Story Archive

Archived on 14th April 2005

• Hello!
  Recently Returned from an Intrepid Round-the-Waterways Trip, Captain Ford Shows us around His Luxury Yacht. Not.
  
  
• Urchin
  This is not intended as an insult to the owners of the boat above. This piece is intended as a paean of praise for those people who are determined to get onto the water, at almost any price.
  
  
• Caen Hill Locks
  If you've read the little ditty about my enforced stay in Devizes, then you may like to read how it was that the problem was solved, and how I got down the flight.
  
  
• Our Mutual Friend Goes to Sea
  ...On Saturday the 16th November, I set off alone for Portishead, on the Severn Estuary, leaving Bristol harbour at around 3:00 in the afternoon
  
  
• The History of Mr Polly
  An amazing book, and one which has been very influential to me over the years ...
  
  
• Devizes
  A poem ... So how was I stuck in Devizes? Just one of life's little surprises ...

• Chairmen of the bank
  I can't help noticing, as I pass down the canal network, how business has turned its collective back on the waterways network.

• Kingfisher
  I must tell you about an event that happened to me on the 11th November 2002. You will be aware of my limited ornithological knowledge ...

• London by boat
  What an amazing experience. I have to admit a certain amount of trepidation when approaching London on the Grand Union canal.

• Spiders
  You may have read my thoughts on Dandelions. There is one other example of the struggle for life that has been brought to my attention as a result of this little sojourn on the waterways however, and that creature is the humble spider ...

• Find out about the Captian's view of the 9 Wonders of the Waterways.
  Actually, the Nicholson's Guide (the Bible of the Waterways in more ways than one - it's notoriously unreliable and the information that's in it is more or less written in a parable way ...

Archived on 7th December 2002

• Worcester.
  When news reached me, via the local evening paper, the "Evening News", the evening paper that is widely distributed throughout the city by noon each day, making something of a mockery of the title, that Worcester is putting itself forward to enter a nationwide contest to find the cleanest city in Britain, I was mildly surprised ...
  

Archived on 25th November 2002

• Ough ...
  Foreign Students do not learn English sufficiently well without visiting this country. to put it another way, They're not doing Their best over There. this might help ...
  
  

Archived on 22nd November 2002

• Why is the boat called "Our Mutual Friend"
  You do get an awful lot of variety of boat names on canals. They vary from the prosaic and brief "Annie" to "Weary Tired" via "Erasmus", "Zenith" and all points west on the way ...

Archived on 14th November 2002

• What is it about Dandelions?
  Ever since moving into the house at Ednam, I've been waging a personal vendetta, largely fruitless I have to admit, against the all-pervasive dandelion. My word, but they're a successful plant ...
  
  
• What have the Germans got to do with all this?
  This is how it all started, and made me feel that there was future in the prospect of a book arising from this adventure ...
  
  
• We examine the Captain's knowledge of Wildlife.
  I can be expected to reliably identify 3 birds in the ordinary course of ornithology ...
  
  
• Fishermen, Eh?.
  What a strange breed. They fall into three categories, friendly (rare, this category), indifferent, and openly hostile.
  
  
• Overtime payment for trapped miners.
  "The nine men trapped for three days in a Pennsylvania mine will be paid overtime for the time they spent underground, their bosses have said."

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