Tag Archives: Canals

13th May picture of the day…

13 Tuesday May 2025

Posted by in Canals, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, West Yorkshire

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I don’t know where to start! Should I focus on the glorious weather we’re blessed with here in the Calder Valley (and mention its downsides), or should I focus on the wider world which seems to be going mad, both environmentally and politically? Maybe best to stick locally for now – otherwise this could turn into a very long blog indeed…

Today’s been another in a series where we’ve had wall to wall sunshine, and I’m loving it. This is my sort of weather. I’ve always been partial to sunny climes so this sort of weather’s right up my street. If anything it’s making me pine for South-East Asia and a beach or two. Let’s face it, what’s the UK got to offer from here? Bridlington on the East coast, or maybe Blackpool on the West. These are not the images I conjure up when I imagine a beach. Think more palm trees, coral reefs and hammocks rather than donkeys and ‘kiss me quick’ hats. Still, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, so I’ll make the most of things here whilst I can.

The day wasn’t all about basking in the sun. I’ve been busy picture editing, including the HS2 tunnel breakthrough pictures I promised yesterday (which you can find here). Having those sorted meant that I could back-up pictures to different hard-drives as insurance before sending links to various magazines who may be interested.

Work done I enjoyed a walk down into Sowerby Bridge, dropping off our old Virgin internet kit en-route (sorry, Virgin) ready to be returned. Time in the village has provided today’s picture, which is rather topical. Here’s the pound below Tuel Lane lock.

It’s dry due to a lack of water feeding the canal, thus severing the route from the West to the East. This isn’t unusual nowadays as the canal relies on water running off the nearby hills. Except when it doesn’t. The canal above and below Tuel Lane locks are full, but this is the deepest lock on the UK canal network, so the amount of water it uses is massive.

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Joe Rukin’s pants are on fire (again).

23 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Canals, Hs2, Joe Rukin, StopHs2

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As there’s nothing going on with the Stop Hs2 campaign as they’re not actually doing anything, it’s no surprise that there’s sod all on their website and Facebook pages anymore. What there is nowadays is moaning about Hs2, or railways in general, or anything that can be remotely connected (no matter how tenuously) with the two. Of course, it won’t stop Hs2 in the slightest but it allows Rukin and Gaines to pretend that they’re still doing something and there’s still a point to their ‘campaign’.

One such load of tosh was penned by Joe Rukin yesterday in which he claimed that the Shropshire Union Canal had collapsed into a sinkhole and that Hs2 would be in danger of suffering the same fate as it will pass nearby.

There was only one problem. It was just another of Rukin’s porkies, a complete fabrication. Here’s his ‘report’ which claims that:

“Well, as of last week this is surely an issue they can no longer ignore in Cheshire, following the opening of a gigantic sinkhole that drained the Shropshire Union Canal at Middlewich, just a couple of hundred yards from where HS2 is intended to cross”.

Gosh! A ‘gigantic sinkhole’ eh? No, not really, there is no sinkhole. There never was. The problem was caused by the canal bank giving way – as this website and host of pictures reveals! Plus, all this information was known BEFORE Rukin penned his rubbish yesterday.

http://middlewichdiary.com/2018/03/a-serious-breachmarch-16th-2018.html

“The bank above the aqueduct burst, spilling the canal’s water into the river.”

There’s another interesting comment from the website which shoots another of Rukin’s foxes: “When the bridges on the Middlewich Branch were constructed in 1827, just at the beginning of the railway age, construction techniques had improved so much that, as we have seen, these later structures can withstand a lot of rough treatment.”

As techniques have moved on a hell of a lot from 1827 I don’t think Hs2 has much to worry about!

There’s more details on the breach here.

Rukin also repeats the lie that then Chancellor George Osborne ‘ordered’ that the route of Hs2 be diverted around his Tatton constituency. He doesn’t offer the slightest shred of evidence for this claim of course. There is none because it’s not true, but then Rukin has a long history of telling lies.

Now it seems Rukin’s flair for dishonesty is starting to annoy even his own campaign’s supporters. This comment has appeared under the article on the Stophs2 Facebook page!

canal

Will someone please pass Rukin a fire-extinguisher to put out his pants?