In the April 2001 census, Crewe had a recorded population of 67683 people. If we’re being generous we can round this up to a guestimate of 70000 people by April 2003.

Given these figures we see that within seven years of April 2003, in other words April 2010, Crewe will become a desolate no-mans-land inhabited only by temporary, transient people on their way to elsewhere.

I was there today. Its happened already.

The two DVD sets (Birmingham Canal Navigations and Caldon Canal) each contain two DVDs, a map, an explanatory booklet and a catalogue leaflet, as shown in the awful quality photograph here.

So what is on the DVDs? Well, one from each set contains an overview of the canal system in question, with highlights of the journeys. The other DVD contains a speeded up journey of the entire system, filmed from the box of the boat. Each is narrated by Paul himself (I assume).

Both are fascinating, and well worth the price (especially my free ones), and should Paul ever produce editions for the Lancaster Canal or Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal I’ll happily fork out the money for them.

The Aeroplane

Nothing remarkable here, you may think. It looks quite a small ‘plane, with a big nose.

All aboard!

The passengers are boarding. My uncle, Mr. Harry Blews, is the chap directly below the “T”, and his wife, Mrs. Mary Blews, stands below the “C”.

So far we see nothing out of the ordinary. But hang on! Harry Blews isn’t the sort of man to waste money on airport parking, even in the days when England was still using the Turnip as currency. Neither would he trust his beloved Humber Hawk to the care of Johnny Southerner whilst on a trip to foreign shores.

So then, where is the car?

Crikey!

Yes, for the holiday maker in a hurry, or indeed Morcambe and Wise in That Riviera Touch, the Bristol 170 could carry three cars and their passengers, and at a price that Textiles Manager from Preston could afford. Fantastic. Its almost like science fiction, but from 50 years ago. Can you imagine Ryan Air doing this today? Hell, they’d charge you extra for carrying  the spare wheel.

Jeremy Clarkson once said that the grounding of Concorde was “a massive leap backwards for mankind”. Thats as maybe, but in the 50s people flew on holiday with their cars, and in the 21st Century they don’t. That is what I call a massive leap backwards.

Here is a little bit more information about that particular aircraft…

G-ANWK, a Bristol 170 Mk32, was first registered on Jan 31st, 1956. It was operated by Silver City Airways, between Lydd to Le Touquet, from June of that year until January 1963 when it was taken over by British United Air Ferries. Withdrawn from service in October, 1969, the ‘plane was finally broken up in August, 1970. Here is another photo.

A Voyager at Stafford

Some people might say that they represent a giant leap forward in train technology. These people are probably short, have no sense of smell and enjoy rollercoasters. And are probably clinically insane.

Myself, I’m of above average height, can still smell despite a good few years chain-smoking and hate all fairground rides. I’ll neatly sidestep the sanity issue (I’m typing this on a Datawind Ubisurfer – I must have been bananas to buy it).

My first major moan about the Voyager concerns the piss-awful seats and lack of legroom. Now when I say that I am of above average height I mean that I am abiout six foot four. This doesn’t put me into the realm of basketball players or circus freaks, but it does stop me sitting in most of the seats on a Voyager. Table seats are fine, if you want to share a table with a drunken Scottish squaddie (are they all AWOL and hiding on the trains, or is it always the same one?), and the priority wheelshair users’ seating has sufficient room, but the majority of the seating would require me to undergo a leg-ectomy for me to use them. I suppose I could sit sideways across two seats, but that is uncouth, yobbish behaviour for the sort of folk who play their music loud in public.

Yobbish behaviour

When Charles Darwin designed the human olfactory organs he must have had quite a chuckle to himself when he put in the bits that enable you to smell the unique aroma of a Virgin Voyager. Is a whiff of flatulence combined with a hint of smoke? A solid leavening of used toilet with a dash of electrical burning? Or is it,as I suspect, a full blown massive turd secreted directly on to an electric heater full of cat hair? The reason for this is apparently that the toilet effluent tanks vent into the bodywork, and that the wiring is prone to going shonky. Not even the APT had these features!

An APT, not on fire.

But these are just minor nit-picking flaws, I can almost hear you say. Surely the superior ride quality makes up for them? Well, yes, of course, assuming your  idea of a nice journey involves lurching from side to side, up and down, and occassionally backwards and forwards. During the course of typing this, by netbook as been dislodged from the little wanky tray-table no less than three times. I’d have a smoother ride in a Land Rover. Across a bomb site. Under shelling.

The Next Generation Voyager will have more comforts.

And let us not forget, the government spent millions between 1959 and 1974 to electrify the West Coast Main Line, and now Captain Beardy is pissing all over this by running diesel trains on it. Money well spent! Its like buying the entire run of Star Trek Voyager on DVD, and copying them on to ropey old VHS tapes, then scrubbing the tapes with magnets before watching them.

But never mind. Just watch a video of better times.

Click for more on Flickr

The Foxfield Railway is a former colliery line just outside Blythe Bridge. The Wikipedia article has more information, but doesn’t have this little map thing:

View Larger Map

Here is the map:

View Larger Map

Download the file

http://www.coobeastie.co.uk/gecm/

However, if I even look like i’m considering mapping all the UK’s abandonned and derelict railway lines, please shoot me.

Click to see Flickr Gallery

The Victory is a 32ft narrowboat, built in 2005. It’s a day hire boat which will take 10 people. It cost us £120 for the day (0900-1730), plus a deposit of £80, which remarkably we got back. (You can get it for £100 for a weekday, but we paid for an extra hour on the grounds that we really had no idea what we were doing, and were therefore probably going to be late back)

Upon this epic voyage went myself, Steve, Big Debbie, Little Debbie, Trudy, Alan, Big Dave, Mel Black Sheep, Handleman Jeff and Kev the Cowboy. The sum total of our previous experience can be summed up like this: I’d been on a boat about 25 years ago, and Jeff fell into the canal when he was a kid… about sixty years ago.

After the 10 minute explanation of what to do (to go right, push left, and let others pass on your left/port side) and what not to do (no going to fast, no mooring on the non-towpath side, no acts of piracy without a Privateer’s License issued by The Queen), we set off in the direction of Gnosall, accompanied by a man who made sure I didn’t ram any of the expensive boats nearby.

Soon he jumped overboard (on to the path) and let us get on with it.

Click for Flickr group

The plan was to head south to Gnosall, grab some food from The Navigation, then continue out to the Hartley Arms at Wheaton Aston. However our plans were scuppered by The Navigation not being open, despite a sign on a previous bridge advertising breakfasts from half past seven. (We later learned that the sign had been put up by a previous landlord, and that nobody had bothered to remove it. Debbie offered to do it and was told she could have the sign. In the end, we couldn’t be bothered either.) So, after the comedy act that was our attempt at mooring (we really should have videoed this), we had to set off again. Nobody fell in at this point, so we’ll count it as a success.

Now on to bridges…. Well, the bridges on this stretch of the Shropshire Union Canal are narrow, with only about nine inches of clearance on each side (it might seem a huge gap to some, but remember: I have no idea what I’m doing), and the front of the boat has a whopping blind spot (where all the people sit) at the front. My plan to avoid a massive collision was to get a lookout to tell me how much space I had on each side. It was a plan so simple that the only way it could possibly fail would be if someone shouted, “Lets touch the bridge wall!” causing everyone to leap to one side, the boat to lean over and shift in the water. So…. clonk.

Click for more

It was a bloody miserable day, but as much of the route is either heavily wooded, or in a cutting, or both, the wind didn’t bother us that much. In places it can be very gloomy, with the trees hanging overhead. This is an excellent opportunity to try to hit someone with a tree. I know its irresponsible and childish, but so am I.

Steve commented that we really needed some music, either something that Martin Sheen would be listening to whilst heading up river to see Colonel Kurtz, or “Dueling Banjos”. Five minutes later we saw a local with a shotgun sitting on a bench by Rye Hill Cutting Bridge. He seemed cheerful, and we didn’t get bum-raped, which was nice.

I had been given the impression that canal boaters could be a miserable lot, always shouting at hire boat people and considering them the scum of the earth, but pretty much everyone we saw was friendly enough. An example of this is the nice couple on the light blue boat Almeida (possibly Almeira – I was a bit busy to note the correct name) who didn’t get annoyed even when we nearly rammed them whilst avoiding another boat. They were very helpful, even though they described day boats as “mobile chicanes”, a term I reserve for old people in Rover 75s, possibly wearing hats, with tartan blankets on the back shelves, on Sundays.

The only people who did get arsey with us were a couple in a ramshackle boat that look like a half collapsed garden shed. They seemed to think that the top speed we could do (as limited by a whacking great bolt blocking the accelerator), and my slowing down to avoid hitting bridges (see above) were impeding their progress. After I let them pass, they shot off at about twice our speed shouting something about their engine cutting out if they went too slow. Great.

Anyway… Wheaton Aston is a nice little village, and the Hartley Arms is a nice pub, but this isn’t about pubs.

Turning the boat round was a piece of cake, and the return run was much like the first leg, apart from one incident. Little Debbie had a go at steering, and within a minute forgot about the tiller going to the left to steer right. Making matters worse, she’d somehow managed to be standing behind the tiller arm, so as I tried to avoid crunching into the bank she very nearly went into the water (and the whirly blades of death). Luckily she didn’t and we bounced lightly off the bank (sort of).

Other minor irritating incidents: Debbie arsing about on the roof and nearly dropping the lifebelt in the water, Debbie nearly losing the wooden pole pretending to punt, Debbie using the boathook to try and snag trees (nearly decapitating Mel), people trying to see how far over the boat would tip (quite a way).

This post is getting too long, so here’s the end…

We got back to Norbury at about 5pm, gave the boat back and set of for the pub. Perfect timing. The heavens opened, and the Junction Inn’s carpark flooded in about fifteen minutes.

If theres one problem with this trip, its this: I now have an expensive hobby. At £100 a time this is going to cost me a fortune.

Day 1: Friday 25th February, 2000

Leaving Stafford at midnight (because thats when Jeni finished work), we travelled long on roads of which I shall not tell (Okay, I got lost and drove through Wrexham twice, and went the wrong way round a traffic island), we arrived in Rhoscolyn at about 3am. Martin was looking smug when we arrived, but then he would do, as he’d had some sleep while I had to wait up to drive his wife here. Timmy was no where to be seen.

We were staying at the Glan Towyn Guest House, which is owned by Jen’s mum, Carol (who was not happy when she found out that I’d broken the fold-out bed by standing on it).

At which point, I went to sleep. And of course when Tony goes to sleep, all his friends go to sleep… hang on, that was Bagpuss!

Later the same day…

Once we’d all woken up and actually felt like doing something, Martin and Jeni planned some stuff, while I pissed about with the camera. The plan, as it turned out, was to visit the local Sea Life Centre (where Martin chose to demonstrate his lack of respect for the Fire Brigade – see pic), then potter about at the Ty Mawr Hut Circles, where Jeni started talking to dead people. Unlike on my previous visit to the Circles, we did not climb down the 400+ steps to the bloody lighthouse. Thank feck for that.

Meanwhile at the Sheraton, Doktor Jeep played on and on and… hang on, that was The Sisters of Mercy.

Meanwhile, Timmy had been out drawing stuff (what with him being an artist) which will probably appear on his his website when it gets finished.

And after a while, we all adjourned to the White Eagle, to drink lots. Timmy tried to explain some of his artwork to Jeni’s mum (see pic), then we staggered back in the dark. Later, Timmy entertained Zak the dog (see other pic). Then we slept. And no, i’m not doing the Bagpuss joke again.

Day 2: Saturday 26th February, 2000

Early in the morning, me and Martin got the hydrofoil ferry thing from Holyhead to Dublin. It took 90 minutes, and was reasonably smooth. Martin still felt seasick though.

We got a bus into the middle of Dublin, and wandered around, buying tat and drinking in pubs (including one called “The Celt”, which was full of pissed up Londoners – we just kept quiet and tried to look irish). Then a bit more wandering, taking pics of old buildings, and for some reason a bus. Not sure why. Could it have something to do with my tedious job which involved doing Dublin’s bus timetables? I hope not.

So, at about 5pm we set off back for the ferry terminal (after the shuttle bus failed to turn up), and got there with 15 minutes to spare. It was then that we found out that due to bad weather the Irish Swift Hydrofoil was not operating, and we would have to wait until 10:30pm for the regular ferry.

So, there we were. No money, no beer, distressingly sober, and 4 1/2 hours to kill. Thank god we had a pack of cards. Cue 2 pictures of extremely bored people.

Well, finally the ferry turned up and we departed. Martin played on the video games until the boat developed a pronounced wobble and all the anti-tamper mechanisms tripped, shutting the arcade down. Martin started to look really ill and went off for a wander. He still claims to this day that he didn’t throw up, but I think he did.

We finally got back at about 2am, and promply passed out. And I never want to hear the Corrs ever again.

But what were Timmy and Jeni doing while we were in Dublin? Well, Timmy took his trousers off in the Spar shop in Valley, Jeni fell over in the mud, and both got very very drunk. No change there then.

Day 3: Sunday 27th February, 2000

And it was morning, and I found myself mourning for a childhood that I thought had disappeared… but that was a Marillion lyric.

Martin had gone back to Stafford to play at being a vampire when I awoke, and thankfully he’d taken Zak with him. Shortly afterwards Les turned up with Emma in tow, and we all set off for the Valley Hotel (food good, staff shite) for lunch. Then Les left for Cumbria (on account of thats where he’s from).

One quick trip to the Spar (with Timmy keeping his trousers on this time) for beer supplies, and we set off for the White Eagle again. It was closed. Now the nearest pub besides that to the guest house is the Valley Hotel (food still good, staff more pleasant) which is just next to the Spar… 4 miles away (£8 by taxi).

So we went, got drunk, and got a taxi back. Then Jeni insulted the welsh taxi driver by telling him to “speak bloody English”. And we drank some more. Lots more. And passed out.

Day 4: Monday 28th February, 2000

Another day, another vast amount of alcohol consumed. Lots from the Valley Hotel (with more food), and lots from the White Eagle, where Jeni and Emma played Air Hockey on a table which bizarrely didn’t seems to have any air. And we met Ollie the pub dog, who apparently has a habit of following people home. Then we all trooped back down the bendy lane to the guest house, to drink lots more drink.

Emma got horribly pissed and told her one and only joke. The picture shows her explaining how big Cecil the Caterpiller (who was her friend) had got by eating all the cabbages in the world. Rumour has it that shortly afterwards, Cecil the Caterpiller threw up. Muppet News has yet to confirm this story.

And so we all once again passed out like a bunch of pissheads (not surprising really).

Day 5: Tuesday 29th February, 2000

And so it came to pass – blah blah blah – that it was time to pack up and return to Population. So we piled all the stuff into the back of the beaten up old Astra and set off. Following a brief detour to Bangor, to drop Emma at university, and to have a look round the shops, we got on the A(whatever number) and headed back to Stafford (via Grantham – to drop Timmy off).

And so, at 11pm, I yawned and stretched and went to sleep. A saggy old cloth cat, baggy and bit loose at the seems. But … oh shit I’ve done it again!

“The road trip, what better way to spread beer fuelled mayhem?” – Homer [Simpson] Starring
Tony, Matt,
Simon, Alan.

Prelude to Wales

The night before we were all off to Wales, Matt and I went to see Fish at the Wulfun Hall in Wolverhampton. This bit isn’t part of the tale, but has been included to make the page bigger and because we had to leave early to meet Simon in Stafford and so missed the last two songs.

We got in to Stafford late and found Simon sitting in his van outside my house complaining that Matt couldn’t get anywhere on time if his life depended on it. Then we set off for Warrington, specifically Mr. Smiths night club.

Just as we were arriving a fight was breaking out involving a dozen or so “ninjas” (apparently the night we went was the night that the local Chinese community went out). Simon and Matt got in without any fuss, but the door-monkey decided to frisk me (do I look like a thug?). Anyway, once inside we started drinking and located Alan. Aparently some woman that Simon knew tried to pick me up but I can’t remeber that bit. What I can remember is that we seemed to be the only white people in the entire place and that the drinks were far too expensive.

Matt endangered our lives by getting really drunk and shouting “Nail that dink bitch” and “Charlie don’t surf” at the top of his voice. Nice one.

Eventually we left Mr. Smiths. After a brief attempt at humour involving Simon’s van, driving arround with the back doors open, and Alan’s inability to stay in it, we set off to make some crop circles. Sadly we got pulled over by the police before getting chance to make them, and Simon got a wrist-slapping for carrying four people in a two seater.So we went back to Matt’s place to get some sleep.

Wales

For the sake of conveniece, and the fact that I can’t remeber the order in which we made complete arses of ourselves, this is split into several sections.

Loitering With Intent

For some reason, I’m not sure why, at some point we ended up at the end of th runway at the local RAF base, after driving down several wrong turnings marked “MOD Property – No Civilian Vehicles”. We hung around for a while taking the piss out of the ‘plane spotters while Matt spotted Land Rovers. The text of the sign in the picture (oops picture hopelessly corrupted) reads:

DANGER
VERY LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT.
KEEP CLEAR DO NOT LOITER
THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE WILL NOT ACCEPT LIABILTY
FOR DAMAGE INJURY OR LOSS OF LIFE
PERYGL
AWYRENNAU’N HEDFAN YN ISEL IAWN
CADWCH YN GLIR DIM YMDROI
NI FYDD Y WENYDDIAETH AMDDIFFYN YN ATEBOL
AM DDFROD NWED NA MARWOLAETH

The Pub

We decided to go to the closest pub, indeed the only pub in the village, and rather than walk all the way round to it we took a short cut across some waste ground. This was one of the legendary Duffy good ideas. The short walk involved Simon almost falling down a hole in the ground, Alan falling into some gorse bushes and the four of us having to commando-sneak across someones garden.

So we eventually got to the pub early in the afternoon and proceeded to drink continuously. Alan put eight quid in the jukebox and subjected us to about 30 straight plays of “Hotel California”.

We played a bit of pool, but had to give up after repeated warnings that if the ball left the table and hit the bar again we would be barred. After about six final warnings we stopped playing and let the local underage drinkers use the table, having conclusively proved that spirits cannot be summoned to assist pool playing ability (four double whiskeys tend to inhibit pool acuracy).

As we left the pub, Matt noticed that he was still carrying a pint glass and decided to get rid of it somewhat sharpish. In a perfect display of his cricketing skills he managed to fast-bowl the glass across the car park, smack into the wicket. Unfortuately, the wicket in the case was a shiny what transit van full of armed Military Police who were out trawling for pissed up squaddies.

Alan suggested that we leg it, as he didn’t fancy a Territorial Army Court Martial, but as we were too pissed to walk never mind run we just sort of sidled away back to the camp site to take the piss out of some American tourists.

Journey to the Bottom of South Stack

Only in wales would they build a lighthouse that could only be reached by about 400 precarious stone steps. And only we would be stupid enough to climb down to see it when it was closed. So we had to climb back up to the top (iron lung time for Tony).

On the Beach

When you are drunk even the most stupid ideas seem logical, such as Matt and Alan trying to swim to Ireland (see the pictures below). They got as far as the boats before realising that the water was still shallow enough to stand up in and turned back for a game of beach baseball.

Now the think to bear in mind about baseball is that you need a bat and obviously a ball. Simon supplied the bat which he carried in his van as a deterant to scouse car-jackings, while Matt did his best to find a ball. The only thing he could find which was remotely suitable was a dead crab. A pile of dead crabs. Sadly, after being hit once, these “balls” had a tendency to explode in a shower of rotting flesh. So we all had to stand in the water to get rid of the whiff.

Nice idea Matt.

The Return to Civilization

Eventually we got bored with Treadurr Bay and set off back home. Matt returned to find out that the Police were wanting to interview him in connection with the Stafford Wheeliebin Murder (the body had been found in the alley behind his old house).

Here is a list:

• • • Anything by Fish, or Fish era Marillion,
    • Hotel California, The Eagles,
    • Mrs Robinson (live), Paul Simon,
    • House of the Rising Sun, The Animals.