Things are going down…

Like me on the Oxford canal, heading in a southward direction.

Not only that, but in many other areas of life in and across the world.

My life as a trader

You may or may not know that I spend a lot of my spare time looking at markets, reading economic journals and placing occasional trades on conventional and crypto assets. A day trader, you might say.

Taking in some of the moves in those markets, and predictions for the future leads me conclude that things are definitely moving, in a downward direction.🔻

I believe that life in the UK and the economy under the current prime minister is not viable, and given time will implode. Even in the last few days I read posts about Crispen Odey, one of Kwasi Kwarteng’s close friends, making 145% on UK bond crash, (below).

Relying on ‘trickle down economics‘ at a time of financial tsunami? It’s supplying those at the top with more incentive. Doesn’t make sense unless you want the top 5% to benefit significantly more at a time when they really don’t need any more.

Even if you don’t understand this graph, (which I’m not going to explain), you can see the movements are pretty drastic.

Last week, I did my most successful trade ever.

This one trade lifted the value of my account by 70%.

Assaulted at the locks

So, onto the next big story of the week (or two).

Last time I was moving my boat, Sunday 4th September, I had a little altercation with a gentleman on a camouflage boat. The upshot was, he assaulted me at Grants Lock, pictured above.

Story is: Initially he was asking me to tie his boat to one of the bollards whilst he went through the lock. I was trying to establish which bollard he wanted to use when he became quite aggressive, saying “do you want to do this or don’t you”? I said “I’ve said I’ll do it, I just want to establish which bollard you want to tie to, there’s 3”.

I then continued discussing whether he wanted his boat at the front or back of the lock. He then said “just tie it up” to which I replied, “tie it yourself”, and threw him back his rope.

He then became very aggressive, swearing and making threats against my person.

He climbed up the ladder out of the lock and when he got the the top, he positioned himself on the lock landing and said “you better not touch me, or I’ll smash you up. I’ll kill you” and stuff like this.

I managed to move past him and back toward Bonnie without turning my back on him.

When I was passed him, he kind of made a decision it was time to attack me and stumbled toward me and tried to rugby tackle me around the shoulders.

This is kind of a pathetic thing to do. I turned and pushed him off, pushing him to the floor. He fell against some railings, (pictured), and his hat came off. I knelt on him for a little while whilst he calmed himself down.

He stank of cannabis and booze.

When I went to stand up, he tried to grab my windlass, which I was holding, potentially I think in hindsight, to use as a weapon.

As he was doing this, another boater had pulled up at the lock and was moving onto the lock landing where he could see what was going on.

When the other boater saw this guy rolling around on the floor trying to pry the windlass out of my hands, he shouted “just let go of the windlass mate”, and the guy let go.

He then started to inform the other boater about how bad a person I was and that he was ringing the police to inform them.

I moved to my boat which was next in line to come through and just waiting for him to come through before entering the lock.

I sat and talked to an elderly couple who were collecting blackberries around the lock.

After spending some time gobbing off, this guy descended back onto his boat and emerged from the cabin waving a 2ft machete…

He waved the machete above his head and made threats against my person as he began climbing the ladder out of the locks holding said weapon.

I drew my camera in response, and the blade was dropped out of sight VERY quickly.

Camera never lies

This suggests to me that the guy had previous. Even though there were other boaters standing around, he had no problem pulling the blade out and waving it around. He was moving off his boat and up and out of the lock, climbing up the ladder.

Taking the blade off the boat is a criminal offence. As is assault.

Only when my camera came out did he become concerned about the fact that he was acting in a totally outrageous way.

Police, what Police?

I notified the police about the incident. It took them 3 days to take my statement. After several phonecalls, it was only when I presented myself at the Banbury Police station did it actually take place. I think the reality was it was simply to much trouble for them to locate and travel to the boat on the towpath.

Last night when I was walking past Grant’s Lock, where the incident happened I got talking to the guy who was renovating the building and had put cameras on the outside.

I asked him if the police had been in touch for the CCTV from the cameras overlooking the building, which would have caught the whole incident. They hadn’t, I gave him the crime number and he promised to pass on the camera footage to the police.

Even though that evidence would make an accusation into an open and shut case, I had to do it all myself.

The case is ongoing.

Painting the boat

Just touching up a little bit in my spare time before winter and the damp weather close in.

This seems to be taking a long time. The levels dropped on the canal pound I’m in putting the armco on the bank at a much higher level on the boat and scraping off all the paint that I’d put on a few days before.

The last couple of days I’ve spent going round and re-touching those touched up bits which were damaged.

I re-did the ‘cruiser stern’, both the rails and re-painting the deck area with deck paint.

Took a long time, this time due to weather.

The water is at a much more healthy level in this section compared to the bank, and I’ve been able to re-paint and re-touch the gunwhales.

Still, it’s pretty slow work. The weather has turned in the last week. Now it’s distinctly damp. Windy also. Not great for painting.

Here’s some pictures from the canal and a recent trip to London.