Not my figure

I REALLY must object to Colin Draper accusing me of conjuring up the figure of 951 visits to every mile of canal every day—not my figure I assure him, writes T. Lang.

Colin must be a new reader to narrowboatworld as Canal & River Trust's visitor figures have often been mentioned, with its spokesman—or should it now be spokesperson?—John Dodwell, claiming there are now 500,000,000 visits to CaRT waterways every year, up from 400,000,000 last year he writes, even though he told last year there were 460,000,000, but what is 40,000,000 or so to such people?

Figure originates

It is this, Colin, from where the figure originates, for as unbelievable as it seems, it calculates at 951 visits to every mile of waterway every day!

What I cannot understand is that John Dodwell is a very long standing boater who tells us he widely cruises the waterways, so he really must know he has never ever seen that many people in any mile of waterway, so why say such porkies?

Middle of winter

Here we are today in the middle of winter, with freezing weather and even snow, so I really don't see anyone tramping to see any waterway—except of course a few hardy dog walkers, but somehow I can't see there being 1,369,863 of them today, as John would have us believe, do you? His own intelligence must tell him how impossible it is, and looking at it another way if there are virtually none today or tomorrow, then to make up the number there must be double or even treble another another day.  Crazy isn't it?