Other boating blogs are available

Of course you knew that. Naturally I have a few favourites and friends whose doings I like to follow, but rather than list them all here (and risk offending those I miss out; I do worry about such things) I avail myself of the service Mike kindly provides at Zulu Warrior. No matter that Zulu's doings haven't been updated for a while, Mike's comprehensive boaty blog roll automatically lists in order of updatedness (sometimes it takes a few minutes and/or a refresh, but it does). Thus I can just scroll down and see which of my faves and friends has updated since I last had a good session and click straight through. Occasionally my eye will be caught by someone else's arresting title and I'll take a glance at one I haven't read before. And sometimes my eye is struck by a title so un-arresting I just have to look. This one certainly delivers exactly what it promises!

Three quarters of the way

I started out in January with the intention of posting on the blog every day - and so far, allowing for a (very) few postdated posts, I've achieved that. OK, there may have been a cost in terms of the mind numbing triviality of some of the stuff I filled the space with, but you could come and look and find something new every day. Obsessed as I am with my chart position, this had to be a good thing, I thought.

The trouble is, I'm not sure I can keep it up for another three months, especially now that things have gone a bit quiet on the Chertsey front, what with winter nearly upon us and all (though we are going up this weekend, not that any great excitement is planned), and masses of stuff to do at work (as in so many cases, essential savings are being made by cutting part time and temporary staff and transferring the workload to the permanent ones, of whom I'm lucky enough to be one).

Then, at the end of the year, I had it in mind that I would stop blogging. Leave 'em wanting more, go out on a high note, and recover a bit more of a private existence and a lot more time not glued to the computer screen.

That too has its downside though - there is still important (and photogenic!) stuff to do to Chertsey, most notably the gunnels, other woodwork, cloths and painting - all very visual - and none of it is likely to happen before the end of 2010. Also, people I have mentioned this idea to have been kind enough to beg and plead with me (OK, I exaggerate a bit) not to leave the blogosphere, which is very nice, and I don't want to be hard hearted.

Finally, from when I first started blogging Warrior (in the spring of 2006!), an important function of the blog was to act as a record for myself of work done and places been. Looking back over those old posts, there's so much there that would have been forgotten if I hadn't had this motivation to write it down.

So... I have decided (I think) on a sort of compromise with myself. After the end of September, I will try to resist the compulsion to post every day, and will only post when there is something Chertsey related to report, or something that otherwise leaps out at me. And I won't stop at the end of the year, but will carry on posting intermittently as and when there is something to post. And if I hit they 'publish' button now, I'm committed, arent I. And sod the chart position. I'll go and count rivets instead.

Harlot!

It was, famously, Stanley Baldwin who said that certain press proprietors sought 'power without responsibility - the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages'. What is less well known is that the killer line was written for him by his cousin, who just happened to be Rudyard Kipling. Why he sought to single out harlots also is a bit of a mystery, other than that it made good copy... anyway, I'm getting a tantalising little taste of what it is to be a former of public opinion, a maker of stars (or indeed, Stars). When I posted last Saturday about how super Star's blog is, it sat at no. 59 in the UK waterways hit parade. It has since rocketed up to number 30, and for all I know will continue to climb and even overtake Chertsey. Well, it thoroughly deserves to, and I hope that everyone who looked at Star as a result of my post enjoyed it as much as I do. No pressure there then Kevin.

A new Star in the firmament

There are quite a few blogs I read regularly, because I know the person who writes them, or because I like their quirkiness, or because they're a good source of news. But there aren't many I'd recommend on a sort of 'if you like this then you might like this' basis (I think Blossom's was the last). There aren't many that combine regular posts with really interesting content, nice photos and top quality writing, partly because, I guess, there aren't that many written by professional journalists. So may I commend to you Star, who has all that and a really nice boat and a cute dog to boot.

I particularly liked this post - not the cheap put down you might first think, but a really well observed, funny, and ultimately hopeful piece.

In moderation

Sometimes when I'm reading other boaty blogs, I feel moved to make a comment. I click on the little button, and a message comes up saying something like: 'Comment moderation has been enabled. Your comment will appear after it has been approved by the blog administrator.' When I see this, I go away without leaving a comment. Why?

Well, the way I see it, in that case it's not me who's posted the comment, but the blogger themself. It takes all the spontanaeity out of it, and it means that the comments that appear may not be a true reflection of those that were left.

Obviously, very occasionally, I have had cause to delete a post. Usually this is when it is obviously spam (I just did delete one such from a few days ago, hence my thoughts turning to the subject); even more rarely it has been to remove a comment that might be hurtful to a third party. If someone disagrees with, criticises or even insults me, I'd sooner respond publicly than try to suppress it. After all, I've still seen it, so the damage (if damage it be) is done.

To be so afraid of comments that you need to scrutinise each and every one before it appears seems somehow to be contrary to the open spirit of blogging. It might be sadly necessary when dealing with very controversial or heated topics, where there is a wider audience reading, or where there is a risk of libel that the blog owner would be responsible for, but - even given the level of vitriol that a post about dangling fenders can cause - on a boating blog? And while unsolicited public compliments are lovely, if you've made the decision to post them yourself, having read them, doesn't it feel a bit like blowing your own trumpet?

So comment away, let everyone see what you have to say, and unless you insult one of my friends or are blatantly advertising, your comment will be there for posterity.

Decoded

As well as posting about the ghostly writing etched into the inside of the hold here, I also put a post on CanalWorld to see if anyone could shed any light on it. And I had a reply from the estimable Steve Priest, who said:

Harland and Wolff would paint reference marks on plates as they were cut and prepared, so that the platers would know which plate went where as they plated the boats up.

They quite often come to light when boats are stripped back to bare metal, and are normally quite easy to read, but I've not seen any cause pitting like that before.

I would think that MS + P means plate M, starboard and port.

Which is very gratifying.

More mentions

Thanks to Mike for bringing it to may attention last night - and caused me quite a headache negotiating Towpath Talk's very lively interactive web version, but if you can find your way to page 52 and the 'Wet Web' (mmm, lovely) feature, quite a lot of us get a mention. Mostly Mike, but also Dove and the Ducks, who get pictures too. And there we are for posterity, in the print version. I wonder which will last longer. Will the last paper copy crumble and rot before the last cached webpage expires, or the electricity runs out?

Mentioned in dispatches

I occasionally amuse myself by randomly trawling through Granny's (or now also Mike's) blogroll, or occasionally I get a tip off, and I see that Chertsey is getting mentioned a bit around the place (and that's not counting regular mutual commentors like Minnow).

For example, only yesterday Epiphany spotted Chertsey in the flesh, and confirmed that it was still where I left it, and then randomly blog-hopping just now I found a complimentary little mention from Pickles No. 2... I don't mind people using my photos as long as they're saying nice things. My view - and I don't know if its the most commonly held one - is that if you put photos on the internet, then they're fair game for others to link to, and even to copy - but if it was me, I would always say where I'd got it from, to avoid any possibility of it being thought that I was trying to pass it off as my own. That's the academic in me, I suppose - and besides, it's only good manners to give credit where its due (or of course to absolve oneself if it was a dreadful photo).

It is nice to know that so many people are reading the blog and taking an interest, so thank you all. Now, you never guessed that I have absolutely nothing to talk about today, did you? Better get back to tidying my filing cabinet.

The kindness of...

I hardly know what to say.

Checking in this morning I spotted that Blossom had a new post, on a topic close to my heart, and as I can never wait to read his wonderfully knowledgeable and entertainly written posts, I clicked straight through to this.

By the time I got to the end, and realised what he had done, I genuinely did have a tear in my eye. I have met Blossom once, and that incredibly briefly, with no time for more than the quickest chat, at last year's Black Country Museum gathering. In that sense he is indeed a stranger.

But didn't I really meet him back in 2007 or thereabouts, when he left his first comment on nbWarrior, pointing out some error I'd made - but as always, with such tact, such obvious knowledge and devotion to getting it right, that, very unusually, he instantly won my respect. Whatever else the internet may be, it is, in my experience, somewhere where you - especially the shy and the awkward among us - can make real friends and meet some wonderful people.

And I understand absolutely what he has done, and why, and gladly accept it in that spirit, in the hope that one day I will be able to do something similar, if not for Blossom, then for someone else.

Thank you Blossom, from the very bottom of my.... bucket?

Not that I'm competitive

But wooo!
But I must confess to being gratified, as well as amazed, to see Chertsey zooming up the charts in the last few days, culminating in the dizzy heights of actually overtaking (by a few clicks) the venerable Bones last night. I certainly never thought I'd see that day. I took a screen grab to save the moment for posterity - fifteen in the overall chart and FIVE in the blogs chart. I can't see it getting any better than that.

It's fascinating following the chart, and Chertsey's progress in it. It really does seem as if more people look when I write about something interesting - particularly Chertsey itself (which is nice), than when I'm just wittering on to fill space - but how do you know it's going to be interesting, before you look? Or is it that on the more substantial posts, people look more than once, come back to make a comment, see if there have been any new comments.

Because that is something I have been really chuffed by - the fact that so many and varied people are commenting. My first experience of blogs - one I stumbled upon completely by accident (yes, I know - science! Me! I found it while searching for information on Amitai Etzioni, and that day it featured a post about how wonderful the stoical British response to terrorism was... and I stayed for the atheism, although I hadn't visited for ages until today. It hasn't changed much, and I'm going to go back and have a read as soon as I've posted this) - was characterised by the informed and often heated conversations that went on in the comments, and that's always stuck in my mind as part of what blogging is about - a conversation, not just a series of one-way announcements. So if you read this but haven't commented yet, why not say hello? It would be lovely to know who else is out there.

So, I bet it'll start slipping down the chart again now I've posted this load of empty ramblings. Never mind, I've had my moment of glory.

Another month, another 28 posts

Did you notice? I did manage to post every single day in January - despite going nowhere near Chertsey and having nothing substantial to write about, I still waffled on for 31 posts. Now I just have to keep it up for the rest of the year.

Which hopefully will not be - could not possibly be - so fallow in terms of boating activities.

In the meantime, have you looked at Diamond Geezer yet? If not, you really should. It's the only non-boating blog I read without fail every day. A lot of it's about London - meticulously researched and beautifully written - and other bits are, well, just DG. This year he's going to trace London's lost rivers, and he started last week with the Westbourne. Wonderful stuff. (And so well organised too)

Anyway, the reason I mention this now is that in February, every year, DG counts things. Inspired by this, last year I decided to do something... completely different - to record all the books I've read in February. Here's last year's list. Lucky I wrote them down; I'd have forgotten most of them otherwise.

Someone else's pictures

Been saving this up for a night like this when I've not prepared a post and too tired to start thinking about it. A while ago Andrew of Dove posted this link on CWF - it's someone else again's wonderful old boat photos. I don't know who he is myself, but if he's posted them on the web then presumably he wants as many people as possible to look at them. To be honest, they are so wonderful I found it all rather overwhelming - an embarassment of riches - and haven't had a really good look yet myself.

The experts and anoraks at CWF have however given the matter their fullest attention and have issued a number of corrections to the captions and reminiscences, and a long thread has ensued.

Enjoy.

There's more than one thing you can do with an old boat

You can collect it, you can restore it, you can live on it, you can play with it, you can pose about with it.... Or of course you can use it for what it was built for, and you can work it.

I am rather ashamed to admit that when compiling the 'Old Boat' blogroll I focussed very much on the former categories and completely overlooked at least one blog about a working coal boat - Alton, operating on the Peak Forest Canal. In an strange coincidence, I stumbled across their blog yesterday afternoon, doing a sort of random flit down Granny's blogroll, as I sometimes do, and then came home to find that Brian of Alton (and Shirley) had left a comment here ... and only then did the penny drop.

So the omission has been recitifed, and I'm off to see whether any of the other coal boats have their own blogs or websites.

As a postscript to this, when Jim read Brian's comments on Sunday's post, he recognised him as Curly Wyrley who made Warrior's side fenders back in 2005 - which I must say have done sterling service. We've lost a couple I think; one for certain in Doncaster last year - but as we had six to start with and only ever use two at a time (and only after tying up of course), they should last a while longer yet.

Thank you loyal readers

For making Chertsey130 no... whatever it says just to the right of this... in the canal website hit parade. It was a mere week ago that I switched production from nbWarrior, and hoped that the readers would follow. Well, it seems to have worked.

Chertsey passed Warrior in the chart on Tuesday afternoon, with nbWarrior at 27 and Chertsey130 at 26. This time last week, Chertsey was at 87 and Warrior somewhere in the twenties, I think. Today at midday, Chertsey was at 19 overall, and 9 in the blog charts - top ten in its first week, not bad at all.


Thanks to the fellow bloggers who have updated their blogrolls to include Chertsey - especially Granny Buttons, who did a nice little feature about it, so here is a screen grab of his screen grab of me... (we could go for an infinite regress here), and Mike, who has most kindly called it 'Blog of the Year 2010' (I think there may be an implied 'so far' in there). I particularly liked Andrew's suggestion that a 'chertsey' could be an item of traditional knitwear; I'd like one of those. On the other hand, it would more likely be something crocheted...

So far also, I have managed to post every day, which is a good start to the year. When I signed the new blog up to the ranking site, I was given the user number 131. If only I'd got there just one person sooner - how serendipitous would that have been!

The joshers are catching up

When I first started looking for working boat blogs (as opposed to websites) I could only find two: Oakley and Barnet, so naturally assumed that there was something about us modern, go-ahead, G.U. people that made us more natural bloggers (even if Oakley hasn't been updated for over a year). But I'd missed Dove (for which apologies), so I added that later.

And now, I was delighted to hear yesterday, spurred on by this gap in the market, Blossom has started blogging Minnow. He's a great writer (do have a look at the link to Blossom's Black Country if you haven't read it already) so I hope he'll find plenty to write about (even if like me it means resorting to rants about recycling and pictures of dollies' dresses).

I remember Minnow from when Sparky and Vicky had it and we were at Stretton. I painted Warrior's engine to the sound of Ron Withey playing (with?) its Bolinder. Warrior's engine room roof vent, which Sparky told us is colloquially known as a 'biscuit tin', is based on Minnow's.

And Blossom has on many occasions commented on my blog, generally gently picking me up on some error or misuse of terminology, for which I am very grateful. So I was delighted to meet him at last, at last year's Black Country gathering, and see Minnow there again, and look forward to doing so again. In the meantime though, I shall read the Minnow blog with relish.