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Hell in a HandCaRTDib dib dib, dob dob dobI have a sad tale to tell, my little floaters, so I

shall endeavor to tell it shortly, and to spare

you the gruesome tedious details.

Earlier this spring the brave First Cub Scouts Troop of

Cowley Bridge were paddling their dinghy down the

Uxbridge section of the Grand Union Canal. Their

woggles were tight around their khaki neckerchiefs,

their badges proud upon their sleeves.

But wait! What is this ploughing down the cut behind

them, threatening to mow them down in its wake? It

has great wooden wheels and unmanned handles. The

handcart careered, sending spokes of water arcing in

the sun. The scouts panicked. Oars were abandoned. An

eyewitness decried an attitude of every man for himself

and the devil take the hindmost.

Panicked paddling by adolescent arms managed to

swing the dinghy around and it turned, fatal error, to

face toward from whence it had come. The handcart and

the dinghy collided horribly, the besuited passengers of

the unwieldy craft tumbled into the green water. The

brave scouts fished them out.

As a consequence of this sad encounter it is proposed

that it will no longer be permissible for one to turn ones

boat around on this entire stretch of the Grand Union.

The Floater only hopes that no such tragic incident

befalls another innocent stretch of the waterways.

Not A Bad Turn-out

The first-ever National Association of Bargee

Travellers floating general meeting was held

recently in a well-attended upper room of the

Malt Shovel in Cowley Bridge.

Nigel Moore spoke at length, and at times,

philosophically, upon the outcome of his legal battles

with British Waterways and the Canal and River Trust,

and dwelt briefly upon some of the niceties of the

English Constitution.

The Floater was proud to be present, and pondered atlength upon much of what was said, pacing in the

passing sunshine over the bridge above the pub and

lock. Those floaters familiar with Section 17 (3) (c) (ii)

should also know of these Byelaws which establish the

entirety of CaRTs ability to control mooring on the

Waterways: They can insist that you moor up properly, tied fore

and aft;

They can stop you mooring to any of the Boards works

not intended for mooring;

They can move you without notice if causing anobstruction to navigation or towpath;

They can move you on notice if they need to carry out

works to the bank;

They can remove you altogether, on notice, if your boat

is on the waterways without authority;

They can require you to either: have a home mooring,

or: to moor within the parameters of s.17 (3) (c) (ii) of

the 1995 Act.

Any Guidance, or terms and conditions, or charges,permits or fines that exceed these principles were thus

found to be unlawful, to be ultra vires.

Dib dib dontIn breaking news, it seems that the First Cub Scouts

Troop of Cowley Bridge has been disbanded. There hasbeen some dark muttering about trolls. Nothing more is

known to date.

The Editor would like it to be known that, in most terms and conditions, it is advisable to follow reasonable guidance.

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Breaking (up) NewsYou have nothing to lose butyour mooring pinsIn more recently breaking hearsay the Floater has

become aware of a change in the tide, of waters

lapping back at marks we thought were, mayhap,

but once-in-a-lifetime highs.

It seems that fines are to be charged, and perhaps

fees paid, by overstaying boats on the River Lee.

This leap from goldfish-bowl to bonfire will

doubtless come as some surprise to regular Lee

Boaters, who have become accustomed to a

grandfatherly oversight of their occasional lapses.

These, the Floater learns, are expected to be the

next beneficiaries of a Roving Mooring Permit

scheme.

A three-stage approach by CaRT, apparently

contrived first to monetize, then to marginalize and

finally to exterminate the community of liveaboard

boaters has been formerly noted in these pages,

but let the Floater repeat himself, if only for the

edification of the occasional reader:

Firstly we persecute them economically, until their

very lives become precarious.

Second we offer them a marginally less offensive

form of persecution, for a fee.

Thirdly we exterminate those who fail to agree to

option two.

The remainder will, inevitably, eventually tire of an

even milder persecution, go broke, or die.

What Could The Canals Be Like?In his ignorance the Floater finds himself wondering whether

there really ever was a Golden Age of the Waterways, when

boaters went unflustered by bureaucracy, when it was possible to

moor, and to cruise and to moor wherever and forever as you

wished or needed.

He has heard tell of times past, when the rivers and canals were

all-but empty, and boaters communities sprang up

spontaneously and thrived or revived as boats came and went.

Times when, even, licences and their plates, not to mention their

terms and conditions, or the Guidance, were unheard of and yet

to be.

Times and tunes change, though, my little floaters, and the

Waterways have changed, even in the few years the Floater has

been afloat there are more boats, and more boaters. This is a

fine and many-splendored thing, but does present us with a

problem.

The Floater has known little but fuss and bluster from BW, and

then from CaRT, though some proclaim their threats empty and

their powder wet, others see something new a new fit of effort

that has won CaRT victories in Cowley and Uxbridge, and has

taken casualties across the network boats craned out, boaters

abandoning the Cut for a life ashore. Again some will claim that

this is all to the good of the wider, Guidance-abiding majority,

while some will see infringements of Human Rights and ignoral

of law in claims of legal justification. But, the Floater wonders,

what could the canals be like?

Having visited Amsterdam, purely for research purposes, there

being many waterways there, and many boats, the Floater sees

both opportunity and cause for concern. Residential boating is

there a very static business, boats are plumbed-in to sewage,

water and gas-pipes, electricity. They move only to repair or

repaint, or to scrap. Conservation status insists that an historic

boat, if removed, may only be replaced by a similar vessel. Boat

prices have risen to an equivalence with house prices.

What is it that keeps this from happening in London, I hear you

ask. Is it perhaps the narrowness of the canals, the scarcity of

bankside along their meager length? Is it because of planning

regulations? It is nothing more, The Floater proposes, than

movement, in both its obligatory and its necessary aspects. One

has a toilet to empty, a water-tank to fill, and a licence that

obliges one to move fortnightly.

Thus there is, undoubtedly, a level of tolerance, a point of critical

mass at which this movement becomes impractical (at whichpoint the desirability of a boat-life, and consequently the demand

for boats and mooring space will inevitably decline) and at which

point the secondary use of the canals as a visitor attraction for

boaters, walkers, locals and well rewarded poets, the

inconvenience to residents of Noel Road, Islington, and the wear

and tear on locks and other infrastructure may also cause

concern. It is the Floaters honest opinion, though, and nothing

more, that this point is, in pure fact and the like, a long way off.

There is a thriving community on the canals and rivers of London.

I do not begin to assume the authority, or, frankly, the affront to

the many floaters for whom these reasons are all-too apparent,

to try to explain exactly why, here, though I may later. It is theFloaters belief, though, that with a little more maintenance,

development, more co-operation and imagination, the waterways

could support a simultaneously more intensive and more

sustainable use of this neglected opportunity to experiment with,

even to demonstrate, alternate ways of living in this city, and of

living in the world.

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Greetings from the

Middle Place and wordsfrom the White Witch of

Uncertain Whereabouts.

Why are Boaters facing the great

battle?

Men, and the world of Men, believe that it is only

great power that keeps evil in check. But that is not

what I found. Ive found that it is the small things,

every day deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the

darkness at bay; simple acts of kindness and love.

A document has recently been revealed to the

White Witch, long lost to the world, now found; a

thirty-nine page prophesy called: Pleasure and

Profit from the Canals. Presented to me to

translate under the sickle-moon. There are few left

now with the gift of the objective tongue. Written at

the waning of the Great Snatcher and in the height

of the Neoliberal Dynasty, it foresees a dark and

distant future for the waterways and foretells of a

three part tearing of the Kingdom of Water. The first

great tearing is upon us: a Trust primarily chargedwith conservation and an improvement of

amenities it cannot hope to achieve with its feeble

brain and hungry coffers. The second looms large

like a Deatheater over our neighbourhoods: a

Development Company run on entirely commercial

criteria, that sucks the life blood from theWaterways and replaces it with capital gain and

yuppie moorings. And the third and great rending

yet to come: the transference of regulatory

functions to the National Review Authority

(responsible to the Secretary of State for the

Environment) unleashing the Beast of Governance

with its whipping boy Best Practice sat astride to

attack our people for their refusal to conform, to

become profitable, measurable, and to set fire to

our heritage.

It is a dark dystopian time that is foretold and the

prophesy speaks nary a word or the humbleboater, their lives and lifestyles of quiet dissent.

But the White Witch sees that the only way

through the battle is the liberal Middle Way; the

humble way of heritage that has always had

jurisprudence on its side.

Why are Boaters facing the great battle? Because

they are not like most, they are used to travelling

around, never settling in one place, never

belonging anywhere. Boaters are not of the world

of Men. When I am afraid and feel the best of us

has been lost to the great evil of neoliberalism that

the world of Man has wrought, the world of theBoater gives me courage. The boater has a great

role to play in these battles to come and in the

public history of us all.