Map of the canal system

A couple of years ago we bought a map of the UK canal system.  We bought it online and we were happy with our purchase.  The problem is that it's so enormous we don't often get it out.  We'd love to have one about half the size but I just can't find something suitable.  We want to pore over it and dream about where we'll go and what we'll see.

Anyone have a suggestion?

The one we already have is Nicholsons - Inland Waterways map of Great Britain (2009).

Canal etiquette and The Boaters Handbook

I've read everything I can get my hands on about narrowboating and the canals.  On several blogs and in some lovely books about peoples' experiences on the canals there have been some daunting stories of angry fishermen or other boaters - often completely unfairly. 

I also notice this week that Gypsy Rover (AU) had an annoying experience with bad canal manners.

It got me thinking about the rules out there that we might not be aware of.  When we hired in 2007 we really were told very little about what we should or shouldn't do.  They provided a boaters handbook but not everyone would bother to read the 40 pages.  Here's a link to the handbook.
http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/media/documents/boat-licensing/The_boaters_handbook.pdf

I found this unofficial list of etiquette matters.
http://www.hotelnarrowboat.com/etiquette.html

Nicholson's or Pearson's

There appears to be two main players in the canal guide game.  When we did our hire in 2007 we bought both guides for the Grand Union Canal - Nicholson and Pearson.  The Nicholson guide seemed to be more comprehensive and had much more detailed maps of the towns and their streets.  The descriptions and explanations were great.  But, we found the little Pearson book easier to read the map at a glance.  It's larger and the icons for services etc were larger too.  We especially noticed this as the weather was very sunny and with the booklet perched on the roof the larger map was easier to look at than the smaller print on the Nicholson.

I'm itching to order more of them so we can read about all the different places but there may well be updates by the time we get there and we'd rather have the most recent when the time comes to go cruising.  So I guess we'll just have to keep looking at the ones we have.  Hmmm.. might be worth a look on Ebay.  Maybe someone is selling off their old editions.

We'd love to know your opinions on these guides.  Which do you prefer and why?