General Witterings -
Balls on Rosy

MEDIA STARS

Did I mention that we are now TV stars?  A crew from the local TV station came along, and spent two hours filming.  The result was a three-minute piece put out on (I think) a Sunday evening.  I didn't see it live, but have since received a copy of the piece.  I'm quite pleased with it, as I don't usually come over very well on camera.  Fanny and Rosy are, of course, the real stars. 

Translation of the voice over of 'Rosy', Fanny and Bill's three-minute appearance on Brandenburg TV.  (The numbers in brackets refer to the notes below).

The beginning of Spring is near.  Although it should now get warmer every day, this morning the people living near the River Oder had to work hard to clear away the snow.  On the waterways nothing is moving, as the canals are still frozen and the inland waterway skippers wait to move on.  In a small harbour in Eisenhüttenstadt, on the Oder-Spree Canal, two strange boats pass the winter:  they are very narrow and very long.  On their sterns the English flags flutter.

Brandenburg TV was gripped by curiosity.  Can there be a more thrilling place than the pleasure boat harbour in Eisenhüttenstadt at this time of year?  Not for Bill Davies from Cambridge who has spent the winter with his dog Fanny on his narrow boat, 2.10m wide and 16m long.  Next to it there is a similar boat, belonging to friends, who at present are not on board.  Bill is 62, divorced both from his wife, and from his old life as a professional soldier.  When asked the question "Isn't it a bit boring though" he doesn't understand, at all.

He says "Boring!!!  BORING?!!?  The world is a wonderful place and full of interest!  If, as a small boy, I had said that something was boring I would have been clobbered - HARD!"  Bill Davies travels through all of Europe with his floating "cigar" (1), which, before the railway era, was an important means of transport on the narrow canals of Britain.  Bill shows us how a hundred years ago a family of five lived in a cabin two metres square.  Here is a side bed for three children, one head here, two heads next to each other at one end, and another head between the two sets of feet at the other end!  That way three children could sleep in such a small space.  For the parents, two boards were lowered from the wall, the mattresses were drawn out and the double bed was made up.  One day the government passed a law saying that the children's and parents' sleeping rooms should be separated by a door and "Here it is"(2).  The cabin is a small, coal-heated world, nicely painted and full of luxury.  The fold-down table, for example, has a crumb drawer.  If you drop something while eating, you simply fold the table up and everything falls into the crumb drawer.  Earlier narrow boats were towed by horses or donkeys.  Today Bill Davies has a diesel engine where a hundred years ago trading goods and provisions were carried.  Bill even has space for a tiny office - even a lone traveller must keep in touch.  He organises his mail and banking business via mobile phone or the internet.  The kitchen is a bit untidy.  Bill apologises:  "We had a party last night". (3)  Strumming an old Appalachian string dulcimer, Bill coaxes out an old Beach Boys tune, perfect for a frozen German harbour in winter.

Note 1: Apparently the French and Germans occasionally refer to narrow boats as 'cigars' because the proportions of the boat are similar to those of a cigar.

Note 2: The 'door' is 8" x 13" (21cm x 32cm) and was introduced in Public Health regulations in the late 19th century, in an attempt to prevent incestuous relationships between parents and children, confined together in such a small space.  The guiding force behind the legislation was a book called 'Our Canal Population' by George Smith of Coolville published in 1875.  The second edition (in 1878) was reprinted in 1974 by EP Publishing Ltd.

Note 3.  No.  We didn't have a party the night before.  The truth is that I only had 5 or 10 minutes warning of the arrival of the TV crew, and the whole boat was in a state, especially the kitchen, and particularly the kitchen floor.  A 'Party' was the best excuse that I could make up in the time available.

DAY OUT IN FRANKFURT

I had a trip out to Frankfurt on Oder.  Since the end of WW2, the River Oder has been the border between north-eastern Germany and Poland.  Towards the end of WW2, the Russians captured Frankfurt and, after they were 'in control', a massive fire destroyed virtually the entire town.  There was a Gothic brick church, with a massive wooden roof and, of course, the church was burned out.  Before the war, the citizens had hidden away the church treasures, chief of which were three tall, slender, stained glass windows.  They depicted the history of the world (from, of course, a Biblical perspective), but, uniquely, included several depictions of the AntiChrist.  The Russians found the treasures, and whisked them back to Russia as war reparations.

Sometime after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a person poking around in storage warehouses/archives/cellars in Russia found the windows and recognised them.  They were shipped back to Frankfurt.

The church itself is now being partially renovated.  The famous wooden roof has been replaced, and the interior is being doctored.  I think the idea is to retain the damage, but to make it all safe.  The windows (14th century) are being 'cleaned' and 'restored', and it is planned to replace them in situ, but protected from the atmosphere by a transparent sheath.

THE PERSONAL HABITS OF FANNY

Fanny is still jolly well.  Have I mentioned her three-legged lavatorial habits before?  When she settles into the squat position, she invariably lifts one of her hind legs off the ground - for what reason I cannot imagine.  She also indulges in a procedure that can best be described as 'crapping whilst walking around'.  I know that most dogs don't do this, if only because the plastic doggie-doos that one buys in 'joke' shops shows a neat coil topped by a little flourish.  Fanny, however, takes an age finding a suitable spot upon which to perform, then she adopts the squat position, then raises one hind leg in the air, then sets off on a three-legged tour of the neighbourhood, leaving a scattered trail of lumps behind her.

ROSY

Twiddle work continues on Rosy.  The latest is the installation of some vertical, curly-wurly steel (aka 'barley-sugar' twist) bars to provide some hand holds in the engine room.  They could, I guess, also be used for pole-dancing and I've wanted to get them installed before we head off to … Pole land!!!  They are painted in a rather dashing red colour.

However, the River Oder is flowing along, and we are at stage one of a flood warning, so we won't be going down it just yet!  I have to admit that I am very wary of these rivers - I'm a firm believer in canal boats staying on canals.  Hence the coming few months are likely to be a bit stressful, as for two months we will be spending most of our time going up and down rivers.

My fears have been somewhat allayed by taking Rosy out on a test cruise.  I wanted to check that all the winter alterations would work out, so off we went down the cut for a bit.  We normally pootle along at between 5 and 7 kph, but on this trip I opened the throttle up, and we whanged along at 9 kph with the engine whirring at 2000 rpm.  The stated maximum is 2200 rpm, but at 2100, darker smoke comes out of the funnel.  We can just about manage 10 kph before the smoke appears.  However, 2000 rpm seemed OK, once we got used to the noise.  We kept it up for two hours, and the trip gave a huge boost to my confidence.

I should add that initially things were a bit iffy.  The engine started OK, but when I put it in gear, a heart-rending, grindingly raunchy sound emanated from the works.  On closer investigation we (or, rather, Mike) determined that problem was the Plummer blocks.  The prop shaft is 7 or 8 feet long (it connects the gear box to the propeller).  It is so long that, if unsupported, it would whip around.  Steel supports, welded to the base-plate of the boat, with a bearing on top, through which the prop shaft passes, are used to provide support.  These bearings are called Plummer blocks (at least, I assume that that is how they are spelt!)  Normally, the rotating part of the Plummer block is firmly attached to the prop shaft.  Not so on Rosy, as when she was fitted with the Kelvin engine (r.i.p.), the prop shaft and prop moved forwards and backwards through the Plummer blocks when the gear box was put into forward and reverse.  Now that Rosy is fitted with a more conventional drive, the prop shaft does not move fore and aft, though during the engine change, we didn't bother to tweak the Plummer blocks.  The grinding noises were caused by the Plummer block sleeve not rotating with the prop shaft, so that the rotational movement was being taken by the shaft bearing upon the sleeve, rather than by the sleeve bearing upon the ball (or they may be roller) bearings.  Why this should suddenly start happening - I don't know.  Fixing the sleeve to the shaft is not too tricky - we just have to find some grub screws of the appropriate size - we already know that they are not metric or whitworth threads.  They look rather fine, so could be BSF or UNF.  We have a magic screw and bolt shop nearby, so we are hoping to find something there when they open after the Easter break. 

Earlier in the week I changed Rosy's batteries.  They have been in for three years, and were not holding their charge very well.

Charles Stirling (of Sterling Marine Power, who manufacture inverters, chargers, battery controllers and other boaty electrical and electronic equipment) reckons that, considering the cost per amp of power delivered by a battery over its whole life, the best battery to use is a standard lead-acid battery.  Sealed and gel batteries will last longer, but they are so much more expensive that, proportionately, the cost per amp will increase.

However, my three sealed Delphi Freedom 'house' batteries have now been replaced (and the matching starter battery) with Delphi Freedom batteries - mainly because I could get them at a very good price.  On investigation, the magic eye built into the batteries showed that only one of the old batteries was knackered.  However, at the price on offer (and the on-going difficulty of sourcing items in foreign countries) changing the whole bank seemed to be a reasonable thing to do.  Actually, the old Freedom battery with the strongest green magic eye, has been recycled into Temujin's starter battery - her old one having given up the ghost.

BACK TO FANNY

I was watching Fanny cleaning herself the other day, and was reminded of when Jasper Carrot went to visit his rich auntie.  He left his vehicle (he was young and impecunious, and was using a milk float at the time) outside the grounds of the house, and was walking up the driveway, when his auntie's dog made a determined attempt to shag his leg.  Auntie saw this and shouted out to Jasper "Kick his balls, Jasper!" which Jasper duly did, causing the dog to howl.  "No!  No!" said Auntie, "Not those ones, the ones on the lawn!"  Jasper then saw two tennis balls on the lawn.  Half an hour later, Jasper was seated in the lounge, with some of Auntie's elderly female friends, when the dog, lying in front of the fire, stared cleaning itself, and had got to the part where he was licking his (now rather bruised) balls.  Jasper stared, entranced by the suppleness of the dog, and its ability to lick its own rear end without any undue effort.  He was concentrating on the contortions of the dog, when he realised that everybody else was staring at him.  Embarrassed, Jasper, referring to suppleness of the dog, said "I wish I could do that!" Auntie replied "Well, give him a bit of that Madeira cake, and he'll probably let you."

(Sorry.  Not in the best of taste)

Toodle pip!!

Bill