CRAFTY yachtsmen have already come up with one idea to beat the Lake District National Park Authority's swingeing new charges for boat licensing.
In the past, yachts were charged by engine size to use Windermere, which was cheap enough as a great many of them only sported a 5hp outboard just to see them back to their moorings if the wind died.
Now the LDNPA has changed to charging all craft with engines by length.
I am told that the yachties' plan is to declare their craft as non-powered and therefore free from charges and instead declare their boarding dinghies as the powered craft.
So when the wind disappears they pump up the inflatable, which is usually only about six feet long, fit on the outboard motor and tow the engineless main yacht back to base.
POT PLEASURE I WAS delighted to see that some yoghurt I bought last week was labelled free-range.
The thought of all those pots crammed cheek by jowl into intensive production units has bothered me for years.
How nice to know that the strawberry-flavoured delicacy I had bought had previously enjoyed a happy and carefree life rolling round some expansive and idyllic pasture in its little plastic pot.
TIME TEASING...
"YOU might well scoff at Ambleside's apparent unconcern with the time of day," says Gareth Butterworth in response to the picture I used of a clock in the village, which has different times on adjacent faces.
"That is nothing to that lot ower't Raise (Dunmail Raise) in Keswick," he adds.
"There the Moot Hall clock doesn't have any minute workings, hence only the hour hand adorns the clock-face to tell their good citizens the time of day.
"It is said that it was so difficult to teach the people of Keswick how to understand hours, it would be no good giving them minutes as well as it would have blown their minds completely trying to get their heads round it.
"I must add that I always make sure that the windows are shut in my vehicle when I tell this story to the visitors on my Lakeland Safari Tours," he says.
SPOT THE MISKTAE...
MALCOLM Brooks, a former primary school deputy head, tells me that he was less than impressed with the Winter 2005 edition of Your Cumbria from Cumbria County Council.
"A quick glance revealed it was already out of date as an advertisement on the back page invited us to respond by September 30," he said.
"Further perusal revealed that this was not only a catalogue of useful information but also a catalogue of errors!
"On page four Aspergers was spelt wrongly as asperges.
"On page eight policemen's written as policeman's "Cumbria-based writer Jim Eldridge, the man behind more than 500 works for film, TV and radio was written as a complete sentence.
"Their was spelt as there in an article about a new children's publication!
"Defences was spelt defenses "Buildings should have been building's and secure was written as secures."
So all of you who thought, like me, that the glossy magazine was an expensive waste of council tax payers' money were wrong.
It must have been specially designed as a fascinating spot the deliberate mistake' game to help fill in time for the retired erudite.
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