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Month: July 2016

The story of Bad Duck….

The story of Bad Duck….

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Once upon a time, in Barton Marina, there lived a little duck.

Bad duck was the noisiest duck on the pond.

Bad duck formed convoys and patrolled round the boats.

Bad duck and her duck convoy chased off rival ducks. Bad duck would attack them from underwater, like a great white shark.

Whilst I was doing laundry, Bad Duck landed on the roof of my narrowboat, and dug up the plants in my planter.

When I got back, there were 2 eggs in place of the rosemary….

Bad duck's eggs

Mint, duck eggs, Chives, Coriander.

No sign of any ducks or anything, I carried on working.

Soon Bad Duck appeared with her mate and let out a loud and nasty “QUAK! QUAAAAAK!” her eyes flashing with feral duck hate.

Bad duck rose into the air and began circling me like a vulture. All the boaters and people in the Waterfront restaurant could see this spectacle of the duck circling.

Next morning, Bad Duck landed on my roof.

I could hear her webbed feet pattering across the roof…. Suddenly, Bad Duck peeked in through the open hatch!

Bad Duck was staring straight at me!

At the end of my narrowboat, perched on top of the hatch staring in at me on the bed.

I got up and shooed Bad Duck off.

Bad Duck went off, I haven’t seen her again.

She was playing duck chase in front of the boaters this afternoon, she pretended to ignore me.

Really, her eggs didn’t stand a chance on the top of my boat in the planter.

I can’t believe how crazy ducks are. Maybe their funny shape and noise makes them prone to outbreaks of behaviour of  a similarly strange nature.

Anyway, that’s the story of Bad Duck.

All trues.

Taboo?

Taboo?

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Why can’t the media tell the truth about the killings in America?

2 Steps from war…

That’s a country that’s always been on the edge, I don’t care what anyone says, and I believe Ice T once said it, “the right to bear arms was the last defence against tyranny, to protect yourself against the police”.

YouTube player

Funny thing is, I think the UK is lining it’s self up along similar lines…

Euroburp

Now don’t get me wrong, I was a supporter of Euroburp until the banking crisis hit…

Funny?

It’s funny how the the largest federal authority, (by population), of those affected by the crisis was not willing to take ANY action against the perpetrators, (banks).

  • They were not willing to instigate any large scale investigations.
  • They weren’t willing to instigate CRIMINAL investigations.
  • They were not willing to prosecute in the name of breached EU regulations.

Rules, what rules?

Where rules are broken, it’s punishment follows…

That’s what rules are all about right?

Well here’s another set of rules….

“I am like God, and God like me. I am as large as God, He is as small as I. He cannot above me, nor I beneath Him be.” Silesius, 17th Century.

Which basically means, each man is onto god.

Especially true in the US, where they are much more religious.

Also, as racial tension goes, they’ve had a civil war on the pretext of racial discrimination. Some say, they have never got over it.

Europe is not the same.

 

telematics install
Telematics box

Telematics box

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So, I’ve got this new Telematics Box. Because I’ve been out of the country so long, the insurers don’t want to deal with me. The best way of bringing my premium down was to agree to the installation of one of these ‘Telematics boxes’.

Telematics

Telematics basically referrers to the transfer of information using Telemetry, similar to mobile phone technology. You can’t expect the unit to transmit in a tunnel, high on a mountain, or anywhere else where you can’t receive a mobile signal. …

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National brewery museum - signs
Burton Brewery Museum

Burton Brewery Museum

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Went here the other day.

Where I’m currently moored has a history of brewing, particularly of ales. When I went into town, I was constantly reminded of this, so decided to do some investigation; in the first instance by visiting the local brewery museum.

It used to be owned by Bass, which incidentally registered the first trademark, and incidentally again was used as part of one of the website logos that I designed.

Isn’t that a coincidence…

National brewery museum

Now the museum is called the National Brewery Museum and cost £10 to enter.

We parked the boat at Shobnall marina, and were going to walk in. It’s not a pleasant walk, it’s mostly main road

Instead, took a taxi the driver giving us a history of Burton since 1960 en-route.

The museum itself is full of machinery, vats and paraphernalia associated with a malt based brewing process.

Kids find these large pieces of machinery very interesting.

Scammell Trivan - Three wheel brewing truck
Three wheel brewing truck
Barrel shaped brewing van
Barrel shaped transport van

They used to drive around in this giant barrel dropping off kegs.

The kids jumped on these, and were fiddling around. …

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Painting a narrowboat stern
Job of the Day: Prepping and priming the decks

Job of the Day: Prepping and priming the decks

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The decks on the boat are particularly damaged, and require completely stripping.

Today, the weather was good enough to get a full day in.

At 9 o’clock in the morning, I set out with screwdriver in hand and scrubbing brush in other, 1st job – to remove the fittings and sugar-soap the existing paintwork.

Prepping

Sugar-soaping gets rid of the film of grime and makes the surface more adherent to future paint.

It also revealed the full extent of the rust.

Narrowboat - cruiser stern
Cruiser stern before

Here’s what the stern looked like.

It’s quite heavily corroded, the brown areas are areas of rust.

Rather than mess around with this in any way, I decided to simply get rid of all the paint and start from scratch. …

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