Living on a Boat, Part 4

...so, we had no anchor.

Luckily - and it was all luck - there was no flow on the River so, even had the engine packed in, we'd have found some way of parking up. Unlike the time when my engine packed in a couple of years later - but that story's yet to make it to these pages as it hadn't happened yet.

We get to 5.30 and suddenly, there are no lock-keepers, which means you've got to do it manually. Open the doors. Fine if they've left the power on; you just punch a couple of buttons and 'open sesame', you're free to go through. But, as it turns out, most locks don't keep their power on afater 5.30, which means you've got to open those vast steel doors by hand. With a winch. Which takes a long time.

I think it was on our sixth lock wnen the cub-scouts appeared. We'd parked up, when a load of woggles appeared, led by Arkala/Brown Owl/Someone Who Should Know Better. Arkala's delighted, because his troupe have never seen a houseboat before and could they have a look inside. It's at this point that Jim plays a blinder and says that, yes, they can inspect the boat, if they operate the lock for us. And so, after a quick tour of a 57ft by 11ft steel box, Jim and I got to cruise lazily through while half a dozen ten year-olds worked up a sweath on the winches.

Much, much later, it was about 10.30 at night, darkness was falling fast and we didn't know about the spotlight on the front of the boat; we were flying blind and, to all intents and purposes, invisible to other craft. We were watching the map and had just made it under a bridge, when I realised that we'd overshot our mark. To be fair, I'd only seen the moorings from land and it all looks a bit different from the water. In the dark. Without an anchor. So, we span the boat and chugged back to where I thought it might have been. And Lo! 'twas the moorings!

Trouble was, my moorings are in the middle of the River; two big stakes, romantically known as 'piles'. So here's the problem: we can't just park on the piles, because Jim can't then get to land to go home. But I can't handle the thing on my own. Luckily, there were some dinghies floating around and (I still don't know how we did it without decimating at least three fibre-glass boats) we got to the piles, towing a dinghy. By now, it was nearly midnight.

But we were full of rejoicing - we'd sailed/boated/careered for eight and a half hours and got to where we needed to be! We were heroes! But Jim had to go home.

I rowed him over to his car and, it was only as his tail-lights rounded a corner that I realised that real journey was about to begin. I was living on my own. On a boat. In the middle of the River. What the hell was I thinking???

It had all seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now the reality-side was starting to kick in. Starting with the lights. I didn't have any. Well, not entirely true: I did have lights, but no amount of flicking the wall-switches would turn them on. Luckily, I'd spotted some candles in a drawer and lit them. OK. First problem solved. Problem The Second: it was cold. It was late May, but still very wintry. I dod have central-heating, but no idea how to turn it on. So, I sat on my sofa and covered myself in a duvet and some towels.

The one piece of forethought I had had, was to get out a DVD to take my mind off the fact that I was now no longer a part of my family, that I couldn't see my son whenever I wanted and that I was living in a boat. Luckily, I'd charged my laptop, because the TV and the mains plugs didn't seem to work, either. So, I sat down to watch the film that I'd chosen very deliberately to keep my spirits up. A Disney. You can't go wrong with a Disney, right?

Wrong.

'Night at the Museum' for those who haven't seen it, is about a father who has been booted out of the family home and is a failure in his young son's eyes. No amount of animated dinosaurs, cowboys and Indians or Hawaiian Idols could take away the fact that this was just how I felt. Luckily the batteries on my laptop ran out before I got to the end; I was in a bad enough state already; I didn't need some schmaltzy ending to cap it all off.

Red eyed, tired and more than a little frightened, I settled down for my first night aboard my floating home. It was to be the first in a series of very sleepless, traumatic nocturnal adventures.

To be continued...

Life on a Boat, Part 3

As a vague foreword, I must point out that, while this may just read as a lightly amusing anecdote of sorts, everything on these posts actually happened and it still makes me sweat if I think about it too long...

So, I've got me moorings sorted and the boat's ready for me to pick up. So, I ring my mate, Jim.

"Jim - have you ever sailed a narrow boat?"

"Yeah..."

"Would you help me move mine to my moorings? It's a widebeam; like a narrow boat, but wider."

"Yeah..."

Brilliant. It's all go. Jim drives to me, leaves his car at the moorings and we take a taxi to where the boat is - about 20 minutes, by road. So far, so good. So, I lead Jim to my new floating home and he just sort of looks at it, which worries me a bit.

"You alright, Jim?"

"Yeah...It's just a bit bigger than the thing I sailed..."

"But it should be OK, right?"

"It might be an idea to ask someone..."

So, we go hunting around this marina, looking for someone to ask. It's lunchtime at this point and the only person we can find is a grizzled looking man in a straw hat: Ray. We ask Ray if he'll show is how to steer the thing, turn it on and point it in the right direction. Ray looks at us and then says he'll give us 15 minutes because his dinner's on.

It's better than nothing.

Ray gives us the precious 15 minutes. During that time, he shows us how to go forward, back. left (port) and right (starboard). he also tells us that we should drive on the right hand side of the river and then he has to go and have his dinner. As we pull away, I ask him which way my moorings are.

"Upstream!"

"Which way's that?"

Ray points upstream.

"And how long til we get there?" I shout as he gets smaller.

"About 8 hours!"

There is a moment of silence as me and Jim process this. 8 hours? But it only took 20 minutes by car! As we were to find, the Thames isn't a straight road and nor is the speed limit 70mph. The river twists and turns and meanders and the speed limit is 4mph. And there are locks.

I think it was about an hour in when we saw our first lock. Luckily, Jim knew what it was.

"OK, what do we do?" I asked, a bit panicky.

Jim may have known what it was, but he didn't know how to get through. We decided that the best course of action was to park up before the doors and 'fess up to the lock-keeper that we didn't have a clue what we were doing. This  may have been the only good idea we had on the whole journey. In fact, it was so good that we did it at every lock we came to. The lock-keepers respected our honesty and saw us through, keeping us away from other boats where possible and helping out with the ropes. That is, until 5.30, when they all went home. But that hadn't happened yet.

About three hours in,we were getting relatively happy; we'd swap turns at the helm, make tea and knock up sandwiches as we went. It was sunny, people waved at us and it was suddenly quite a cheery way to spend an afternoon.

"You know I said I'd had narrow-boat experience..?" Jim said, while at the tiller.

"Yeah..." Something about the way he said it set the old alarm bells off.

"Well...I have..."

"Great - so what's the problem? Why are you telling me this?"

"Because it was when I was ten. I was at the tiller for a bout 35 minutes and then had my first epileptic fit."

I know I swore at this point. Here we were, miles from anywhere, on a boat and my First Officer had just revealed a disturbing link between the tiller and his neural pathways. In hindsight, I should've been sympathetic or something, but I wasn't. In honesty, I was starting to worry if we were going to get to where we were going.

Danger signs on the river are a funny thing if you've never seen them before. We drove through a set, looking around us for any hazards/shipwrecks/pirates, but couldn't see anything. Up ahead, there was a bridge with a lock and people waving at us. Something that we'd noticed is that a lot waving went on on the river: people passing in other boats wave, people on the bank wave - everybody waves. So, we just waved back at the people on the bridge and thought nothing of it.

Until they started shouting. And pointing.

We looked to where they were pointing.

"What's that?" said Jim.

I ran up to the front of the boat to have a look. It appeared to be a waterfall. A great big, drag-you-to-your-doom-style waterfall. I ran back.

"Jim! We've got to turn this thing around! It's waterfall."

It wasn't; it was the weir. But we were caught in the weir-stream and the tiller wouldn't budge. It took  the both of us hanging onto it and the engine at full tilt to turn us around and inch away from the foamy steps of oblivion. To add to things, there were a load of other boats approaching the lock and, once we'd broken free of the stream, we went flying at them. Luckily, the experienced ones had spotted the problem and gave us plenty of room and we somehow veered around the two hire-boats in our way.

It was only as we were coming out of that lock, that another boater shouted after us: "Hey! Where's your anchor?"

Anchor?

To be continued....

Living on a Boat, Part 2

So there, I am, standing in a marine broker's telling them I want to buy a houseboat.

"Certainly sir! How much do you want to spend?"

"I don't know how much these things cost. Try and rob me."

With the gaunlet down, they tried. First boat on the menu was some astonishing and expensive widebeam. I hadn't encountered a widebeam yet. For those of you who still haven't, think narrow boat, but twice as wide: more space, more potential for comfort and homeliness. OK, I thought, I like widebeams. But this first one was just too much: it  had plasma tellies, carpets all over the place, a marble-top kitchen with all sorts of hidey-holes, really maximising the use of space. The bathroom was decked out in Italian mosaic-tiles and the bedroom sported a leather bed. Seriously.

"It's really for thrusting, young executives on Canary Wharf" said Sales Lady, to which I replied that I was no longer young and my thrusting days were well and truly over. So we looked at another boat: still astonishing, but the problem they both had was that they were both a bit like floating hotel suites. In my limited showbiz capacity, I have stayed in hotels for periods of time and know enough to know that you go a bit mad after a while. And I was feeling mad enough, by this point.

So, we check out another widebeam.

I liked this one. It started up the fantasies in my head again; Rosie and Jim, David Essex, befriending ducks and plenty of sunshine. I'm a fairly tatty sort of guy and this was my kind of place: wooden throughout, open-plan, with a cottagey, rustic sort of feel. And, get this, it had furniture: two sofas, an Ottoman, a regular not-leather bed, shower, washing machine, cuddly toy etc etc.

"I like this one."

"Oh, good! Well, we're looking for a quick sale on it, so you'd be grabbing a bargain."

"Why?"

Turns out that the guy who'd fitted it out wanted to Live The Dream. He'd spent two years building it up from an empty steel hull, adding wood panelling, wiring things in and doing plumbingy stuff. He'd sold his house to finance it, got rid of all his worldly possessions to make room and finally moved in.

"And then he had a huge asthma attack. He went to the doctor who told him that he couldn't live on the river, because of the moisture in the air."

Blimey. However, I didn't have asthma and I didn't have a home - but I did have a chequebook!

"I'll take it!"

The one thing that stood in my way was money. At that point, I had next to nothing; all my cash was tied up in the ex-familial home. But, I had enough to pay the deposit and explained that it would be a bit of time before I'd actually be able to pay the thing off. It wan't a problem; they appeared just delighted to be moving the thing on.

Three months went by before I was able to get the cash together to make the final payment. The day I made the final transaction, I was working at a London film school, helping student directors learn about actor-types. In the lunchbreak, I phoned the broker's to see of the cheque had cleared. "It's gone through!" they cried. " You can take her to your moorings!"

My new what?

 For some reason, I hadn't thought about this bit. I don't know what I was thinking; probably just pitching up on some picturesque riverbank and deciding that was my new home/garden/spot. . But there were things to consider: my young son would be visiting me and I wanted to be near his home, in case I was ever needed.

"I'll call you back." I said, leaving them in no doubt they were dealing with an idiot.

I then spent two or three days trawling the 'net and making calls to find a mooring. Had a boat, but nowhere to put it. Magically, I found a place about a mile from my son's house. The only problem was that it was in the middle of the river: three large poles, romantically known as 'piles'. But, as far as I could see, I still had two arms and rowing didn't look that tricky, so I paid the deposit and booked my spot. I phoned the broker's.

"I've got my mooring!"  I declared.

"Great. You can come and get the boat."

Hmmm. Another piece of the jigsaw in my mind had gone AWOL.

"OK. What do you mean 'get the boat'?"

"Take her to your moorings."

"OK. How do I do that?"

Silence. Then: "You sail her. She's a boat."

For some reason, I hadn't spotted this part of the equation. I think I'd thought that they'd put it on the back of a lorry or something, drive it up the motorway and then just pop it in the river, like you do. But, no, I had to sail it. A considerable distance. And I'd never sailed a boat before.

I rang my mate, Jim....

To be continued etc etc.

Living on a Boat Part 1

It's around this time of year that I traditionally question my sanity. I've done this every year for the last four years because, for the last four years, I've been living on a boat.

It was actually my brother who suggested it. I'd split up from my son's mother and found myself with very little cash and no home. My sister put me up for a few weeks and my brother rang me to see how I was doing. During the course of the conversation, he quipped: "You should buy a houseboat, mate!" And, in  hindsight, I can see he was joking; I'm the least technical, practical and self-sufficient person I know.

"Hooray!" I thought, as pictures of Rosie and Jim flooded through my mind. "The answer to all my problems!"

So, for the next few days, I trawled the Internet, looking for houseboats for sale. The problem with checking out Internet ads is that they only show lovely pictures of your chosen item and, in this case, in sunny weather. The fantasy was underway: I could see myself living like third-rate David Essex, befriending ducks, cuddling swans and generally having a high old time. It was going to be tranquil and relaxing; the perfect picture of peace.

Without further ado, I booked in some appointments and, full of nautical optimisim, went to go and see some boats.

The only prior experience I'd had with boats was a swan-shaped pedalo on Exmouth Boating Pond, when I was about five. And although the water was only a couple of feet deep, it terrified me. Amazingly, my brain decided to put a gagging order on this particular memory during the whole process: I was going to become a Gentleman of the River!

The first boat I saw was an absolute heap. Even with my zero experience, I could see that it was in bad nick and overpriced. No disrespect to anyone with a narrow boat, but it would have been like living in a train carriage. And it rocked when you walked and that unsettled me. But, brimming with naivety, I decided to continue with my quest.

Over the next two days, I think I saw about 16 - 20 boats, all in varying states of disrepair. Some of them were vaguely habitable but, being brutally honest, a lot of the owners put me off. It wasn't that they were nasty people, most of them were very nice and helpful. The thing was that they all seemed to be a bit mad and all had some story to tell, generally about how the hell they ended up living on a boat. And I didn't want to hear that, so I sort of tuned it out. Probably because I was starting to feel a bit mad, but didn't want to admit it. During that 48 hours, I met recovering alcoholics, a newly-emerged transsexual, divorcees and a guy with possibly the worst dental hygene I've ever seen outside of toothpaste adverts. Don't get me wrong; it was probably my frail mental state at the time that exaggerated these people into lurid cartoon characters, but I was still determined to find my new floating home.

It was during the failing daylight one Sunday in March that I shuffled despondently into a riverside broker's yard and announced my intent to by a houseboat. If only I'd known at the time what those knowing nods actually meant.

To be continued...

Heroes - Keith Richards

Keith, Keef, The Human Riff etc, etc. What is it about him? Even his haters seem to doff the cap at some point. And which era Keef is your favourite? The 60's moddish scarecrow Keef, the gaunt, haunted, broken-toothed Keef of the 70's, dark, brooding leopard-skin print Keef of the 80's, the too-much-eyeliner Keef of the 90's, the what's-that-in-your-hair Keef of the Noughties or the chumbly old pirate of 2011?

You'd want Keith on your side in a fight: he's known to have carried a variety of knives, packed a shooter and even whacked someone with a Telecaster. He talks the talk, but backs it up with some very large strides. Even now he looks like someone you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of. But what is it about him?

The music's a huge part of his charm, from the jangling intros to such classics as Jumpin' Jack Flash, to the weary bar-room blues of later songs, like 'This Place is Empty'. Love 'em or loathe 'em, you can't say that Keith hasn't mastered his craft.

In his auotobiography, Keith reckons that there's one of him in all of us; a raging piratey-type looking to challenge authority and stick two fingers up to 'The Man'. And there's something in that, I think. He's a guy (or 'cat' in rock parlance) who's lived his life according to his rules and no-one else's. Even shaking hands with The Mouse and doing the whole Pirates thing was on his terms; you can't accuse him of not being true to himself.

Maybe that's the attraction: Keith seems to be completely at  home in his leathered, weathered skin. He's certainly been on a bit of a journey to get there - as Bill Hicks said " I picture nuclear war and see two things surviving: Keith and cockroaches." But perhaps, behind the layers of kohl, the smoky slur and the steam-train laughter, Keith's just a guy who tapped into himself and got happy. And plays the guitar pretty good.

It's Just a Ride

It's 20 years since I had the honour and lif-changing experience of seeing Bill Hicks live at the Dominion. I only went to see him because, a few months earlier, I'd staggered home from the pub and caught Live From the Fringe on Channel 4. Drunk as I was and eating hard-boiled eggs as I was (there was no other food in the house and I remembered Popeye Doyle ate them with salt in the French Connection - it made sense at the time), I knew I was watching Something Great and had the presence of mind to scribble his name down and put it on my noticeboard.  Fast-forward a few weeks and there was a hoarding for the Dangerous Tour. So I went and was blown away.

Then came the CDs, the DVDs and the Revelations tour - but I missed that as I was working in Wales. But I told a notoriously stingy mate to buy two tickets, go, and if he didn't like it, I'd refund him the cash. Another convert.

There's like a sub-culture of Hicks-people; people who give you the nod when you're buying a CD or someone who drops a quote into conversation - everyone who knows wants everyone else to; just spreadin' the word. Occasionally, in the midst of a political or celebrity-based candal, you'll hear: "If only Bill was still around" or "Man, we need Bill."

If you know him, you know what I mean. If you don't, get out there and buy a CD or, better still, a DVD. I'm not going to offer to refund your cash: I won't need to.

"It's just a ride" - Bill Hicks, 1961 - 1994