The Great Weld 1.1

A decent cooked breakfast, then off to Sawley to speak to the brokerage people.

Apparently, they want 6% for selling Andromeda. That’s a bit crazy I think. 6% of 40k is £2,220, so we’ll have to ask a minimum of £42,500 if we do it though them. Ever penny equates to new furniture.

Apparently though, you just turn up with a boat for sale when you’re ready and they sort it there and then, no queuing or waiting or being on a list for ages. Sweet.

Jema is away doing a Mantis Kung-Fu (Tang Lang) thing today. The ‘master’ is coming over from Italy, and they’re all a tizzy. It’s ironic that this man is apparently called ‘Mario’, and that they hope to go up a level when he appears. She’s probably standing under a freezing waterfall all afternoon while padawans beat her with sticks.

I had a go at removing the wooden A-frame and the canopy etc., but it was still raining all day so I didn’t get a lot done. I can’t even see a single screw hole. I did manage to clear out the bow cupboard, with my zombie hand and all, and stash everything in Steves paint store. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon fixing things that needed fixing and putting new lights up and stuff.

Tried mumbling ‘brains’ and chasing the cat with the hand, but she’s not impressed.

The Great Weld 1

Dutifully, we cancelled all appointments and took Andromeda over to Mills Dock Yard on the Long Eaton branch this morning.

It’s a nice run, but a short one. For a few minutes as you come off the Soar, you’re in the flow of the Trent and the pull of Thrumpton Wier. You can feel the push of the side wind here, coming from Sawley. There’s a great view of the open river, the cabins all along the back moorings, and of our ever present power station.

As I’m forever quoting, Andromeda is 70’ and has no bow-thrusters. She can be a heavy bugga when you’re trying to squeeze her under a narrow bridge with a strong side current.

While Jem wasn’t there, like and idiot, I jumped off with the rope to take a turn and bring her in. As I’m in mid air I caught the Morse control with my jacket. Andromeda is suddenly gunning full pelt for the bottom of the gates. This puts me on the bank, trying to stop her smashing into a lock with just a rope to hold onto. There’s water churning everywhere, tourists watching, and 25 tons of steel, pets and furniture heading for a pathetically flimsy wooden barrier that’s holding back a couple of hundred thousand gallons of H2O.

I did stop her, with an adrenalin boosted panic worthy of the pages of Marvel, but I’ve taken great chunks out of my left hand from rope burn. This hurts like a sod, but it’s all ‘seepy’ now and looks fascinatingly like flayed zombie flesh.

Jem rarely joins me for the short runs, which is a real shame, as she has to play ferrying cars around. I met her at Trent Lock tea rooms outside the Steamboat.

Jema captured a rare moment of me getting some proud windlass action. Jem normally does the locks and swing bridges and all that malarkey and, in the last 6 years, this is only the 4^th time she let me touch a lock gate. I’m sure she hides the windlass to stop me meddling.

“We’ll expect you Saturday, bright and early” Steve said on Thursday. You forget sometimes how the pace of life works on the river. “We’ll, probably get you in the dock Wednesday” he says on arrival, “…or Thursday, but we’ll try for Wednesday, eh?”

This’ll give me time to take the awning and A frame cupboard off ready to get in there and open up the floor. I’ve no idea how that thing comes apart, but I’m pretty sure that an hour or two with a Leatherman and a paint scraper and I’ll get it off a treat. Steve can put it back on though, so Jemas pretty blue awning fits cool afterwards. Anyway, it started raining this afternoon so that skuppered that for a plan.

It’s odd actually; I keep looking at the rain like we’re still on the river and worrying about flooding and stuff, but it really doesn’t matter on the canal.

So now we’re perched in the dock mouth, ready and waiting to go. There’s a list of jobs as long as my arm that need doing, but we need to be all sorted and moved into the new gaff within the next 2 weeks. I’ll probably have to take a couple of days off at short notice (Wednesday at least please Debs, if you’re reading this) to get stuff done.

It all seems very final. I’m sure the house will be really cool, and a whole new adventure, but I’m really gonna miss the boat and the river.

We managed to make it over to Shining Cliff, for a social in the evening (of Helen and Terrys making). A couple of hours of caching up with good mates, Star Wars related board games (Epic Duels, with Captain Depper, Terry, Mr. Lees, Lorrie etc.) and a bottle of red, put a pleasant cap on the day.

DVD Review - The Bicycle Thief (1948)

Back in the days when I was a film student, this was a film that I was ‘forced to watch’ where I came away feeling as thought the director had taught me a valuable lesson.

Shot in the streets and alleys of post-World War II Rome, Vittorio De Sica's groundbreaking 1947 drama uses the real-life contemporary life to frame the heart tugging drama of a desperate father whose new job is put in jeopardy when a street thief steals his bicycle.

Here we follow the fortune of Antonio, a family man whose wife hocks their household linens so that they can reclaim (from the same pawnshop) a bicycle that is required for the new job, delivering cinema posters, he’s been offered. Honest employment is scarce, the family is poor; and so much depends on retrieving the bike.

This is a film you’ll not forget. This remarkable 1947 drama of desperation and survival in Italy's devastating post-war depression earned De Sica a well-deserved Oscar for its lasting presence and undeniable sense of humanity.

De Sica pioneered a lean, stark and honest delivery by using non-professional performers and the style, with its subject so steeped in the hard post-war life, epitomizes the Italian neorealist approach (with its mix of real life details, poetic imagery, and genuinely warm and heartfelt sentimentality).

There are no subplots and just a few key characters. The dialogue is the day-to-day talk of poor people struggling to live through the reality of the depression. This film has an undeniable air of honesty and stylised documentary that has earned it a well deserved place on the bookshelves of every film theorist, eager film student, world cinema aficionado, and practiced movie critic for the last 20 years.

Movie: 4 out of 5
Extras: 2 out of 5

Daisy Ashford - AKA Andromeda

As promised, here are a few collated bits and pieces we’ve found out about the boat.

Andromeda was once called Daisy Ashford and was renamed, by Tony and Jenny Conway (the previous owners), as all their boats had been called Andromeda and they wanted to keep up the tradition.

She was built in 1974, by Rugby boat builders, for Desmond and Katie Fforde, as a hotel boat (hence the 8mm hull) to work as part of a pair with a Ricky butty called Litchfield. Back then she had a wooden cabin top, a large dining room, galley and crew quarters, a long open well deck (with, as a later addition, an A frame cover) and they took up to 8 passenger around the ‘Avon Ring’ and north in the dry weather.

Katie wrote the first of her a best selling books based on her life aboard Daisy Ashford, called ‘Life Skills’ (which has, I like to think, her on the cover) and, though a book called ‘Precious Cargo’, Jema managed to track her down on the net and say hi. It’s crazy to think that, indirectly, our Andromeda has been the inspiration of literature.

Desmond and Katie came to visit us this afternoon, before we begin the process of putting Andromeda on the market and to tell us more about her history. This was the first time they had seen her for 27 years and it was great to find out that the engine was original (a stalwart Lister HR2) and why things are as they are. They were lovely folks and it was great for us to share memories and to find out more about her. Desmond was also a boat safety inspector and it was brilliant for him to cast an eye over the current survey with the knowledge of the man who had her built in the first place.

A lot has changed. Daisy Ashford was bought by ‘Schools Abroad’ for educational cruises between Warwick and Stratford and was rebuilt (and the steel top added) by Tim Higton after a fire in 1982. She then lived on the Grand Union until she fell into the hands of Jenny and Tony Conway (who fitted her out as a comfortable live-aboard and raised 2 children aboard her) and then, finally, ourselves. Worthy of a ‘Daisy Ashford Owners Club’ almost.

Since we’ve had her we’ve done a bit of work too. We converted the single cabin into a web-ready study, rewired all the electrics, fitted new appliances (be gone, evil gas fridge), repainted her, had the engine serviced a few times, revapped the Borg-Warner gearbox, generally decorated and we've had her out and pitched her on a regular basis.

Andromeda is now a ‘classic boat’, but to them it seemed like it was just like yesterday (Jema was 3 when Daisy Ashford was built). Katie spoke fondly of the galley and can still remember where everything was. I’ll swear Desmond may have just got the beginnings of a light tear in his eye when he saw the engine (which, for the first time ever, refused to start cos the battery was so low, typical).

I’m quite sure we’ll see them again, as Katie was curious about corsetry and jewellery and she and Jem seemed to get on famously.

Damn nice way to spend a day off work, and it was a good excuse to have a tidy up.

We got a Date

The new house is a go. Time to move on.

Completion is, allegedly, on the 17th of Feb.

In Jema's words: "I'm really nervous now. What if it's haunted?"

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DVD Review – Street With No Name

In 1948 life was black and white, Mulder and Scully hadn’t yet shattered the credibility of the G Men, and organised crime cruised the "street with no name" that ran from coast to coast across the US of A.

Almost like some ‘fly-on-the-wall’ of the time, this shameless FBI propaganda reel aimed to educate American audiences that, unless citizens themselves were more alert and started fighting back against crime, they would soon be will be overrun by the hoodlums and organized criminals of the day.

After two gang-related killings in "Center City" (probably Los Angeles) a framed man is arrested, released on bail, then murdered.

Enter Gene Cordell, a young agent who goes undercover in Skid Row as a hard up pugilist and soon runs into Alec Stiles, the neurotic mastermind who (in FBI speak) is "building an organization along scientific lines”. Here he finds himself embroiled in this Machiavellian ring of vice, guns, gambling and crime.

Is it enjoyable? Yes. This hard-bitten world is served without cynicism and, because of this films age, it comes across as a genuine piece of true film noir that is both well directed and a fine example of the genre. It has an edge born of shadows classic cinematography.

Do take a look at the commentary track, were film scholars and noir experts James Ursini and Alain Silver give a smashing insight through production information, the interpretation of educated theorists and through historical background info.

Movie: 3 of 5
Extras: 2.5 of 5