JennyMorgan

I suppose I'm a bit of a show-off when it comes to knots, such as tying a clove-hitch from ten foot away simply by a flick of the wrist to throw the two loops over the post or a bowline tied to a ring in seconds. The laugh for me is when I know they are set correctly but nevertheless the boat-owner doubts that such a frivolously tied knot will hold so, when they think I'm not looking, they resort to a May-Pole style wrap to reinforce my minimal, but perfectly adequate knot!

Probably about the last time I had a subscription! It is true that I have probably bought more editions in the last twelve months than I have in the last three or four years. Re BowWave producing his own mag, I wish him well. Possibly easier to attract readers to a new magazine than it is to tempt them back to an old, failed one. I have absolutely no doubts that the East Coast and East Coast Rivers have the resources to fill the pages of a quality magazine. The biggest problem will be, I suspect, in attracting advertisers. AA had a boat show at Oulton Broad last year, plenty of punters but just how many sales I wonder? Will it happen again? Lowestoft used to have a boat show, advertisers soon learned that it was a waste of their money. No, I don't know the answer but I do know that I like a darn good read.

In fairness to me, Bow Wave, I did actually write earlier that AA was getting better, but then Archant has chosen to pull the plug! I have actually bought AA three times in the last year, when there has been sufficient editorial interest. Not so much what I would like to see, more a case of what I don't want to see. Unknown faces at unknown club dinners, fashions, more than one article per edition on Bling Boats, restaurant reviews (of which I could tell you a tale or two) and property reviews. Other than that, a pretty broad church of boating related interest would suit me just fine. In a nutshell an interesting East Coast boating magazine. I stress the word, boating, followed closely by those of East Coast and interesting.

Bow Wave, trying to please the widest possible readership really isn't the answer, as AA's demise has proven. All that happens is that none of the target readership is satiated because 9/10ths of the editorial and 7/10ths of the advertising is irrelevant to their boating. Personally my boating is both salt and freshwater, sometimes by canoe and sometimes by sail, even the odd power-boat ride, but an excess of the wonderful world of glittering, slick bling-boats is a major turn-off for me, best left to Motor Boat & Yachting & Lottery Winners Weekly.

I had this very same conversation with an AA editor who took great offence, was actually quite angry, at my implied criticism. However, methinks that time has proven me right. There really wasn't and isn't any interest in impractical, useless boating fashions designed for forepeak floosies, occasional motorists afloat and poop deck poseurs for example. The whole thing appeared to me to have been written to attract advertisers, understandable, but regretfully not readers, not so understandable. It could & should have worked, with another Maurice Griffiths as editor, a hero to East Coast sailors of or beyond a certain age!

Just ahead of a long line of gently gyrating and swaying caravans, themselves just ahead of an even longer line of impatient company cars all desperate to make it to increasingly impossible appointments. No mention of the beet lorries heading towards Cantley!

I don't think that there will ever be a place for a local news magazine again, the speed of the web has been the death knell to that. However, if the content is well written, well photographed, in other words a pleasure to read, and the content & price is right, then maybe something will rise from the ashes, I hope so.

Neigh! John, 'tis an integral, faux topsail.

Real sailors use at least three 'handkies'!

Many years ago, true story this, I was spray painting the walls of the boatshed white. A good friend of mine came in & commented that he too had had the Health & Safety merchants round and had been ordered, like us, to paint his working area walls white. Seeing how easy it was with a paint spray he asked if he could borrow ours when I had finished. Of course he could, he collected it & I said I would pick it up after he'd finished, which I did. He'd asked a good old Norfolk bor to dew the job and later in the day, when his staff left off and went after their coats, there was howls of amazement and anger as it was realised he'd sprayed over everything! I couldn't stop laughing when I say the silhouettes of the previously hanging coats on the previously grey staff room wall! Must be down to the straight family trees and lead pipes so common in Norfolk!

Heavens above, Poppy, you live dangerously! Out on the roads you must suffer the glares & curses of motorists astern of your caravan, out on the river, in your sailing cruiser, you must also suffer the glares & curses of motorists-afloat that are astern of you and also determined to pass you!

Gosh. we must be cousens, 72 times removed!

Grab a granny nights with an abundant supply of old boilers, older hens, can be great, so long as they don't all start shrieking with attention grabbing laughter at the same time!

Poppy, surely not a CC member?!?

We were in the pub at Coldham Hall a few years ago now, along with our four daughters. They had a 'no kids after nine o'clock rule', fair enough and nothing about dogs though. We ordered food just after seven, as did several of our friends, also with their children, and dogs. No food yet but at nine sharp the landlord asked those of us with children to leave, actually insisting, even though we were still waiting for our order. Well, sod him, we bagged up the kids and set off for our boat, followed by the best part of thirty of our friends, and dogs, we were all part of a sailing club meet. Landlord came running after us, your food is ready! Hard luck says us, you eat thirty odd meals, and off we went to Surlingham Ferry where we were all welcomed, dogs and kids alike! The following summer the then landlord went bankrupt, no tears from the rhond folk, hardly surprising. We had tried to support him. Pubs catering for the holiday trade, especially families, need to be flexible.

Perhaps they were more flabberghasted at your half undressed, getting ready for bed appearance, the kids probably have nightmares!

Is that the 955I R or 955I L? Left or ride hander? Amazing, no indignant CC members in our midst!

Dave, I'm on first name terms with most of the dogs that regularly parade past my front door. Fido & Fang being very popular . . . . . . .

AA once paid its primary contributors, then it took to relying on 'vanity' writers. Some interesting, good quality one-offs surfaced but the consistent quality from professionals such as 'Bowsprit' eventually deserted AA's pages. There used to be a fine publication called 'East Coast Digest' but that eventually died too, great shame but as has been written, maybe an online version would be the way forward. There is so much of interest on the Broads, if you know where to look.

John, quite a few dog owners firmly believe that their canine cherubs can do no wrong, and that for me is the heart of the problem. As one who has a public footpath running over his land I frequently see both sides of the debate!

Nothing like skating on thin ice! http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/columnists/steve-downes/opinion_keep_dogs_out_of_our_pubs_and_restaurants_1_3848578 Errr, think I'll keep hush!

In Lidl's today, see that they sell frozen breast of muscovy. At least I don't have to administer the coup de grace, always does my head in when they run off quacking with their heads facing the wrong way before keeling over!!

It's not the Caravan Club terrorists that worry me, it's the leather clad, mid life crisis blokes on two wheels that give me torrential, industrial grade Tena moments! Not so much in me being held up, that just doesn't happen, or when being overtaken from behind, which happens frequently, but when the mad bug#ers insist on overtaking oncoming traffic on a bend with less than half a nanosecond to spare, gets me everytime. Especially prevalent behaviour in the Peak District and anywhere between Donny and Stalham on a Friday p.m..

Poppy wrote: Life is like a cigarette - to be burned right down to the but! That Poppy, depends on the condition of your butt!