Victor tells it's goodbye to Google

THERE is little doubt that most of you will have noticed that something is missing from the site.

No Google adverts—ner a single one.

For our esteemed editor, Thomas, has at last persuaded his son Jason, our software developer, to oust 'em!

There is no doubt they are a nuisance and from time to time Google attempted to slip in others without permission, though at least we did not allow it to swamp us like many do with even adverts between sentences, to get more cash. As every time an advert is clicked Google get money—hence the greed—and the publisher gets money—though usually in pence.

At the beginning its adverts mostly related to boats and boating, but over the past few years we had to suffer what were obviously higher income adverts from the 'big boys' with Jason telling it is getting too greedy.

Brian Cavill backed this up by telling of one company that Google all too often included on this site:

"The adverts seem to be from Temu who are Chinese with a bad reputation for selling fakes, cheap copies and products of child labour. They are trying to take on Amazon, so must be paying Google huge amounts of money."

And T Lang has his say:

"Your adverts, from Temu are fragrantly targeted at males having lots of all images of females and their undergarments. and are not really befitting narrowboatworld,"

So goodbye Google!

Waiting for the results

As you may be aware Canal & River Trust have another survey running. But! Are we to believe the results when they are published?

After Allan used the Freedom of Information Act to discover the actual results from the company running CaRT's last survey were  somewhat different from the results published by CaRT, I certainly won't be believing!

Makes me wonder about the results from all the other past surveys, eh?

That really silly claim

And so to my pet hate—That absolutely silly claim of all those millions of visitors it tells visit its waterways every year.

Now it has been proved to be 'bending' the figures, adding a few extra million or so onto visitor figure should be no problem at all!

After all, there is no earthly way anyone knows how many people visit the waterway, it just cannot be calculated. So a few million slapped-on from time to time is no problem.

It's reached 900 million now—and no doubt rising! That's the number of visitors it would have us believe to a mere 2,000 miles of waterways in a year.  Rubbish!

What about the cameras

It was last year that Canal & River Trust told that too many people were smashing into bridge barriers with their vehicles, and their having to be repaired as well as closing the navigations.

Occurring so often that the repairs were costing a great amount of money.

The most smashed are the Wrenbury Lift Bridge on the Llangollen Canal and the Royal Oak Swing Bridge on the Macclesfield Canal.

But the trust had the answer—putting up security cameras that would record vehicle number plates—then suing for the cost of repairs—and there's two that really need them, so what's happened?  Nothing.

Problem for over  year

River Lock on the Leeds & Liverpool is leaking, and so much even CaRT admit it 'is struggling to achieve a level and is consuming an abnormal amount of water that on occasion leaves Granary Wharf basin above short of water, preventing onward navigation'.

With  boater John Lloyd telling me that CaRT have known about this problem for over a year—why was it not fixed before now?

But is it being fixed properly, as the trust now tell: 'To mitigate this in the short term we are restricting the operation of the lock to between the hours of 1pm and 3pm seven days per week'. And unavailable for passage outside of these hours.

And telling us with its Engineering and Project Team working to specify works and methodology for repairs to be undertaken later this year.

Make of that as you will...

Not sorry

There really is too much about CaRT this week I'm afraid. But not sorry, as I can tell you as I am writing this it is the 13th day of the new season, (Saturday) and already 14 closures.  (And not including smashed barriers.)

The latest is our Keith telling me the Huddersfield Narrow is closed at Lock 28W as 'both paddles  out of action'.

So much for the winter maintenance, eh?

And another

Our Keith has just notified us that there is another stoppage, this time on the Kennett & Avon with a collar snapped on the lower gate of Lock 62 which is now inoperable and clearly showing the lack of maintenance. But there's a chance of it being repaired on Monday.

Victor Swift—telling tales for 24 years