Our lead story offers a few bland thoughts from the Movers and Shakers over at Marine House in Egham, which is all they can say officially at present, being a trifle wary of announcing their intentions to BB before they tell BMF members.

But I know all the ideas put forward - and there have been many of them - have been listened to, examined and mulled over. Nothing has been turned down and the process has been very open-minded.

For BB's part, if what I expect to be announced does get announced, I reckon we can say we are on the right road at last.

The BMF and NBS have listened. They are making the right noises.

And they are prepared to listen some more.

Now it's time for us to get behind them and help get the London Boat Show back on its feet and working for the good of this industry.

And the good of the inland waterways industry could be helped enormously if British Waterways (BW) didn't repeatedly miss a PR trick with its marinas business, BWML.

Launched in a flood of puffery in January 2004, BW CEO Robin Evans promised BWML would be an independent company with "the checks and balances in place that is expected of a company dedicated to full transparency in its dealings".

But the question has been asked repeatedly of BW: how can BWML claim to be fully transparent and independent when its chairman, James Froomberg, is commercial director of BW?

Simply ensuring no BW directors work for BWML will say more about BW's intentions than any amount of PR puffery.