Paris:- Friday, 6. December 1996:- The waste containers are gone or blocked up as I come through La Défence, but I do not see a lot of uniforms or machine guns, nor do I at Concorde where I make the change for the line down to the Porte de Versailles.

The guy letting in visitors to the Salon Nautique is nervous though. He sees the press badge I got last Friday, so he cleverly asks for my Press Card, and immediately notices it was last good in 1991. 'Hey! Your Press Card is expired!'

He's right. Without renewing this card every year, I am no longer a journalist. I am not writing this and only go to these salons in order to waste money riding the métro.

But a bigger guy steps in and says I've got a press badge and that's all the first guy needs to know; and looking at him, I think maybe this guy have seen too many boat crazies lately: he has propeller eyes.

He may just do boat shows, I do all the salons - so having an expired Press Card is no problem for me. As the government has recently decided to suppress the 30 percent tax discount French journalists get when they've got the card, I wonder how many will go through the hassle of getting theirs renewed next year.

Without the card and the tax discount, the real journalists can ask their employers for raises - and then there will be even more of us unemployed. One would hope that unemployed journalists send out a better class of CV than, say, formerly employed nuclear scientists, or systems engineers. But this is far from the boat show.

I decided a long time ago to extol the wonders of canal-boat holidays; because these take you through the centre of France where is everything is natural and unspoilt, as it is in every industrialized country. Considering that the canals were one-time commercial thoroughfares, the few glimpses of them that I've seen have been... surprisingly unspoilt.

With a canal-boat, you definitely rent them. No point in taking them home after your trip like the caravanners. Nobody wants a canal-boat in their backyard for the winter; but I don't see why not exactly if it is okay to have a caravan there.

What is amazing, is that the outfits that rent them, bring real ones to the Salon Nautique to show them off, show pride in their showers and toilets and curtains and cushions. It is possible to operate a canal-boat up to 15 metres long, without a license - I should write 'permitted' because I have no idea if it is possible. Out of the water they are really huge.

Now, if you have seen old photos of the Seine barges you may think that a canal-boat is something like Noah's Ark with a motor and a lot of beds in it. Ah no. Those ones are 'romantic' and they hardly ever move, except when the river rises.

These 'pleasure' models that are rented for the purpose of canal touring, are much more spiffy than... caravans! Unlike caravans, modern canal boats have upstairs, downstairs, under-stairs, on-decks, flying bridges, sun decks, and there is one here that has a swimming pool. Yes!

It is attached, with its own hull, to the back, just like a... caravan. If I remember correctly, I climbed up to an upper deck to get a photo of it and the angle didn't pan out. Looking down I saw a little window a bit lower down and thought I might get a better view from there, but it turned out to be a cross-ways cabin window, upstairs from downstairs, which was downstairs from... which deck? So I disembarked and shot the thing from the stand across the way - but is still doesn't look like a floating caravan which is in reality a swimming pool. I mean, what would?

While trying to describe this wonderful accessory, I hope you've gotten the idea of a modern canal-boat - their interiors seem to be arranged as sort of a series of minuscule chambered puzzles, so that you will feel like you are in an elaborate jetliner toilet instead of a floating dormitory. They are made entirely of smooth plastic, with bits of metal trim and some fake wood veneer for decor.

To be fair, there are also models of canal-boats that are characterized as 'traditional' or 'classic' and I think in the trade they are referred to as 'penichettes,' even the ones with 'terraces' or 'flying bridges.'

Last summer, on the way to Spain, I managed to see a tiny portion of the Canal du Midi, and watched a canal-boat, operated by ordinary people like you and me, going through 'the locks.' For some reason - the earth's curvature perhaps? - rivers are not flat, and they need stairs in them.

Imagine you are driving a canal-boat along a quiet tree-shaded canal, way out in the middle of the countryside, with blue sky overhead, birds signing their heads off, stuff in fields growing so fast it makes the air tremble, and you have a cool bottle of beer in one hand and the steering wheel - the helm! the rudder! - in the other and out of nowhere, right in front of you in the middle of the canal, there is a steel door!

This is a 'stairs,' or lock. Cool you, do not panic; this is normal. You stop the boat gently and toot the whistle. If the water on the other side of the steel door is the same level as your canal, then you get your big kids off the boat to turn great ruddy iron wheels until the doors open up, and then you drive the boat forward to the next set of steel doors, stopping gently again.

Then somebody pulls a plug out and your canal water drops and your boat with it, and when your level becomes the same as the next stretch of canal, your big kids get to turn great big iron wheels again to open the doors in front, and out you sail to the next length of canal. You reembark your kids because you will need them again and off you go, up or down the canal until lunchtime. And after lunch, you do the 'locks' routine some more until cocktail time before dinner.

This much fun isn't exactly cheap. A week of it in August, with the swimming pool attached, will set you back about 18,725 francs, but it includes the cost of the cooking gas and beds to sleep eight adults and two or three midgets. The off-season rate is about 7,000 francs less. In contrast, the smallest canal-boat - sleeping two adults and possibly two midgets - is only 3,885 francs a week in high season.

This week, Unesco declared the Canal du Midi to be one of the world's wonders and you can cruise this in a canal-boat.

You can start either from Narbonne or Carnon, near Montpellier, and cruise up to Toulouse, passing Sallèles, Homps, Trebes, the walled city of Carcassonne, and Castlenaudary, and all their gastronomic delights on the way, which are located within walking distance from the canal. And from Paris, it is possible to do a complete loop of the Champagne district - and this should give you a clue to what canal cruising is really all about.

I found these boats in Hall one, which mostly has sailboats, on account of its height. From here, I go to see the 'Espace Passion' in Hall three, where the proper motor-boats are located.

The 'Espace Passion' turned out to be exactly three boats: a tiny early aluminum-skin hydrofoil, which does not look like a boat at all. The other two objects are an air boat and an old cruiser.

The mahogany 'Kruschen' was built by the navel architect C. G. Petterson in 1927, and is my speed of boat. It has a proper steering wheel and you can stand up inside it while wearing a hat. Mr. Petterson is not famous for having designed and built 3,000 boats in his lifetime; he is famous because none of them were the same length. There is a color photograph on the wall of what looks like a Petterson boat rallye - and none of the 20-odd boats shown are alike, but all appear to be made of mahogany, which is a type of wood that boats were once made of, which still looks a lot better than white plastic.

The other boat on the stand is not quite up to the same nautical standard for excellence of craftsmanship. 'L'Arc En Ciel' started out in 1950 with a surplus jet engine and it was constructed by René Couzinet, who made the aircraft of the same name for Jean Mermoz. He was unable to coordinate the force of this powerplant with the physics of water and in 1951 he replaced the original motor with a piston version, a Lycoming 180 hp aviation motor with a propeller reduced to 1.6 metres.

Apparently it still works, but back then Mr. Couzinet was unable to interest the state in financing this avenue of engineering. I have heard that this type of craft is quite popular is some parts of Florida that are mostly water and alligators.

This of course makes my day, but as I leave the vast Hall three it is impossible not to notice that almost all of it is filled nearly to the ceiling with modern motor boats. For some reason, most of them seem to be made of white plastic - or wood or steel, covered in white plastic.

There are some fairly modest 3.5-metre jobs that would be well off with a 25 hp outboard motor, but a great many more - maybe not more, maybe only hugely bigger - 'boats' - no, these are the 'yachts.'

They are very big and the big ones have flying wings on top of flying bridges which are themselves on top of flying bridges - perhaps for those who can afford Learjets but for one reason or another, cannot get a jet fighter pilot's license - but can get a minesweeper captain's license without too much difficulty - but most likely have them driven by chauffeurs anyway. I wonder what it is like up there in the commando seat when there is a little sideways swell at water level.

But this is not all. Going in another direction entirely from the yachts with the gothic towers, there are a couple of examples of what I believe are called 'cigarette' boats. I may always be wrong about everything, but I believe the name comes from the old Tangier days when some enterprising businessmen used second-hand WWII torpedo boats for hauling cigarettes out of North Africa to cigarette-handicapped southern Europe.

Their main characteristics are long, narrow, light hulls; very big and powerful multiple motors; lots of room for cigarettes and little room for crews. At full tilt, they use more fuel than some space launchers, so they are mainly used on Sundays.

36th Salon Nautique International de Paris

Last day: Monday, 9. December
From 10:30 to 20:00
Tel.: 01 41 90 47 10
Official Web site: http://www.SalonNautiqueParis.fr/

Entry price: 60 francs. Children from seven to 13, 30 francs. Children under seven, free. Official catalogue: 60 francs.

Paris Expo
Métro - Porte de Versailles, line 12; or métro station Balard, on line 8.
Bus - lines 39 and 49 and on Sundays and holidays, line 80, from Gare Saint-Lazare.