Tag: YouTube

The River Thames in 1935, and oyster fishing at Whitstable

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colouronthethames

Colour on the Thames – footage from the Thames dating back to 1935

Here’s a sweet piece of film of the River Thames years ago spotted by ‘Carl’, who belongs to the Dinghy Cruising Association’s splendid Openboat YahooGroup. If you’re a small boat sailor I recommend it for all sorts of practical reasons, and this kind of thing is a real bonus.

But back to the film, which has been put up by the British Film Institute. Check it out for steam ships and tugs, busy bridges, some nice old footage of sailing barges motoring and under canvas in the Pool of London, and some very coolly-dressed up-stream watermen in suits and hats working some small steam boats.

PS – Do have a look this splendid footage of oyster fishing at Whitstable in 1920 that I’ve just found: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v8pFfqfL4D8 Isn’t YouTube fun? It’s certainly better than the telly is most evenngs.

Dylan Winter on gaffers and smacks

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The gifted Dylan Winter has excelled himself this time with his latest short YouTube video series Keep Turning Left. In this one he drools over a series of gaff-rigged yachts and smacks, and praises the English for their amazing reasonableness.

Hopefully someone, somewhere will one day have the vision to commission him to do a series of properly budgeted videos – if nothing else this hugely enjoyable series must be a great advert for his skills and screen persona. Maybe the lucky man will even be offered the rich prize of a book contract!

It seems churlish to say it but one thing I slightly regret is that chooses a lot of Irish music for these videos. Maybe he knows and has rejected the wealth of great English traditional music that might seem a more approriate accompaniment to videos that are at least for the moment centred on the English coast, but my feeling is that the Scots, Irish and Welsh will no doubt get their turns later…

PS – I was delighted to find this exchange in the comments to this video on YouTube:

‘What are you watching,’ my wife asked. ‘You’ve got that look on your face.’

‘What look?’ I replied.

‘That look that says I want to be doing what they are doing – you’re not watching porn on that thing are you?’

Something understood – how to paddle a Canadian canoe at an angle, and why

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Paddling a Canadian canoe

I learned something from this video, and will try paddling my own little canoe this way some day – hopefully without getting too wet.

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