Email to British Waterways

[Rhythm Thief]

Then swim out of the canal you've ridden into ...

I saw someone do that once when I lived on my boat. He was concentrating on something other than where he was going and rode straight into the canal. Absolutely hilarious.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I'll fess up to having taken the plunge myself. I did the decent thing, I went waterside to let a jogger pass from under a bridge hole, but I didn't actually stop and kept bimbling forwards, so when her large dog came out, blocking my way forwards, and I caught the edge of a large stone block...

...in I went.

Amazingly the bike didn't. I stood up and bowed to the people on the moored boats and was given a round of applause and lots of laughter. Lycra dries fast thank goodness.

 

[jimboalee]

Grand Union Canal. 1975.

The walkway down from Lode Lane to the tow path with a conveiniently placed milk crate and scaffold walkboard.

Old bike with 'cow horns' and no brakes.

"Feeble Kenievel trying to jump the cut".

 

[al78]

Don't demand that others modify their behaviour, and the behaviour of their livestock , to fit in with the demands of one's own ego.

So if your neighbour decided to hold loud parties till the small hours preventing you from getting a good nights sleep then you would just tolerate it and not do anything on the basis of "not demanding others modify their behaviour"?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

So if your neighbour decided to hold loud parties till the small hours preventing you from getting a good nights sleep then you would just tolerate it and not do anything on the basis of "not demanding others modify their behaviour"?

A ridiculous change of context, imo, this is a debate about shared road spaces and how to behave when using them,. but since you raise the point...

The situation you describe has happened many times. It just doesn't bother me that much though it used to drive my Aged P nuts when he lived with us. Each time it soon passed without a word from me to them. Oddly they don't complain when we make noise either. Which we do. Tolerance is a funny thing and, as a result we get on fabulously with our neighbours.

I prefer live and let live to dog eat dog. ymmv.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

The situation you describe has happened many times. It just doesn't bother me that much though it used to drive my Aged P nuts when he lived with us. Each time it soon passed without a word from me to them. Oddly they don't complain when we make noise either. Which we do. Tolerance is a funny thing and, as a result we get on fabulously with our neighbours.

I agree entirely.

 

[gouldina]

A ridiculous change of context, imo, this is a debate about shared road spaces and how to behave when using them,. but since you raise the point...

The situation you describe has happened many times. It just doesn't bother me that much though it used to drive my Aged P nuts when he lived with us. Each time it soon passed without a word from me to them. Oddly they don't complain when we make noise either. Which we do. Tolerance is a funny thing and, as a result we get on fabulously with our neighbours.

I prefer live and let live to dog eat dog. ymmv.

I don't know why but you seemed to have twisted all the arguments on this thread into a "Greg is tolerant" vs "everyone who disagrees with Greg isn't" standpoint. This is nothing to do with tolerance. It's about even-handedness. They're different things.*

*Ymmv seems to be the disclaimer of choice here so what the hell - ymmv.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

This is nothing to do with tolerance. It's about even-handedness. They're different things.

The situation in the OP is analagous to cars on the road, I think. I don't particularly like having to pay to get my car through an MOT and buy a tax disc (yeah, yeah, I know) every year, but I don't bang on and on and on about the iniquity of having to do these things when cyclists don't. BW have decided that cyclists need telling about the dangers they can pose to other towpath users. This is fair enough, as regardless of how many encounters you've had with inconsiderate pedestrians, it's you as a cyclist that brings the danger element to the towpath. If there are people ahead walking dogs, stop and wait until they've gone. If there's a low bridge you can't see through, get off the bike and push it. It's got nothing to do with "fairness" - and as someone else said, for all you know BW spend all the rest of their time wagging their fingers at dog walkers - it's just that you're the one using a vehicle on the towpath.

 

[gouldina]

The situation in the OP is analagous to cars on the road, I think. I don't particularly like having to pay to get my car through an MOT and buy a tax disc (yeah, yeah, I know) every year, but I don't bang on and on and on about the iniquity of having to do these things when cyclists don't. BW have decided that cyclists need telling about the dangers they can pose to other towpath users. This is fair enough, as regardless of how many encounters you've had with inconsiderate pedestrians, it's you as a cyclist that brings the danger element to the towpath. If there are people ahead walking dogs, stop and wait until they've gone. If there's a low bridge you can't see through, get off the bike and push it. It's got nothing to do with "fairness" - and as someone else said, for all you know BW spend all the rest of their time wagging their fingers at dog walkers - it's just that you're the one using a vehicle on the towpath.

Well I think we're going to have to disagree on this because I'm bored of the repetition now. The analogy you make is poor IMO and as I said, it's not just cyclists that bring an element of danger. A cyclist on the road can endanger a car driver (granted they are less likely to but they can) as can a pedestrian and the same applies to other users on the canal. Moreover by their own actions they can endanger themselves - this is why cyclists are constantly handed out information about how to be safe on the road, it's why road-safety officers visit schools to teach children to be safe pedestrians and so on.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I don't know why but you seemed to have twisted all the arguments on this thread into a "Greg is tolerant" vs "everyone who disagrees with Greg isn't" standpoint. This is nothing to do with tolerance. It's about even-handedness. They're different things.*

*Ymmv seems to be the disclaimer of choice here so what the hell - ymmv.

I am simply arguing that tolerance in the face of life's little unfairnesses, struggles, and vicissitudes, especially those of petty fogging public bureacracies, of our neighbours, and of those we closely share space on Mother Earth with is a valid, and, imo worthwhile, alternative to raging against the machine. Give me a bigger cause, a greater injustice, a grander windmill, and I will raise lance and tilt away...

I cannot know, unless you tell me, what you were hoping to achieve when you posted your email to BW on here. Your OP doesn't ask for advice but it does, by it's very prescence, invite comment. Comment you got. In spades and not all of it in support of your stance. Such is that nature, indeed for some, the attraction, of CC and other forums. Within the kitchen there is a certain degree of warmth but other rooms are available.

ymmv is not a disclaimer; it is shorthand, when used by me at any rate, for "I beleive I understand, as far as I can, your pov. Based as it is, on your own special, unique, life experience I respect both your holding of it and your expressing of it. My life experience, which is of only equal worth to yours, not more than yours, not less than yours, and my judgments based on the facts you've put before me, has led me to a different conclusion." But sod typing that all the time so ymmv will have to do.

So let's agree to differ as I'm sure, were we to discuss it over a beer or two a very enjoyable and entertaining time would be had, not least by any bystanders. Who knows maybe the next time I'm in town I'll buy you a pint or similar. OK?

 

[Norm]

ymmv is not a disclaimer; it is shorthand, when used by me at any rate, for "I beleive I understand, as far as I can, your pov. Based as it is, on your own special, unique, life experience I respect both your holding of it and your expressing of it. My life experience, which is of only equal worth to yours, not more than yours, not less than yours, and my judgments based on the facts you've put before me, has led me to a different conclusion." But sod typing that all the time so ymmv will have to do.

Knowing that at least one on here doesn't like the phrase "YMMV", I think I might just use this version a few times to see which is preferable.

 

[gouldina]

I am simply arguing that tolerance in the face of life's little unfairnesses, struggles, and vicissitudes, especially those of petty fogging public bureacracies, of our neighbours, and of those we closely share space on Mother Earth with is a valid, and, imo worthwhile, alternative to raging against the machine. Give me a bigger cause, a greater injustice, a grander windmill, and I will raise lance and tilt away...

I cannot know, unless you tell me, what you were hoping to achieve when you posted your email to BW on here. Your OP doesn't ask for advice but it does, by it's very prescence, invite comment. Comment you got. In spades and not all of it in support of your stance. Such is that nature, indeed for some, the attraction, of CC and other forums. Within the kitchen there is a certain degree of warmth but other rooms are available.

ymmv is not a disclaimer; it is shorthand, when used by me at any rate, for "I beleive I understand, as far as I can, your pov. Based as it is, on your own special, unique, life experience I respect both your holding of it and your expressing of it. My life experience, which is of only equal worth to yours, not more than yours, not less than yours, and my judgments based on the facts you've put before me, has led me to a different conclusion." But sod typing that all the time so ymmv will have to do.

So let's agree to differ as I'm sure, were we to discuss it over a beer or two a very enjoyable and entertaining time would be had, not least by any bystanders. Who knows maybe the next time I'm in town I'll buy you a pint or similar. OK?

Fair enough. I don't at all mind having comments made and I don't mind them being at odds with what I think. I don't feel any obligation to agree with what you think though either and frankly a lot of comments on this thread have been (a) at complete right-angles to what I was saying or ( a bit peculiar (just for one e.g. horses are the primary users of towpaths).
Also the size of a given windmill might vary from person to person. I've been cycling on that canal every day for the last 14 years so it's a fairly sizeable windmill for me if not for you.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

much of the amusement in here is seeing how far away from the original point, and how angry people appear as they drift to extremes, a thread can go.

I'm slightly disappointed that the obvious gambit of "But what if a gang of yardie crack dealers squat in your house while you are away on holiday, what good will your talk of tolerance be then, huh?" didn't come up.

My own personal windmill is writing letters to the local press about local sh*t driving standards. It helps me relax, amuses my friends, and embarrasses my wife no end. Of my several interactions with BW over the years I've concluded they are staffed largely by autistic monomaniacs and ars*s and archetypal dullard jobsworths and one may as well talk to the moon as hope to influence them.