I MUST agree with you entirely concerning the boaters setting up their own music systems to the annoyance of residents at Reading (Spoiling it for the rest) after the festival had ended, writes T. Lang.
I am a newcomer to the Thames having spent the past 20 odd years cruising the canals, but thought a complete change would be in order after having 'done' the canals time and time again, as well as finding the locks hard going due to the lack of maintenance.
Twice
Though I did not visit the festival at Reading, not having much interest in such things, I have had the bad luck to meet whom I assume was one of those who played loud music through an amplifier at the festival. Not once but twice whilst cruising the river. Once when moored in Windsor and then by Runnymede on the way back from our visit to Hampton Court.
I can only assume that they must have been moved on from Windsor and set-up again further down river that was not so built-up. I simply carried on, as I did not want an altercation with the two burly men, and knew that the noise would go on well into the night.
Play it to themselves
The reason for blasting out what these days is an excuse for music baffles me, if they want to hear it then simply play it to themselves inside their boat, I just do not see the point of having speakers on top of their boat so that everyone within hundreds of yards has to suffer it. After all, surely many people have different tastes in music, and those boaters cannot know those tastes, and mine certainly wasn't theirs.
So a warning to boaters who happen to moor near a boat with speakers on its roof looking forward to an evening of 'telly'—you will be unlucky.