Vaughan

I see in the EDP - and the national papers - that someone has had a Hoopoe in their garden in Norfolk for 3 days. Where I live, the first call of the Hoopoe in the morning is like the first cuckoo of spring. I saw one 2 weeks ago, on the same piece of canal bank where they had successfully bred last year, so it may be one of that brood. Since then the weather around here has turned very bad for the last 2 weeks and I have not seen or heard another one. They have probably had enough sense to stay in Africa for a bit! The bee-eaters don't seem to have arrived yet either and we usually get a lot of those, in the vineyards. Don't tell me . . . . global warming!

As I seem to be up and reflecting on life, in the early hours, let's see if I can catch some as well! My education was at public school, which was also a naval college, so I spent all the time in the uniform of a cadet, RNR. As it was also single sex (as all public schools were then) there was no question of "gender"! Above all, there was naval discipline. I didn't find this oppressive ; in fact it was delivered with justice and if you chose not to conform you got a hard time, which you knew you deserved. I am afraid public school in those days was more akin to a prison sentence - perhaps it still is. Personally I don't think it did me any harm, although we didn't really know anything about "girls" until we left school. That was a great pity, in one's formative years but it was "the system". I am reminded of the famous book "We joined the Navy" by John Winton (whom I met) where the admiral in charge of the cadet selection board for Dartmouth is telling his board members what to look for when selecting suitable candidates. "What we are looking for is half - wits : the Navy will then add the other half in its own way and in its own time!" Am I being flippant, as MM fears he might be? I don't think so. Surely education is supposed to prepare you for life; not just offer you academic excuses to opt out of it? Are children taught with proper discipline these days, and thus learn self discipline? The other key word for me, is pride. Pride in one's self and in what one is achieving. Are children allowed to be proud of themselves any more? Competitive sport is frowned on, because when you win, that is unfair to the losers! That is, if the school even still has a sports field. I wonder if Wellington was right after all, that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton?

I think I had learned all of my "dirty words" by the time I left prep school! Especially the more anatomical ones, and apart from a few that were added later by the Army. Here is the difference between swearing - using naughty words for emphasis or even punctuation - and Blasphemy, which is religious. Good Grief, for instance, should be written with capitals, as it refers to God. Also Bloody, which is a shortening of "by our Lady" - who is the Virgin Mary. "Blast" doesn't sound like much but it actually means God blast you. I use naughty words sometimes (if the swear filter lets me) but only to add emphasis or perhaps allliteration, to a sentence. They can be quite phonetic! Trouble is nowadays, the goalposts are changing almost every week. I remember getting hauled into our head office one day for an interview with "Human Resources" because I had referred to a party of company auditors who had turned up un-announced during a July Saturday turn-round day, as "you people". Apparently, this is a serious insult these days. I thought it was simply a grammatical plural! Gawd 'elp us . . . .

And in the recent meeting at Potter, they noted that the fall in the ground between the upper Thurne and Yarmouth Haven is only about 1 metre. So if the Bure is now even one foot shallower, that has taken a full third off the gradient.

But it always used to be, and I speak as a live-aboard. Think of all those houseboats, available for hire by Blakes and Hoseasons in the 60's and 70's. Where are they now? Banned by the BA. What has changed is the attitude of authority. I also wish Natasha a good success in finding something which will accommodate her in peace and without prejudice. All the same, she needs to be aware that this will be an uphill battle, these days.

This is the bit of the story I love best : pausing to make comment on the state of repair of the quay heading! Well done, Peter, yours were the actions of someone who didn't flap, and sorted it all out. By the way, I wouldn't have been wearing a lifejacket at Hardley Cross, either.

Hence the continued existence of the hard gravel bottom on the old cattle swim at Stokesby, which has been there since the retreat of the last ice age. My only comment on the EDP article would be that, in my opinion, the Bure hump is further upstream, starting at Scaregap Farm and going round the next 3 bends towards Stracey. By the way, it is worth also reading the comments which are attached to the EDP article.

Billow looks very much like "Jenetty", owned by Bobby Stephenson of Stephensons Steel Works in Norwich and moored all season on a buoy on Wroxham Broad, outside his own private boathouse. He had his own full time boatman, complete with reefer jacket and white cap, who looked after her. Bobby didn't do any sailing, but loved being on Wroxham Broad at weekends and watching the racing, with occasional trips to Oulton Regatta. I believe she was winterised somewhere on Lake Lothing in winter, and the boathouse is now owned by Mike Barnes. She looked very much like Billow, except the hull was painted an aquamarine (chartreuse?) colour. Maybe @Tobster remembers her?

Perhaps the scandal of Jenners basin is very soon forgotten these days. You are rather quick to condemn these people. Have you ever been one? Do you understand their way of life? Never mind, Fred - very soon by the sound of it, we will be able to load them all on an aircraft and fly them off somewhere else. Then you can enjoy the place from your own perspective. Surely the Broads, and the pleasure we all get from them, are steeped in history? And the history of the Broads contains the basic concept of living on boats. Your confusion of this tradition, with litter louts, appears blinkered and biased.

Sorry old chap, but it wasn't. The basin was part of a 3 phase planning approval, for use as marina moorings attached to a sports centre and clubhouse. As it happens, Jenners ran out of money before the 3rd phase was realised. All the same I worked there at the time - and so did you - and I don't remember the basin being used for anything other than moorings. It was never used for the turn-round of hire boats, since no facilities, such as water, electric and pumpouts, were ever attached to it.

What am I supposed to see? Jenners Basin was not a lay-by.

I have a feeling you are "painting yourself into a corner". Anti-social behaviour is accepted since it exists on the streets of every town and city in the British Isles, while the police, who have the powers, have rendered themselves powerless to prevent it. And I speak as an ex Norfolk special constable.

Well, I would suggest that the amount the BA were prepared to pay for lawyers (at our expense) persuaded the courts to see it differently. Have you never heard of a travesty of justice?

Sorry, but you just haven't been reading, or have preferred to ignore, my previous posts. So what was Jenners Basin supposed to be, then? The planning existed and the moorings were provided, at an affordable rate. But we can't have them spoiling the view from our lounge windows, can we? Which, funnily enough, had a great deal to do with the BA's persecution of Jenners, all along.

So what's your solution, Fred? Shall we just lock 'em all up and get them out of the way? It has become obvious that the BA would like to. . . .

I would suggest that too much wild mooring has been lost because the landowners of any simple piece of river bank have learned how to be greedy enough to expect people to pay for it. If you are looking for something that has grown "out of control" - that is it.

I have suggested above why the Broads situation may be entirely different, owing to bank ownership. In my own memory, however, it "pales into insignificance" compared with the number of houseboats in the 50's and 60's. Just because we wish to allow the current inhabitants the chance to find their own affordable arrangements doesn't mean there is going to be an increase out of control. Unless, of course, the current slump in hire boat tourism leads to a follow-on slump in the price of second hand cruisers. As it has always done before. And in that case, the Broads will have a lot more to worry about than this!

I appreciate what Fred, Dom and Cheesy say but there is one salient point : All the river banks on the Broads are privately owned and there is no towpath, since they were originally made navigable for commercial traffic by sail power, not horses. This alone, makes the Broads unique. On all of the canal system, both the waterway and its banks are wholly owned by the waterway authority. So they have complete control over who moors there and under what conditions. The Thames also has a public towpath along all of its length. Marinas on the Broads already provide facilities for mooring customers : water, shore power, shore toilets and showers, car parking and waste disposal - even wifi - all included in the rent. So living on a boat there (as opposed to spending a week on one's boat on the same mooring) does not put any extra strain on the facilities at all. You think I keep going on about Jenners Basin? Let's consider it for a moment : An off river, quay headed basin, built with full planning permission exclusively for private moorings. All the land around on an otherwise un-inhabited island. Access by road for island parking over its own private road bridge. Drinking water from artesian well. 10 minutes by bus for those with jobs in Norwich. Boatyard facilities such as diesel and pumpout easily available at the other end of the island, since all boats were tolled, insured and had a current BSS. Yes, they did! They weren't doing anyone any harm at all and were not even disturbing the badgers that live in the railway embankment, nor the foxes, nor the pheasants. It is a lovely, tranquil and private place to live. I know - I grew up there. But their peace was shattered by the BA, whose then Chair decided they were "feral people" and set about 10 years of deliberate persecution until they were finally thrown out onto the river system and the landowner himself had to sell up to pay his legal fees. And now we sit here, wondering what to do about "the live-aboard problem"? @BroadsAuthority need to embrace the fact that their persecution of Jenners moorings has, sure enough, rebounded on them and allow flexibility in the use of residential moorings, which have been a tradition on the Broads for literally hundreds of years. It's not a problem. Unless they want to make it one.

You can always moor on the BA pontoon, just on the Yarmouth side of the Breydon Bridge, which is there for boats wishing to wait for the tide in the Yacht Station. We have often used it before.

How about Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey, from Gotterdammerung? I was up and around about 3 hours ago as well, but I slunk off back to bed without disturbing any of you . . . .

Which I most certainly don't ; never have done and don't intend to. Unless they are drawn to my attention by this forum. I cannot see any relevance whatever, to that iconic moment in honouring one of the country's most famous comedians. Unless you are suggesting that all this internet blogging is just slapstick comedy. Which, of course, it is!

And even that is not the main point : these little "peeping Toms" are actually earning a living out it. This is a rather nasty form of voyeurism.

I wouldn't say that was stupid. You researched the tides and you kept very good contact with the rangers, who I am sure would have recommended not going across if they thought it was too rough. All the same, Breydon can be pretty "aggressive" at times! What bothers me a bit, is what effect this is going to have on hire boats, if the tides are so far out of time and much higher than usual.

Oh God, what a muddle we are getting ourselves into, in our "civilised world". Oh happy band of pilgrims, look upward to the skies : Where such a light affliction shall win so great a prize. Hymns (A&M) 629.

So are we saying that this is all funded by advertising? Edited to add : Thank you very much for reply. I am not being flippant : I am actually very keen to see how this monster feeds itself!