David Morris – brassedoff.net

The canal trust have recently taken stewardship of an 80-year-old ex British Waterways working boat called Python.

Over a period of a few weeks, she’s been moved from London to up this next of the woods. The last stage of the move before getting to our local canal was a stretch from Torksey to West Stockwith. Torksey is where the Fossdyke canal which runs in to Lincoln joins the Trent. The Fossdyke is attributed to either Henry I or the Romans, but either way, it’s an old waterway and provides a safe stopping off point along the Trent if the tides aren’t in your favour.

It was my first trip out on to the Trent; some of the other Python crew had negotiated the tidal Trent before and we had fellow Trust member Mick Cheshire who’s a Trent veteran riding shotgun in case of mechanical or other problems with Python.

We left Torksey at around slack water (high tide) for the three hour trip, knowing the tide would be in full flow by the time we arrived at West Stockwith.

One thing I’d never realised about the Trent before (I’ve never fished it for instance) was just how much it twists its way through the countryside. It’s not the most visually attractive of rivers, servicing as it does several power stations and industrial wharves around Gainsborough. There’s a fair amount of debris kicking around as well, quite a lot getting washed down from further up stream. The building work going off around West Burton Power Stations as it’s being converted from coal fired to gas powered (just ask now where the gas reserves are coming from!)

The green and red boat in the shots below is Mick’s boat, Phoenix.

The ultimate challenge of the day for me was, along with Arthur, getting Python into the lock, across the tidal flow. Mick had gone in first. We had to cross the stream (”Don’t cross the streams!”) and get into an 8′ space along side Mick without losing any paint work. With Arthur on the throttle and yours truly on the tiller (and both West Stockwith virgins!), it was a tense moment, but we managed it with a great bit of teamwork. Even Mick was complementary!

Once in the lock, things were a little more controlled. Being a “big lock”, the paddles and gates are automated, but it’s deep and there’s a lot of water to flood in. It all went off according to plan though, and Python locked up to the Chesterfield Canal in one piece.

It was an excellent day!

Undocumented features, in my line of work, are usually a euphemism for bugs in applications. Sometimes we’re lucky with them and the ‘undocumented feature’ can be useful to the end user, but generally it’s something wrong that needs to be fixed. Last night, we’d gone out to get a Chinese take-out and I’d been boxed in between a couple of parked cars in the new Mini. I put the car in first then started to roll back (I was facing uphill) to get enough room to drive out. I was a bit surprised when nothing happened. The car didn’t move. “Brick under the wheel” I thought? Funny though. The brake pedal was absolutely solid. More solid than usual.

A little warning chimed at the back of my mind. I tried again and the same happened.

Now, like many IT people (and probably many around the world), I’m not exactly the best at reading manuals when I get new toys, preferring to take a view that technology these days should be easy to use and if it isn’t, I’m not that interested in owning it.

This is the replacement for the Cooper S that got stolen a few weeks ago amid piles of broken glass (stick with me – there is a link).

It’s a four month old ex-demonstrator Mini Cooper Clubman, midnight black, Chili pack, half leather carbon black interior, interior chrome lining, 17″ crown spoke alloys. The dealers also fitted the Mini standard iPod interface which interfaces direct with the fitted Boost radio for full track and playlist display.

The undocumented feature was discovered by accident last night.  Somewhere along the line I’d broken with tradition and read the manual for the car. I remembered seeing something about a hill start assist option, and it looks like that’s also on my car.

Whether I’ll actually get much use out of it is debatable . I certainly wouldn’t have paid for it new, and I would gladly have swapped it for the Xenon headlights given a choice, but I’m not going to let it detract from my enjoyment of the car. It’s agreat car and looks stunning.