March 2012:CSI Part 2 (The Hair Story continued) Canalside Curries and Larking about on a Thames barge
14 March 2012 | London, as ever
Urban Boater
Morning has broken da-di-da-di-dah! What a beautiful day, it feels like bloody summer I'm so impressed!
It's not even mid-March yet and Urban Boater has been very busy out and about, and not out and about. We just get everywhere!
Around our way on the canal there seems to be a lot of good, bad and ugly energy at the moment.
From the buzz (a tiny bit sad?!) caused by the filming of a B & Q advert where our neighbour's boat, 'Carlotta', bedecked and bejewelled with flowers completely covering the roof of the boat was used in the background of an ad they were filming (and Urban Boater made 50 quid just moving out of the way for the advert...we really must get in the way of film locations more often) to the distressing news about Gemma McCluskie's murder after her body was found in the lock at Broadway Market.
First, the cheerful news from our stretch of the towpath. The boat 'Carlotta', a wide-beam perhaps about 50-60ft long was used in the advert which was filmed at the start of the month.
Carlotta be-flowered
I hasten to add in Mackerel Sky's defence that we were asked too by the location manager if we would be interested in allowing our boat to be used (for a reported 500 quid just to move your boat up and down the canal for an afternoon, er, let me think?) but definitely the better boat won the day as the crews arrived to deck every surface with plants real and artificial, to make the boat look like a floating carnival-it really looked beautiful!
I wish my camera did it justice as I took a photo of the flowers as dusk came and I was busy getting diesel off Dominique, who anyone on a boat in London would probably know, he's a French guy, improbably rogue-ishly dashing despite being covered head to toe with oil that seems to permanently stain him (is he like this at the start of the day I wonder?)
At least I think he's French, he swears at the canal, "This canal is so full of shit!" and wears a stripey top. No onions or beret though, so he might not be French.
* * *
So that was the first bit of excitement. Then Mackerel Sky helped the Met with a murder investigation.
So, you remember the start of the hair story in February's edition right? Well, we found hair round our propeller, human hair, told the police but didn't actually take it to the station in the end, forgot about it, hair what hair? Course you remember!
So that had happened and we thought nothing more of it, until Victoria, the very nice British Waterways boat checker, popped round stopped by and waved (Victoria bikes about rain or shine to check the locations of all the boats (ie checks that we're not all taking the piss too much by not moving on).
After being told off in the nicest possible way for mooring against some scaffolding of a building site last week (I KNEW it was a bad idea but did Bob listen?! Helpful advice, what did I tell you) Victoria said,
"Did you hear about the body in the canal?"
"What body?" (At this point it's raining and I'm descending rapidly into a week of what I have called dysentry so I'm trying to politely curtail the conversation, lovely as Victoria is. thanks for your concern guys, the illness wasn't that bad...Ok, it was).
"Yeah, yesterday they found a torso in the lock at Broadway Market. Just a torso"
"Oh my gosh! That is terrible, that's awful! Do they know anything else?"
"That's all they've found, they think it might be an Eastenders actress"
"An Eastenders actress? Who?" (Suddenly, the hair, Eastenders-which actress could it be?-and the unsolved mystery come into my mind).
"Ooh you know that's quite weird Victoria, 'cause the other night, well the other week (suddenly the importance of precise dates comes into my mind, we are dealing with a crime here, timing is everything) we found a load of hair wrapped round our propeller. It was definitely human hair, we did tell the Police".
Which is not really a lie is it? They just never got the hair.
"Oh you should probably tell them again about that. Yeah, they'll want to know."
So, obviously we didn't tell them, that's just the way we are, you know by now! Anyway what were we to say, "Oh hello. We found some human hair under our boat and you told us to bring it in but actually then we threw it away. Sorry." We thought if they want to know about it, they'll get in touch. At a decent time of day.
That night, in the throes of the storm going on in my bowels, crouching foetal-position in the bed when there's a knock on the door, and then windows of the boat until they reach our bedroom window.
"Fuck! Who's that!" I say in my near-delirious state, "Bob! Bob! Someone just knocked, what if it's that gang? Quick! Do something!"
I open the curtains and two blokes are outside, silhouetted against the street lamp above the canal, "It;s the Police madam. We'd like to ask you some questions."
Obviously I have watched too many crime programmes as my next words, the suspicious mind of an urban boater that is untied regularly, "How do we know that you're really the Police?" Huh? Huh? I feel proud of myself (Bob later tells me he was really impressed at me asking this, "Aww thanks Bob!" I say, feeling the flush of self-satisfaction and that yes, that-was-rather-good-wasn't-it?).
Anyway, Bob goes outside to speak to them. They want to know about the hair, when, where did we find it, no, they're not cross that we threw it away. First thing tomorrow they're going to bring divers to check under the boat to see if there's any hair left.
The next day the Police had ruled it out as it didn't fit the right time frame..It begs the question though doesn't it: Whose hair was wrapped round our propeller? Or, perhaps it was a wig after all.
And that's the end of Mackerel Sky's small part in the very sad tale of poor Gemma McCluskie's murder.
* * *
So, as I said, it's only mid-March and already all this has happened.
Bob and his friend Owen are both chefs and they have decided to forge ahead with their Canalside Curries together (it's yet to be Christened properly yet) and this past weekend went really well after the washout that was last Sunday.
Go down the canal and find them serving from our boat Mackerel Sky or from Owen's back deck-you can't miss his boat it has the wagon-like canvas covers. Curry, salad and a creamy thirst-quenching lassi for a fiver-you can't beat it!
I might add to this entry if we actually ever get round to putting topsoil into our raised roof beds! I say 'we', you know I mean Bob.
Catch you later!