centre. Mmmm. Reminds me of the equally daft decision to cut grant funding to British Waterways. Isn't Britain's tourist industry an economic asset, not a ham to cut funding from? Deborah, I'd love your comment!

Am I talking to myself?

noreply@blogger.com (coolcanals) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:22:00 +0000

Here goes.. first time for me - I'm a blogger now! Phonetically speaking, b-l-o-g-g-e-r doesn't sound that glam, but I'm assured it's an inocuous space for a good old monologue. Perfect.