Planes, trains and submarines

Since Mandalay was last away I’ve been in Myanmar and I wrote about it HERE.

Mandalay’s away again and this summer’s water-tales will appear here.

We’re two days out, settled in a favourite spot at Cranfleet.

Planes drop out of the sky above me into East Midlands Airport. Freight and passenger trains criss-cross the junctions of the rivers Trent and Soar and the Dog-shit, sorry, Erewash Canal (see above) and David Cameron is taking us all for a ride on a submarine.

Dave’s been in Scotland today, talking up the threat from North Korea and using it to part-justify replacing Britain’s fleet of Trident nuclear powered-and-armed submarines. He’s also been veiling a threat that Scottish Independence might SNP-threaten the thousands of jobs that Trident sustains there.

If he wants to secure a No vote in the September 2014 Independence referendum, he’d do as well to threaten all the Scots living in London with the loss of their right to work in England (why not, if Scotland leaves the EU in the process of leaving the UK?).

That wouldn’t cost him – us – maybe as much as £100 billion.

Just the four new submarines, needed by the mid 2020s, account for at least as much as £25 billion of that. And that’s maybe 35% of Britain’s total military equipment budget, part of – ridiculously – Britain having the fourth largest defence budget in the world.

I don’t think Trident – or whatever we call its replacement – is ever going to be of much use to us. Kim Jong-un is not deterred by our deterrent. Why would he be? Whatever he does with his maybe-missiles, what is there for us to target-in-return? That big empty tower block in Pyongyang? The mass games? Lots of poor people?

HS2 will cross the canal right here.

High Speed 2, the extension to England’s high speed rail network of the (too distant, please just get on with it) future, is going to come sweeping around the sandstone cliffs just to the south of here, and then right over where I’m sitting on some super-concrete, flood-plain crossing viaduct-on-stilts before zooming northwards (a bit).

HS2 is currently costed at about £18 billion; a big figure and one that is bound to get bigger by the whatever-time it opens (2032 or so is the plan).

But, even at that cost, I think super-fast rail connections between many of England’s major cities – and that London – and the cities of mainland Europe are likely to be pretty useful to lots of us, not just those whose jobs depend on it.

Those behind HS2 claim it will support indirectly 30,000 jobs plus directly and temporarily 9,500 in construction and directly and permanently another 1,500.

Unions representing Barrow-in-Furness shipyard workers think 16,000 jobs are at risk if Trident is not replaced though only 520 people are employed directly by the Trident programme.

Estimates of how many jobs an infrastructure project will create or support are always a bit finger-in-the air. Whatever the accuracy of the Trident or HS2 numbers, lots of jobs are dependent on each.

I don’t think we should be choosing between the two.

This is not a one or the other situation.

It’s a one or five of the other situation.

Over its service lifetime Trident will cost £100 billion and will earn not one penny in revenue. For that money we could have five times as much high speed rail as is currently planned. It would be possible to connect cities like Bristol, Liverpool and Newcastle. Cardiff. Glasgow and Edinburgh. Yes, Scotland even. No, Scotland for sure.

It would serve all of Britain, not just parts of England.

It would support and create many more jobs than Trident.

It would be more useful to the likes of you and me.

And it would be just as good a deterrent to the likes of Kim Jong-un as Trident is.

Tony Blair said of Trident, “The expense is huge and the utility … non-existent in terms of military use,” He could clearly see the force of the “common sense and practical argument” against Trident, but in the end he thought giving it up would be “too big a downgrading of our status as a nation …”. [The Guardian]

Grrrrr. Bark. Woof.

Not the boating event of the century.

This is a bit of a long and boring post for most. Apologies for that; it’s a one-off hopefully. I’ve written on the same subject before here and here and in Waterways World magazine too.

Leaving Harefield Marina before 8am, by mid-day I was turning from the Grand Union mainline onto the Paddington Arm and heading for central London.

British Waterways were pretty quick off the mark in spotting the potential for boaters to enjoy the 2012 London Olympics; canals run right through the Olympic Park and beside the stadium. Security concerns mean the cuts closest to the Park need to be closed to navigation during the games themselves but that still leaves most of London’s canals in use this summer.

BW launched its Olympic activities with grand, aspirational words about bringing the canal network and the games together to create what sounded like it might be the boating event of the century. The greatest rally of them all.

Then they ran a consultation talking of existing moorings being available for booking and additional moorings being installed on the canals (and the non-tidal Thames) as far out as Tring (50 miles and 50 locks from the Park).

The consultation asked how much per night we would be willing to pay to use these moorings. Drop down menus offered a range of price options from £10 a night to £150 a night. Boaters tend to be financially sensible people, I don’t suppose many clicked the £150 option.

Then in April of 2011 BW launched its (functionally annoying) mooring booking website, releasing some but not all of the mooring sites for sale so it was difficult to know that you were buying what best suited your needs or desires.

BW explained that any boat without a paid for mooring would not be allowed into (or to remain in) an Olympic Exclusion Zone (what a nice name) running from 3 July to 10 September, closing a number of key locks and junctions and covering all of the Regent’s Canal and Hertford Union.

Worst of all was the pricing which was set at the higher end of the scale. I paid almost £900 for three weeks in East London. That’s a lot of money to leave my boat somewhere I can normally leave it for free.

By April of 2012 it was becoming clear that sales were very slow. The boating event of the century was in doubt. There were also big problems brewing amongst the maybe 150 ‘continuous cruisers’ who spend all their time on London’s canal but do not have a permanent home mooring there; they would be forced to leave London for the summer but without any provision in place to make it possible for them to moor up and keep on getting into work or school.

Waking up to all of this very belatedly BW changed things, introducing a ‘Summer Licence’ for £360 that allows already london-based boaters to stay in the Olympic Exclusion Zone (but not to use the visitor moorings they normally over-use) and offering a refund to people like me, reducing our maximum spend to £360 and allowing us to stay in the Exclusion Zone beyond the end date of our booking (but not to enter earlier bizarrely) and to use the ‘premium’ mooring sites we had booked.

BW also closed a number of those sites, converting the one at Mile End into a floating market, offering discounted access to trading boats, meaning that my three different weeks on three different sites was ‘consolidated’ and I will now spend the full three weeks at Old Ford Lock on Victoria park.

I’m better off than I was, getting more for less of my money, but by the time BW had this late change of position I had already booked a holiday overseas and a marina for the boat for the period during which, originally, I would not have been allowed to stay in the Exclusion Zone. I could have stayed in central London all summer.

Last night I arrived at the boundary of the Olympic Exclusion Zone here at Little Venice. It’s further east than where it was originally intended to be, an additional BW cock-up that has resulted in the moorings here being crowded with boats, some of which are ‘summer licensed’ for £360, some of which have paid nothing. BW is now refunding those who have paid for what others are getting for free.

Ten weeks free mooring at Little Venice is a no-brainer option (unless you want to be truly close to the games). Just up the cut in Paddington Basin and a little further on (but both not really anything much closer to the Olympic site) boats are moored and are paying at least £360 to be there.

All this is disappointing, but no so disappointing as the overall outcome.

Setting out to create a fantastic Olympic boating event was a great idea but as of last night only 60 boats are inside the Olympic Exclusion Zone with only another 40 expected.

As I cruised down to London this Spring I met many boaters (mainly going the other way) who said they were steering well clear of London this summer; too expensive, too complicated.

There are tens of thousands of boats out there on the UK’s canal network, only 100 boaters have been attracted to spend any part of this summer in London, one of the two greatest cities on earth at the time of one of the two greatest shows on earth. What a pity.

What a pity that BW did not listen to the original consultation (results never published) or to those of us who contacted them, or wrote about this, between April 2011 and April 2012.

What a pity that BW procured the services of and listened to, Madge Bailey Associates to advise them on this at the outset. Madge ‘not-me-guv’ Bailey is a ‘Waterways Consultant’ (and it seems something of an idiot).

Her cheap looking website says,

Madge Bailey Associates have a passion for the inland waterways – for their special character and the diverse experiences they offer people. We understand how to balance their many functions, enhance their connectivity with land, and, most importantly, how to unlock their potential.

Not in this case. Madge’s passion for the waterways got BW (whose lower order staff have been working hard to make this work) into this mess and we are now in a position where during the summer of 2012 there will be fewer boats moving about the waterways of London than in the summer of 2011 and 2012. London could easily have accommodated many, many more.

That’s an Olympic shame. But let’s have fun anyway.

London 2012 : My Olympic Story

This is Harefield Marina.

Harefield is in Hillingdon, close to Denham and Uxbridge.

For the past few weeks while I’ve been camping in an olive grove, sunning myself (thirty-seven degrees minimum) on the brilliant beaches of southern Albania and swimming in the warm, crystal clear waters of the Ionian Sea, Mandalay has been moored in that line of boats, getting rained on.

It’s all change now. Boat and boater are re-united, the British summer has arrived at last and we’re off to the Olympics (I’m in the 4x100M Relay).

The Olympic Stadium is about twenty-five miles beyond the hedgerow in this photograph. It would take fifty minutes to drive there.

By boat it’s about twelve hours away.

I’m heading for Victoria Park in hyper-hip-Hackney, to a mooring booked for the duration of the Games.

For the next month I’m going to describe my Olympic experience here.

This is my London 2012 story.

Let’s hope it’s a good one.

This is not Tirana. These are not my photos.

Koli Vercani took these photographs of Tirana and more like them that can be found here.
Koli Vercani has taken other great photographs of Albania that can be found here.

What’s Albania Like? 3.Very Central Tirane in Pictures.

There is a big space at the centre of Tirane, much more than a square though that’s what it’s callled. Skanderbej Square. That’s him on the horse. It was a building site when I was here in July and in October, it’s almost finished now. None of these photographs are very good but maybe together, and with the song below them, they convey some sense of just what a cracking place to be it is.

Hapagrup nr.3 Ilirian Pema performing live at Scanderbeg square in Tirana https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hapagrup/267354540004663 video by erandistic

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Women I Honour Today.

I posted for International Women’s Day today over at Stephen Barker Says.

BOGUJEVCI // HISTORI PAMORE was at the Galleria e Arteve in Tirane in Feb/Mar 2012, will go to Belgrade later this year and then hopefully to Manchester.

What’s Albania Like? A short walk on the edge of Tirane (with pictures).

A twenty minute bus ride, a cheeky lift and a short walk took us about 5K north-ish as the crow flies from the centre of Tirane, to Babrru on the very edge of the city. Detail of where and how to get there at page bottom.

From the bus stop we were drawn to take a look at a small mosque and almost immediately as we continued up hill from that we got good views over the city and toward the mountains. It was not clear where the new tarmac road might lead but we were assured it would take us to where we wanted to go.

A short distraction followed as we gave the once over to a totally rust-free 1992 VW T4. Shitet! Looked great, not sure about the price and online tittle-tattle says they are slow and thirsty. If you know any different please call.

The van owner ran us a few minutes up the hill to where the newish tarmac dried up and we wandered into the blurred edge of the city and surrounding countryside.

Albania is known for the 750,000 bunkers that Enver Hoxha’s regime scattered all over the country, to defend the adthe [fatherland] from imagined foes, and where they remain, like glitter on the face the day after the communist party. Most are a small, legendarily strong, pre-fab concrete mushroom that can be seen all over the place.

Others are more substantial, more interesting.

There are perhaps as many as ten of these cut into the hillside here.

The dairy (photo at top of page) was just below the line of bunkers (you can see one top-right) and the three women that work there were between milkings so they had a little time to chat. Twenty-five cows are milked three times a day, giving 15 litres a day each and being expected to calve 15 times. They were eating dry maize and being bedded on moist, fir-tree-smelling wood chippings, the straw from last summer’s harvest having run out by now.

There is never anything wrong with a nice cow picture. This one is a prize cow. Hence the natty headgear.

Passing by again on the way back later we bought a litre and a half of straight-from-the-cow milk – lovely it was – for 57p which is 17p less than milk in the shop here and 12p more than a British farmer would get for it. Hence the rise of the mega-dairy; if you want to know more about that, listen to The Archers.

We walked on and away from any homes along a path where a small old woman in a black dress was coping ably with the big bundle of sticks strapped to her back whilst the teenage boy in jeans with her loped alongside idly carrying nothing but the axe. Stereotypes huh.

Two ponies came our way and we came upon a pond with frogs guarding their spawn and newts swimming about. Not seen a newt for ages.

In part now the hillside was almost clear of the scrub that covered it elsewhere as preparations were made for the cultivation of grapes for red wine with a first harvest expected two years from now.

At the end of the cleared land we turned back rather than get lost in the scrub and retraced our steps back to the tarmac road. From here we took a left up towards the olive trees on top of a small hill that we had been able to see all afternoon. Five minutes later it was just before sunset as we sat amongst those trees with a view of all Tirane and way beyond in all directions.

Walking back down for the bus bats beat their way around the houses and the Moon and Venus shone in a clear, dark blue sky above the minaret of the mosque (more damn stereotypes).

We saw a dog sitting in front of the simplest of shops and we stopped in a couple of places for provisions (biscuits mainly).

With less traffic now the bus back into town only took 10 minutes.

Later in the evening someone, only half joking, called Babrru “that slum”.

Not the bit we saw.

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Where?

To see a google map of Brabbu and the spot from where we watched the sunset click here.

Getting there.

Take the Tirane – Babrru – Paskasqan bus from close to the Mosque on Skanderbeu Square or where the flowers are sold on the street behind that scruffy piece of land (where I’m told to expect to see a big mosque) behind Opera. They run every 20 minutes, it’s 20 minute journey in traffic and it costs 30 Leke. Then make an easy fifteen minute walk up the street with the pretty small white Mosque on it. There are good views over north Tirane and towards Mount Dajtit When the road drops down after maybe 1K there is the chance to turn left. Take it and within a few hundred metres you are in opening countryside.

Sunset over Tirane.

For the Olympic boaters amongst you … I posted something here.

I’ve been looking forward to this summer for ages, hoping that the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics could turn out to be the boating event of the century given the location of the Olympic Park in relation to London’s waterways. 

Is it possible that far from being the boating even of the century, the London 2012 Olympics will mark a period when very few boats are on central London’s waterways?

More? … Click here

What’s Albania Like?

A lot of people ask me that. Forty odd years of mad-cap communist isolation threw a cloak over this particular corner of Europe such that despite its proximity to pretty well known Croatia, Italy and Greece, and even though the dictatorship ended over twenty years ago, Albania is still relatively unknown.

I wonder how many of us can even place Albania on a map with absolute confidence.

I’ve been here a month now on this visit, and just more than a month altogether on previous visits, so I know very little as yet. I’m going to start posting a few pictures and stories and see if they don’t add up over time to form some sort of impression of the place.

A few for starters then. What’s Albania like?

The idea of being able to get a late-night taxi from the same place you get a pizza is genius. It’s advertised, – Pizza Taxi – all over the place. You do so often want both at the same time and their clever co-ordination keeps the taxi fare down and the pizza hot. Then I learnt that ‘taxi’ means ‘delivery’.

If you don’t want your eggs to be coming courtesy of a battery hen you need to be seeking out and buying veze fshati, village eggs. The price of an egg is a good relative-economic-circumstances indicator and half a dozen of the factoried ones will set you back about 50p here. Veze fshati cost twice that price.

The architect of the communist dictatorship that ran from the end of WWII to five years after his death in 1985 was (Uncle) Enver Hoxha, a former teacher, sometime Tirane tobacconist and big fan of anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism (aren’t we all?). He was originally buried in the Martyrs’ cemetery close to the statue of Mother Albania (Nuna Shqipari) but his body was moved in 1992 to Sharra cemetery where he’s buried, without grandeur, beside his brother and amongst his countrymen and women.

The large square in the very heart of Tirane has just been redesigned (using a loan provided by the Emir of Kuwait). The buildings around the main square include government offices, the National Museum, the Opera house and very lovely mosque. Lots of young trees have been planted. On the grassed area in the centre of this square that shares his name still stands the statue of the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg on his horse. At night the buildings are all well lit and the speed of the cars whizzing by is something to behold.

Tirane is a pretty new city. Durres, Albania’s second city (first village?) existed for 2200 years before Tirane. Even in the 1930s it was quicker and easier to cross the Adriatic from Durres to Bari in Italy than to travel inland to Tirane which only became Albania’s capital city in 1920. We made that sea crossing twice this week on an abandoned- due-to-snow-and-ice trip to France. The Adrea boat leaves Durres at 11pm and takes 9 hours. Two people can share a good cabin for less than 100 euros. One person with a car pays about the same. Bargain.

Albanians don’t say Albania, they say Shqiperi. And speak Shqip. (The q is almost silent).