Re:Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

H

Harry Hogwash

Active Member
Joined
6 Oct 2018
Messages
60
Visit site
Re:Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

Radio Oxford this morning a guy was promoting Banbury Canal Day.
In excited tones he warbled about the faded glory of Oxfordshires'Canal Inland Waterway
at Banbury as one of the first then quickly sprang forward to today with a exhortation of the
L word.Leisure.
He grudgingly admitted that "even many Banbury residents don't seem to know the Canal is here"
a patronising statement if ever Ive heard one.
He then went on to suggest visitors and residents "have a poke around"and that "its not as scary as you think".
Quite what sort of leisure this gentleman is promoting Im not quite sure?
Are we all to buy £50,000 narrow boats?
Would not our blow up dingies get snared on rusty supermarket trolleys?
The weed strewn wilderness of Banburys Canal towpaths are more the haunts of muggers and
chuckers in than parasols and picnic baskets.
I would consider it quite a dangerous activity to frequent the canal side paths.
Rather confused he asserted that it was all the new buzz word "Leisure"but there the ideas ended.
Banburys residents know all about"leisure"Many are unemployed and Id estimate 80% of the town
is 'chav'.
Hardly the Cannes yachting set,
The bus station on arrival is one of the most dismal I have ever encountered.
 
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

Harry Hogwash is now having a go at Banbury.

It was Abingdon last week.

Perhaps he intends to rubbish all Oxfordshire riverside/canalside towns in alphabetic order.

Crowmarsh Gifford next perhaps?

So far, his opinions on here are, to me, a matter of supreme indifference.
 
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

rotrax said:
Harry Hogwash is now having a go at Banbury.

It was Abingdon last week.

Perhaps he intends to rubbish all Oxfordshire riverside/canalside towns in alphabetic order.

Crowmarsh Gifford next perhaps?

So far, his opinions on here are, to me, a matter of supreme indifference.
Click to expand...

This could be a commercial book opportunity as an alternative guide to Thames Valley towns.

I can help with Crowmarsh Gifford having lived there: two pubs, a village shop and the EA office, all quite uninspiring. The only excitement was when the landlady of the Queens Head ran off with the captain of the darts team to the Grenfell Arms in Maidenhead.

Shall we do Didcot next?
 
Last edited:
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

I'm quite disappointed with the Abingdon review. Saxon Road and the Peachcroft Estate didn't get a mention.
 
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

LeeME3 said:
Can't wait to hear his views on Reading then...
Click to expand...

The smack heads riviera? 5 star reviews in Crackpipe Aficionado magazine.

I'd be more interested in hearing what he has to say about Henley. What with all that boat clutter about;)
 
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

Old Crusty said:
This could be a commercial book opportunity as an alternative guide to Thames Valley towns.

I can help with Crowmarsh Gifford having lived there: two pubs, a village shop and the EA office, all quite uninspiring. The only excitement was when the landlady of the Queens Head ran off with the captain of the darts team to the Grenfell Arms in Maidenhead.

Shall we do Didcot next?
Click to expand...

Didcot next would be fine-I can help as I currently reside there.

You missed out the Crowmarsh Gifford PO robbery-two toe-rags with a sawn off. Kept the chattering going for years.

First Mate and I lived in "The Limes", the house with the brick and flint wall up the side. My old mate and jazz musician Harry Crook lives in Crowmarsh.

I shall ask Ivor Standbridge about the pub landlady-he was in the Queens darts team.

I have good memories of Crowmarsh Gifford and also of Preston Crowmarsh where our business Crowmarsh Classic Motorcycles was founded in the origonal Honey Farm where Rouses Honey started back in the days when men were men and beer was a ha'penny a loaf..................................
 
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

I am well familiar with Henley.
The Red Lion Hotel has some of the worst Trip advisor reviews going.
To go into the intricacies of exactly where that is failing is a spate website by itself.
You are referred to the reviews marked Terrible & Poor.
There used to be a coach service that ran from Abingdon through Henley to London,
I don't mean the stagecoaches I mean a Green Line type one.
That no longer exists.
Henley is a dreary damp sort of a place full of recluses in their 'big'houses and they seldom wish to have much doings with
anyone else much ,
the shops in the town are truly horrible even so called butchers and the like,.
The building societies are doomed.
Apart from that and a corn exchange building tourist office or somesuch that hardly anyone can related to
least of all the skateboarding delinqents
theres precious little in Henley worth bothering about.
The Rowing museum is the only thing worth a look in.
The Pubs are all grubby dives.
Theres no restaurant worth the name.
Henley fancies itself but no one fancies Henley.
Its cold unwelcoming grubby dirty and boring.
The callous posters of numerous bloated state funded scrounging theatre and arts companies stare down at one from
funereal pillars.the backgrounds are often black to stop people scribbling abuse on them with markers,though
the pathy level is so high theyd be lucky if anyone bovvers.
Missives from far apart as Oxfords New Theatre and Blenheim Palace chug for your cash.
More bad TA reviews Im afraid.
People artistic sensibilities are daily slapped in the face by these self serving wet kipper productions
that service only A Stalinist purpose and keep up the fiction that jollity exists .
That theres some thing to do and see in a Hell Hole like Henley.
The Regatta is a joke.
Local public school doff their hats as idiots pay £30 for a punnet of strawberries and cream
and a glass of cheap booze in a rented tent and kid themselves they are society before going home time (on the dirty old train at 6pm)
Ooooh strawberries and cream the height of nirvana.
But all the birds look like the back of a bus and cant dress for toffee.
Man youd get more strawberries round the back of Tesco for free.
and most likely 24 punnets of sell by cream too.
If your still a bit peckish before being hurridly huddled home by the cheapo security guards theres Greggs
greasy sausage rools 2 fer a poond which ye can eat sitting on a dirty step in the street outside the toon all.
ah good old Henley
the eptimoe of poshness.
Like Le Touquet by the Thames.
 
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

Harry Hogwash reminds me of Marvin the Paranoid Android from the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.

You know, the robot who plugged himself into an ailien spaceship for a chat. He was so negative and deppressing the spaceship committed suicide, taking the life support systems away from the baddies who were blasting the heros.

Harry-if you have nothing nice to say about anything-why bother?
 
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

Harry perhaps it would be quicker to give us a list of places along the Thames you DO like!
 
Re: Banbury "Canal Day". Inland Waterway.

I think Harry is a modern poet, like Damian Hirst, and his interpretations of art, in the form of dissected ruminants and bits of rubbish strewn across an old piece of Linoleum.
And on the whole he succeeds:
I read through his '5hitadvisor' review of Henley, and couldn't argue, but felt he missed out on the vapid women driving Range Rovers very poorly, and the local taste for Pink shorts, and sandals with socks.
The basic results of a privileged upbringing placing education over social skills rather like the cretinous Boris Johnson in fact.
While he misses out on the good bits of Henley, mainly Waitrose and the Bankside moorings offering a place to moor while you let the Dogs out to take a dump and drink some Vodka to soften the blow of being a poster on the YBW Thames forum and all it entails.
The Red Lion may be lower quality than an EA managers CV, but there are some nice establishments, despite the seasonal price hikes to stripe up the Grockles, and despite the arrogant sons of bankers working as Summer waiters the food tends to be pretty good although sadly CAU has gone West (Wild West? LOL) and Cafe rouge, a desperate den of greasy badness remains.
He also forgot Dusty's grave, a pretty little floral tribute you can't help but stumble across while lurking around the graveyard...
It's not posh, it's pretentious, and full of sawdust Caesars, arrogance and facile pomp.
You can't help laughing at them in their striped jackets looking like the cast of Hi de Hi or whatever it was called.

Hogwash is normally bang on, like Apollo used to be before he got bored and wandered off :nonchalance:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top