In a poll organised by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (Bill Bryson is its President) the narrow boat has been voted the third most iconic image of England. That's according to The Times, which published a Focus Report on Britain's waterways on Wednesday. According to the CPRE itself third place was won by "canal boating", but I suppose it's difficult to make an image of a gerund. Old news, you might say - the CPRE published the result of their online poll, in which 1036 people voted, on December 8th 2008 - but it passed me by.
The double page spread in The Times is notable for not using the term "barge" incorrectly. It does, though, repeat the myth that "canal boats travel at 4mph". Much of the information seems to have come from British Waterways, but there's a good chunk devoted to freight, as well as power generation and the use of towpaths for laying fibre-optic cables.
Oh, by the way, the pictorial pub sign came first (150 votes) and red post boxes came second (123 votes).
5 comments:
Bice to hear that NB's came third! I never saw much of them when I lived in the UK (l left in the early 80's), but on more recent visits have been charmed at how many there are and how many genuinely old ones still cruise the waterways. I'm curious about the 'barge' term. Are NB's not considered barges then? I have a Dutch barge that is much the same size as a widebeam. It's very old and small as Dutch barges go, but still most definitely a barge...I think!
That was meant to be Nice to hear......
VallyP, many boaters get upset if people use the word "barge" when they mean "narrow boat" (or, indeed, "narrowboat"). Barges are taken to imply wide beam boats built for cargo carrying. James of Lucky Duck is an example of such a boater. He posts about his gripe here: http://nbluckyduck.blogspot.com/2009/01/its-not-barge.html
Dutch Barges are fully entitled to keep being called Dutch Barges, so worry not!
Having just pointed you to James's blog about the article in The Times a couple of weeks ago, I've just spotted that Andrew Denny has posted on the same article today: http://www.grannybuttons.com/granny_buttons/2009/01/caitlin-moran-is-not-a-criminal.html
Post really provice useful information!
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