Some you win, some you lose

My bike got nicked :-( It was a folding bike and had done me proud for my 5 years afloat. That'll teach me to use only D-locks in future, as even thick bendy wire locks get cut through like licorice by boltcroppers.
But as I was trudging home again, I spotted some pine legs protruding from the canal. My first thought was of firewood, but when I pulled, up came a kicthen sheving unit! It was half-covered with a bin-bag so I guess it had been put out for rubbish and someone had chucked it in the canal. It had castors and a tiled worktop which unfortunately didn't fit the space I had mentally allocated it, but I hacked it about a bit and am very happy with my find!


The tiled top has become a useful part of my workdesk so I can splash paint and water about as much as I usually do, but with less guilt :-)


I'm moored in a busy industrial area at the moment with a lot of towpath walkers. There was a knock on the boat at 4 this morning and I was very slow to get up and look. I could see a man sitting a few yards away but not looking anxious to contact me in particular and he'd only tried knocking once. I went through that thought process of wondering if he needed anything, was homeless, or was checking out if my boat was empty before breaking in.. I dressed and stuck my head out to ask what he wanted and he said there'd been a car broken into in the nearby car-park and was it mine cos he knew who'd done it. "I've knocked at all the other boats too" he said. Bet they were equally pleased! But I was shamed because he'd been motivated by a kind impulse and not the needy or negative ones I'd assumed.

From the library

I usually join the library wherever I stay for a few days, and was recently chatting to another boating friend about our large collection of library cards from around the country! As well as computer use, you can take out a book from one library and return it to a 'sister' library further along the canal.
I'm writing this in Paddington library because I don't have much laptop power (forgot to charge up on solar and now it's raining) and I also want to print out some pages. Today, I've brought my own laptop along to plug in and use in warmth, light and comfort. What else do I use the library for? Reading the paper, reading expensive canal magazines that won't get binned after one read, checking out the local events I could go along to or getting info about doctor's surgeries, bus timetables. I have, on rare occasions, borrowed CDs or DVDs and often bought second-hand library books.
Looking around me, I see mums and dads with kids just starting to read or looking at the pictures while parents grab a chance to choose books or check e-mails in peace. No need to keep a watch-out for traffic here. A free place to take the children when school or nursery is shut. I was in here last week and they were running free health-checks in one corner of the library, offering blood-pressure checks, etc and dietary advice. I've seen story-book readings for groups of pre-school kids in some libraries, computer classes for retired people in others, coffee-shops in a couple.
I've listened in to a computer lesson given to an excluded pupil by a teacher or key-worker.
Today, I see older people, having a sit down with the paper, one frail lady with her shopping looks like she's just come in to sit down because there's no-where else you can sit out of the rain, without spending money.
There are students here, I think, judging from the books and files open around their computers. People at the study tables, writing furiously in what may be the only quiet place they have. There's a man with the jobs paper open, pen and notebook beside him. There are people reading the arabic newspapers, others talking very quietly in a language I don't understand.
I remember blogging a while ago about trying to get back from Rugby to my boat on a bus-free day. I found the library open and was able to photocopy part of an ordnance survey map that helped me find my way home across footpaths and disused railway.

I think of all this, knowing that the government aims to close one fifth of the libraries in the country. I found this site that shows a map of the libraries under threat of closure. I see from one comment underneath that 9 out of the 11 libraries on the Isle of Wight are to close!
There have been protests that get very little media coverage, perhaps because they tend to be quiet protests like read-ins and because the people most affected by the closures are disenfranchised and feel powerless. Many library users are tired single parents, retired people, people with disabilities whose day-centres have closed, job-seekers, asylum-seekers, homeless people and travellers like myself. I don't suppose the wealthy have much use for libraries as they order books online and don't need the social, free aspect of a library. If it's raining outside, you can sit in the car or a cafe/restaurant or go to the cinema etc.

My daughter, studying part-time for an MA, has the use of the Bodleian library in Oxford. That elitist establishment will never close. The one she passed in a run-down, impoverished street in Deptford recently, had already shut.

Toy story

I've brought Blackbird into London, exchanging tall trees for high buildings. It's exciting exploring! One of my first outings was to the Museum of Childhood (pic from their website) where I particularly wanted to look out for puppets and early mechanical toys, being slightly dotty about carved painted wood. I also love simple tin forms, cardboard figures etc - things that aren't plastic I guess.
It reminds me that there is a lovely museum of childhood to be found in Edinburgh too - smaller and in a higgledy-piggledy warren of rooms over 2 or 3 floors. This museum is in a big open building and the noise can be deafening!

Here are some things that caught my eye..
The most basic design for a moving toy, I love its simplicity.



Isn't this great. You press down on the tail and the little bellows make it chirp. There's also plenty of nostalgia here - spot the Snoopy toy behind?


These puppets are called Pebble puppets as they have a pebble inside for weight, perhaps it's so the limbs can move freely from the weighted main body.


These little 'spirit boats' or putt-putt boats sent me scurrying to find out how they're made. I'd seen some at a fair once and always thought I'd love to try to make one. Here's an interesting site showing different options.

The candles are lit, the heat turns the windmill at the top, which in turn, rotates the tiers below.


Not a great photo, sorry, but this toy has a figure that dances on the end of a wire. It's a sand-driven device, whereby you turn the box upside down, sand goes to fill the 'shute' at the top and as can be seen in the photo below, it turns a wheel, that flicks the wire. Ingenious and no batteries needed ;-)

There's also a wonderful display of doll's houses I never had (oh the world of the miniature!). There are the toys and games my brothers and I played together, like the 'Merit' chemistry set that filled us with excited awe and which I'm now amazed we were let loose with. And there are the toys that my own children played with when small, which bring floods of happy memories as well as memories of hoovering up vital pieces of lego, puzzle and dolly's shoe. Oh well!
Probably a combination of seeing all the toys, chatting about childrens' books with the Herbies, some cider and a discussion about Flash Gordon & Ming the Merciless, but last night I dreamed of flying in a silver tin spaceship with red stars.

what lies beneath..

I had a lovely few days away, visiting friends of Simon and exploring part of the Grantham canal. Simon's blogged about that, and he had a camera, so I won't! But what struck me most was the quiet emptiness of the canal, almost entirely boatless and, in the long stretch away from houses and people, free of rubbish. I like the bustle of boaty places and canalside communities, but the crap that comes with large concentrations of people is an awful blight. I don't think it has to be this way. People can live together without wrecking the environment, if we stop buying plastic and packaging everything.
I shouldn't rant so much, I know, but I'm on the Slough arm at the moment and saddened by the amount of dumped rubbish that's in and around the canal. I had a quick clear-up just around my boat and filled a (plastic) bin-bag easily.
Just off the towpath, a nest of colourful wires:

The lakes where anglers hang out (you can maybe spot the tent just over the fence), and useful dumping ditch behind them:


Oh well, there was probably nothing good on anyway...

In the canal itself, there's a fascinating underworld of tyres and containers. It's quite beautiful in it's way! And doesn't this motorbike look romantic in its murky home, although I don't think it would have done my boat's hull any good if I'd tried to moor here.

It's a shame because there's nowt wrong with the canal itself (though i know the summer reeds are a big problem). There are lots of trees and undergrowth and walks around lakes. It needs a lot of people to care enough and give time to cleaning it up, putting pressure on the anglers, getting bins built, etc. The problem is that most of us, including me, are either just passing through or feel no connection or 'ownership' of the canal.

GM food + fuel

In preparation for the release of a pro-GM report out on Feb 9th, the government and media have been softening us up with pro-GM rhetoric: How can we feed the world?
The fact that we, as a country, have never fed ‘the world’ and will never need to, is ignored in the rush to pave the way for full-scale adoption of GM farming in Europe. I just heard a news report telling me how we had to urgently adopt intensive farming and 'explore' GM possibilities, but then a spokesperson from the World Food Programme said the world currently produces double the food requirement for the world population (waste, lack of distribution and inequality of consumption to blame)and the only reason he thinks the government is trying to panic us, is to push the case for GM within Europe.
The Environment minister is Caroline Spellman – she was a director of a biotech lobbying group owned in part by her husband. No conflict of interest there then!

On Saturday, I went to an info day on GM, with talks and film by scientists, farmers and environmental campaigners who have been working in countries where GM farming is widespread. The big message they wanted to bring was that GM isn't working. Its failure is increasingly ackknowledged in the USA and that is why GM companies such as Monsanto are desperate to break into the European market, before we cotton on to that fact.

Food: We managed to get GM food off our shelves back in the late '90's, through camapigning and direct action. Instead, it's coming in through the back door. What most people don't realise is that almost all the animals that provide UK meat, poultry and dairy products, have been fed GM soya and maize. The UK imports over 1 million tonnes of GM soya feed/year and most of this comes from rainforest-cleared land in south America. That's 30 million tonnes into Europe/year. There's currently no legislation on labelling so we're not told we are consuming GM products.

Fuel: All petrol now contains agrofuel, mostly biodiesel made from GM crops. Again, it isn't labelled. It makes up 3.5% now, but while pretending to combat climate change, Eu law says this needs to rise to 10% by 2020. (Its reductions in greenhouse gas emissions is questionable.)

GM trees: Fast-growing, low lignin trees (floppy trees that can be broken down easer) are the next big thing. See GM treewatch The big sell-off of frorestry commission land means we will have little control over this and carbon credits will encourage the take-up. GM micro-organisms to break down the trees to create bio-fuel are the next focus although how you contain micro-organisms, I don't know.

Carbon credits: Because GM crops are sold as 'no-till' crops (not needing the land turned over cos the herbicides kill everything anyway), GM companies get tax breaks, carbon credits and subsidies, claiming their crops are carbon sinks!

What's wrong with it? Mono-culture, the growing of a single crop (mostly soya) over huge areas is damaging to the land, insects, other plants and people. The main crop, by the main pharmaceutical company, Monsanto, is 'Round-up Ready soya' which has been genetically modified to be resistant to Round-up herbicide. The idea is that you can then spray thousands of acres of crops and the only thing that will live is the soya. Trouble is, it hasn't worked out like that and now US farmers are saying at first one weed became resistant to it and they had to spray for that, now around 30 weeds are surviving the herbicide. Secondary pests are now becoming a big problem, needing more and more chemicals to combat them. Meanwhile, something in the genetically altered seed is messing with the brains of bees (I know - weird to think of bees' brains!) A beekeeper expert said the bee loses the ability to map an area and can't get back to the hive and transmit the information about food. The loss of bio-diversity is also devastating to other insects and the birds that live off them.
Farmers agreeing to go GM are tied into the system, forced to buy the herbicides Monsanto foists on them, not allowed to keep back seed for the following year, thereby ensuring they must buy new seed each year, which has since risen in price.
Because the GM seed is patented, they aggressively sue any neighbouring landowner whose crop gets cross-pollinated by wind-borne GM pollen. The neighbour is driven out of business and Monsanto gets to expand their empire still further. One farmer showed us a film he had made, interviewing GM farmers in the US. They all said it had been a big mistake. Suicides among small-scale farmers is widespread in India and South America, where people get deeply in debt when crops fail yet they are tied into buying in the new seed and herbicide. Ironically, the method of suicide used is often to drink the herbicide.

Of course, there will be no market for GM in Europe, unless we create it. If we refuse to buy GM food and kick up a fuss about existing GM livestock feed and fuel, we can stay free of the stuff. The website 'GM Freeze' gives help on writing to your MP on this issue.
Find out much more and in better-explained detail on the 'Stop GM' site.

Swans

This morning, two swans started fighting outside my boat. I'm a hands-off person when it comes to wildlife, thinking we humans do so much damage when we interfere, but it was a really upsetting sight to see these beautiful birds trying to kill each other. I admit I did try to distract them with food and clapping hands, but they were oblivious to everything else. There's the constant beating of wings on the other's body while biting the neck, then the stronger one tries to drown the other by holding its head under water with beak and wing. It went on for about 40 minutes until they drifted out of sight around a bend in the canal, one being held under for longer and longer periods and flapping more feebly.
I told myself that perhaps they have to fight to the death to avoid the huge energy drain from frequent battles. Perhaps a single death can establish the male's dominance for it's lifetime, ensuring that famous monogamy and protective parenting among swans. There will be a good evolutionary reason for these deaths (unlike so many perpetrated by humans), but it's still very hard to witness.

Tony's boat

My mate Tony has been burgled. He's been fitting out his boat home himself.
I mention it here because Tony has only recently started blogging and many boaters won't yet know his site. (Not that me posting it here will widen the readership much but hey ;-) It's here.
If anyone is offered an inverter, which is a "Sinergex 2kw pure sinewave model, still boxed" please let him know.
So sorry Tony.