TO BE IN LOVE WITH BELLA
Yes, it's me again, the tourists' champion, Bernie famous bollard. Well that’s what Grant and John think, they are the workers on Aquarius the Lavender Boat that plies around the canal by Brindley Place in Birmingham. After the first article mentioned that I was on the boat they decided to keep me on board for the tourists. People are allowed to come and photograph me. So far we have had an old lady and a dog and they were looking for Bella my curvy girlfriend. So much for fame! Now Lavender Boat, I know it’s a rubbish collection boat but did they really use lavender to mask the smell? Must have been expensive or was it just a nickname. John will know. He knows all about the old times.
I know you’ll be wanting me to tell you all about the new, Birmingham Illuminated Canal Boat Parade back in November. Well, I wasn’t there, I was not included in the parade. Six BW historical boats were included. All fussed over by Rachel and the pretty girls at BW West Midlands. Aquarius is not historical but it is a working boat, far more than those so-called working boats that never do any work. It's fashion now, I hear, to have a tarted-up working boat. Met a fashion victim couple the other day with a working boat and butty just back from the painters. Not a clue what they were doing; took them an hour to complete one lock. Let’s hope that bollards become fashionable. Mind you there have always been a lot of fashionable bollards at Watford.
Anyway, the parade was mostly commercial boats with just a couple of private owners. It’s a little known fact that I will share with you – there was a £1,000 prize for the best illuminated boat. Now I know it's difficult for private owners to compete with commercial outfits with lots of money to throw but private owners have passion. Next year why don’t you come and show your boat? November is a difficult month, most boats having been put away, but consider it. There were thousands of people lining the tow path, cheering the boats, so that would be fun for you and the chance of a £1,000 prize. The parade was held to coincide with turning on the Christmas lights in Birmingham and I think they are going to hold the parade in 2005. Go on, Love, give it a go. You might even get to meet me.
One thing I did notice during the parade was how the coal black water of Birmingham reflected the colours. It was quite spectacular, all the lights radiating on the surface of the water. The water itself is cleaner than you think but the black mud makes the water look jet black. The canals are much cleaner now than in the good old days. Take John Farmer’s locks in Birmingham. Apart from the odd beer bottle and a bit of litter they are pristine. When hundreds of working boats a month went through the locks they were black with coal dust, slippy with caked-on grease. Compared with then the locks now are pristine. We live in a surgically clean world compared with years ago. You have got to hand it to the humans; they made a mess of the world in the past but I don’t think they appreciate the strides they are taking to make the world clean and modern. I just hope they don’t do away with all the past. The canals I think can be a big part of this modern cleaned up world. Join Bernie in praising the good things we have now, not just concentrating on the bad - yobs, violence, drugs and the safety scheme.
I know some of you are going to say the boat safety scheme is a good thing keeping unsafe boats off the water. But does it. I see many scruffy dirty boats on the travels I have made. Real heaps that makes you wonder how they get their safety licence. Do you think its like the old MOT car scheme where one could always get an MOT in the early days but then it became more and more difficult to get a dodgy MOT. Do you think the safety scheme was worth all the trouble and expense? Surely you could save more lives by insisting that everyone wore a life jacket. We still see burnt out boats. Has Watford any figures of how many boats burnt before the safety scheme and how many now? What about a press release to tell us something positive about the scheme, instead of just the bad news of more regulations and costs to the boater.
This month I have included a photograph of my girlfriend, the curvy Bella. Now I know you will think that I’m boasting about having a girlfriend, but its not always easy pleasing girlfriends. They can be very fickle, girls. Never know what they want in a bollard; some say the bigger the better, but they don’t really mean that. A big bollard can be difficult to get one's leg over, where a little one is no trouble to manage. They say they want someone with a sense of humour – hey! am I not the funniest bollard you have ever met? Does it do me any good? The Arabs say a girl bollard that laughs is half taken; it’s the other half that I have difficulty with. They say they want a boy bollard with intelligence – nonsense! They always pick the dullest bollards I have ever met. They want a body, they want pecks, whatever pecks are. But if it was a boy bollard looking at a stunning girl’s bollards they are called perverts. Anyway, Bella threatened to dump me unless I got her photograph in the magazine. What you think, curvy hegh? – Pervert.
I’ve been thinking, and I’m just a thick bollard, not clever like what you are. Why don’t we form an independent waterways association that works for boaters' interests? We could charge a small annual fee and use the money to campaign for boaters. Fight outrageous increases in licence fees and mooring charges. We could be aggressive with BW at Watford, withholding fees. We could demand the old green uniforms back, insist on less painting and more dredging – do you remember dredging? We would not take any money from BW for anything, just use the money we raise for the good of boaters. It would just be for boaters not for commercial enterprises, or trade or other associations. Its main aim would be to campaign and work for boaters, all boaters, those on glass fibre boats, those on narrowboats, those on working boats and those on gin palaces. It could get in the national papers campaigning against price increases, it could challenge ministers who know nothing about boating. It could challenge BW on canal side developments that disturb the peace of the inland waterways. We could be noisy, we could clamour, we could be heard. Shall we have an independent waterways association? Or is that just a load of bollards?
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