Limit of navigation

Some things I straightened out by reading the excellent Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide site:

• The usual limit of navigation is at Lechlade. Powered craft usually turn below Lechlade footbridge.
• Beyond the footbridge is Inglesham. 'The first section above Inglesham is wide enough and generally deep enough for small launches'.
• The WTSMG author (in a punt) saw a narrowboat reach Hannington Bridge
• 'If you can pass [Castle Eaton Bridge] you can probably get to Cricklade'. The author has a fierce battle with the current at the bridge.
• Cricklade Town Bridge is 'the limit of navigation as far as I am concerned in a punt. Most canoists would probably agree - though there may be sections above this where a canoe could be used at certain times of the year.'

I've got really interested in this now, so herewith a table of distances of places mentioned from the boundary stone at Teddington Lock:

Place	Miles upstream
Lechlade footbridge	124.75
Hannington Bridge	128.25
Castle Eaton Bridge	130.95
Cricklade Bridge	135.18

Gob all over my carnation

In Radio Active 5.3, 'Out Of Your Depth', one of the jobs Martin Brown attempts to do is that of an actor. Director Ronnie Crump tries to help him rehearse his one line,

Ooh it were terrible, gob all over my carnation

I find that 'Gob all over my carnation' is a line from The Erpingham Camp by Joe Orton. Scene 7 if you're interested.

So Tom and Clive in the Orton diaries really were the same couple as 'T. and C.' in the Kenneth Williams diaries.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/10/kenneth-williams-biography-christopher-stevens

Although I've caught up to this rather late, I'm quite surprised; I assumed Russell 'No not him' Davies had disguised their names when he edited the diaries.

On Tuesday afternoon I went to an appointment in Putney, on the fourth floor of a building overlooking the river. I was given some good news, that they didn't need to see me again, so when I came out at 3pm I was in a really good mood. I noticed that there was a fine view north over London from the staircase, and I spent some time looking at the various high buildings, like the Post Office Tower and the Walkie Talkie and that one that looks like a set of steps that they keep advertising in the FT. It was a beautiful afternoon with white clouds and blue distances. I nearly took a picture but decided I'd better hurry on back to the car park, which was lucky, because maps show that in my happy good news memory picture Grenfell Tower would have been prominent camera front.

United Airlines

I see one or two people have connected recent bad publicity for United Airlines with the 1970 Hunter S. Thompson bit The Temptations of Jean-Claude Killy:

There is something in the corporate manner of United Airlines that reminds me of the California Highway Patrol, the exaggerated politeness of people who would be a hell of a lot happier if all their customers were in jail - and especially you, sir.

Flying United, to me, is like crossing the Andes in a prison bus.

(collected in The Great Shark Hunt)

Smallest crossover target audience

He thought he saw an Anthropoid

Listening to the Clive Merrison version of The Creeping Man just now, I thought of another Oxbridge don in love with an Alice many years his junior who might have resorted to rejuvenating serums...

In fact though, the difference in age between Professor Presbury and Alice Morphy is 37 years, whereas Dodgson was only 20 years older than Alice Liddell.