Punt Wars.....

If you believe the Daily Mail Cambridge is in the grip of "Punt Wars" as "rival touts sink boats, threaten each other with knives and left one tourist with a broken hip".

Now I know there have been allegations of strange happenings and suggestions that the some punters in town were exploiting their size to muscle out the competition..... How much of this is actually true? It's hard to tell.

As a believer in free markets I personally find it a little strange that it appears the local authorities seem to be fighting against the entrepreneurial efforts of local small businesses and trying to push the independents off the river. From the outside it would appear local policy is being used to force the independents to operate in increasingly dangerous ways and then punish them for doing so when they are trying to make a living.

The whole thing seemed to get slightly oppressive and scary when it got to the stage where the authorities appeared to be using "anti-terror" laws to spy on the independents. Are these "independent punters" really so dangerous that we need to use anti-terror laws to monitor them? What next detention without trial for being in possession of an unlicensed straw boater? Men in balaclavas making midnight raids on punting seditionaries found to be browsing for recipes for how to mix "Pimms" on the Internet? Waterboarding for using the water? Not very Cambridge, in fact from the outside it appears draconian, heavy handed and frankly just not cricket old chap.

Still while I may support the right of the independents to make a living without the threat of extraordinary rendition to Haverhill by the council there is one thing that drives me up the wall as a city resident and that is the damn "punt pimps".

I actually have nothing against these guys in particular
so the faces have been changed to protect the innocent...

These pushy touts desperate to sell tickets to tourists for punting on the Cam constantly harass anyone trying to peacefully negotiate their way through the middle of the City in the summertime. They are supposedly trying to persuade tourists to take a trip up the river, but as I got harassed for the fifth time as I tried to walk across the bridge over the river, a bag of shopping in each hand and a large packet of toilet rolls under my arm I did wonder exactly what you have to do to get these apparently myopic menaces to mellow out as I meander past the Mill Pond and the Quayside....

So drum roll please as Cambridge T-Shirts proudly presents our latest production, hope it makes your life a little better...... remember the old saying..... a T-Shirt a day keeps the punt pimps away....