Forecourt Forage

I recall, more fondly than a Frenchman dunking a poncy biscuit into a weak, Gallic, beverage, childhood car trips up to Scotland to visit family.  This would involve a long drive from the Wild West Midlands through Birmingham, a stage of the journey that took us on a section of elevated motorway through a city of tower blocks, like Mega City One but without the glamour, and with Brummies instead of Muties,

The journey was broken by two pit stops, both at motorway service stations.  The first stop was at a motorway service station that was probably just north of Birmingham but could have been anywhere in England back then, a classic 1970s (oxymoron alert) boxy affair on each side of the motorway, linked with a bridge spanning the traffic.  Facilities were duplicated on both sides of the highway, an early example of cloning and so the bridge was either an unnecessary architectural flourish or a meeting place for intelligence officers, or both.  I couldn’t pick it out of a line up today but I could, I think, identify it by smell; classic leaded petrol, diesel fumes and warm tarmac.

I have no idea what the catering and dining facilities at this place were like, according to nostalgia sites on the inter web they were famously awful, because we always took a packed lunch.  This consisted of cheese sandwiches, cheddar on white bread, augmented if you were a child by adding salt and vinegar flavoured crisps on top of the cheese.  This early example of fusion cuisine tasted divine and to this day I think a cheese sandwich lacks something if it does not crunch when eaten.

This was paired with Thermos Tea.  Thermos Tea is distinct from tea from a Thermos.  Tea from a Thermos could be boiling water from one Thermos, tea bags added separately, milk added from another Thermos.  Thermos Tea is tea first brewed in a pot, then poured with milk into a single Thermos flask to provide a brew with that particular tang, especially if served from a Thermos that has been well seasoned.

The one facility patronised was the loo.

The next stop was in the Borders I think.  I don’t recall much about this service station, beyond it being surrounded by scenery that was so jaw droppingly spectacular that these days the hills would be crawling with location scouts for fantasy epics.  The hills, I recall, were always topped with mist, so presumably we were across the Scottish border by this point.  This is usually where more Tea was taken for the final push to Glasgow.  Tea which had now been maturing for some five hours and was probably the beverage equivalent of crack.  It was also here where the facilities were used, and I would usually be the beneficiary of the service station shop, a book bought to keep me quiet for the remainder of the journey.

We probably also used the loo here.

I should say that while service stations are all very well, I remain a devotee of the roadside cafe, a caravan located in a layby where a hungry trucker can get a bacon buttie, a cup of tea in a non-biodegradable cup, and a hand job from a tranny, and still have change from a fiver.

Garages, back in the day, used to sell three things; fuel, oil, porn.

Today, things have changed somewhat, although roadside cafes remain a bastion of tradition.

Motorway service stations have followed the airport terminal model and become, essentially, out of town shopping centres with a petrol pump attached, and you have to look bloody hard to find the petrol pumps, and when you do there’s probably a Costa outlet there as well.  As well as what is essentially a food court offering many varieties of fried snack, there are mini-supermarkets on site that would not disgrace an upmarket camp site.

Garages have changed too.  You can still by fuel and wine gums, but the porn has been replaced by ‘Hello’ and many garages now come with the obligatory mini-mart attached.  One near me has an M&S outlet.  That’s right, the poshest place to buy groceries near me is the local garage.

Services with a smile

A pint of beer.  Lovely.  This is best enjoyed after briskly walking the dogs or engaging in some rewarding manual labour prior to slumping in a chair and sighing.

Whetherspoons, the pub chain famous for selling very cheap beer and for being open for breakfast so that patrons can enjoy a croissant with their cider, today opened their first pub on a motorway service station.

This is, depending on your point of view, a sound commercial decision and a move that will allow weary travellers to have a decent meal at an affordable price prior to resuming their journey refreshed and alert, or madness.  In particular, motorway madness.  And that’s the worst type of madness.  Apart from madness involving power tools.  Or genocide.

Wheatherspoon’s argument for having a pub in a service station – a place where drivers’ pee and guzzle coffee prior to resuming a journey on a very busy road full of speeding traffic – is that this is a place where a motorist can stop and have something to eat and a tea or a coffee or a wide variety of drinks or, if they are drinking alcohol, a sensible amount.

So what’s a sensible amount?  I’ve been on the M40.  A sensible amount of alcohol to drink whilst driving on it is none at all.  A sensible amount to drink when you arrive home after driving on it is a fucking shedload.

Even if the driver isn’t boozing, is a pub breakfast or lunch, which can involve sausage, beans, eggs, double chips and an extra sausage, really the best thing to eat prior to undertaking a motorway journey?  Isn’t the best meal to drive on three amphetamine tablets rattling around in one of those wee paper cup things and a strong coffee?

Those who oppose the opening of the pub argue that THIS IS A PUB IN A SERVICE STATION!

I can’t actually recall the name of the pub, but surely this is ripe territory for a competition.  ‘The Drivers’ Arms’, with the pub sign being a couple of hands on a steering wheel?  ‘The Coach and Party’?

Possibly this is a throwback to the romantic early days of motoring, when roadside coaching inns enjoyed a brief revival as roadhouses, offering beer, fags and hearty fare to weary motorists before all those pesky laws about drink driving or social conventions about smoking a pipe in a car full of infants came into being.  Our roads though, are somewhat different now.

I’m a huge fan of pubs, and I’ve got nothing in particular against the M40, but I’m not sure that a pub in a motorways service station is a great idea.  There are many things that one can usefully do at a motorway service station, but ‘tarry’ is not one of them.

Which makes me wonder about a pub patronised by a transient community.  Or will it be?  Who will be the regulars at the Drivers Arms?  I’m romantic enough to hope that this will be a destination location for those in the locality who fancy a quick drink in convivial company and are willing to toil across the no-mans land, and possibly six lanes of speeding traffic, that surround these places for a pint and some lively conversation.  Possibly these will be the same people who when faced with the question ‘where shall we eat tonight’, don’t hesitate to respond ‘the KFC at the service station…we can get a drink at the pub first’.

Postcard from Yorkshire: On the road

A day out exploring the area, essentially going up hill and down dale via whatever attractive looking coffee shops appear to be open and serving cake. As the dry stone walls run like veins across the fields, so the narrow country lanes that appear to pass for B roads in Yorkshire wind like arteries, connecting villages, usually following the flow of some river or other.

The villages themselves are usually arranged around a triangular green or square and the houses and shops sit huddled together, as if for warmth in a landscape that can be as cold and hostile as the locals are warm and friendly. But these are not abandoned villages only inhabited by tourists at weekends, they are busy and occasionally surprising places, like the place we passed with a racehorse stable on the edge of it, and returning to the stable was one frisky looking horse and rider and one positively manic looking four hoofed menace being led by the stable lad while the diminutive jockey walked alongside, clutching crop and saddle, rubbing an evidently sore arse and looking for all the world like he was not at all pleased with new rules on whipping meaning he could no longer legitimately thrash the beast who had unseated him on the training run.

This makes driving a bit of a challenge, as the scenery is spectacular and, after a good deal of rainfall, dynamic as rivers tumble in waterfalls and cascades, all very diverting which is not a good idea as you try to negotiate a tricky turning which will, in all probability, have something interesting coming the other way.

This could be a local driving at nutter speed in their landie. Or it could be a tractor, or it could be a tractor pulling a trailer piled dangerously high with some sort of root vegetable that could really put a crimp in your day and a dent in your lap if it were to make a guest appearance through your sunroof. These twisty turny uppy downy roads are also home to the lorries that zoom from farm to farm and village to village.

Tiny villages and enormous lorries abound, the latter squeezing through the former sometimes one suspects because sat nab is no respecter of road width but also because this is where the road goes and the lorries have to go on the road. This was certainly the case of the lorry hauling sheep that looked if anything considerably more relaxed than the pedestrians trying to get out of the way in the village of Hawes, as it squeezed down the high street. One often wonders what goes through the minds of sheep at the best of time, but god alone knows what they think when being transported, presumably they are under the impression that are going on some sort of trip, possibly to Alton Towers. This is almost never the case.

As well as lorries and deluded sheep Hawes is home to a rather nice cafe and art gallery, which sells the work of local artist Peter Brook.




It also sells a rather nice print of 'The Butcher's Dog'.



This is a painting of a Westie looking out of the upstairs window of the local butcher's shop. Looking up from my latte, I saw a butcher's shop with a Westie looking out of the upstairs window, life imitating art imitating life.

White van passengers

Standing by the side of the road, waiting for the lights to change, one has plenty of time to survey ones surroundings. But sod that, it's much more fun to stare at the occupants of the cars whizzing by. Someday, somebody is going to author the definitive spotters' guide to the British diver, with descriptions and illustrations of the School Run Mum, The Commuter, The Angry Man, The Fun Car Driver, The Soft Toy Farmer and so on and so forth. Next month, they'll start work on updating the guide, that's how definitive guides work.

A particular sub-set of traveller is the white van driver. Lots has been, well, not so much written as said about white van drivers. True, the vast majority of it is not social commentary in the formal sense, but rather along the lines of immediate feedback on the white van driver's skill at, say, filtering, usually delivered by somebody in a neighbouring car to an audience of an empty passenger seat.

And while much has been said and shouted about the white van driver, less has been said about the white van passenger, which is a shame. Because I think this is a particular social type that could stand some examination. Looking at white van passengers, you can't help but think that there is a story there. They occupy a special place, and not just to the left of the hand break. Rather, like the girlfriend of a a provincial gigging DJ who keeps other women away from her man simply through the power of sullen glower, they have a purpose of their own. Often, of course, this will be to load and unload crates of fanta, but there's something else going on there too.

The passengers essentially break down into three types; mates, girlfriend, family. Mates are there to help shift stuff from the van or to the van. A mate can be identified not just by posture - they are happy to sit in companionable silence for long periods - but by the little nest they make on the passenger side of the van to reinforce their sense of identity even though they are not the driver. The base layer is constructed of coffee cups and tabloid newspapers, further than that it's at the discretion of the mate except that before the invention of the Internet there would always be at least one soft core porn mag.

The girlfriend is rarer, but easily visible when present because her posture manages to convey 'I want to spend more time with you and if I have to spend Saturday in a van with you, I will, although it will not be pleasant'. The van driver's originally chirpy mood will be ground down throughout the day, turning very bleak indeed when he realises about three o' clock that his planned evening of drinking cider with his mates is unlikely to happen.

The family member is about the best. Specifically, small boys and dogs. Small boys, or girls, in a van are always uplifting. Somehow taking your kid to work in a van goes beyond the normal 'I have fucked up the child care arrangements, again' that typify the appearance of a child in an office. The kid is normally excited beyond even the power of haribo to induce giddiness, because they are finding out what happens to their parent during the day and, when you're a kid, there's nothing quite like seeing your parent at work and realising that other people do not call him 'Dad' and riding high above the rest of the traffic. You conclude the day learning that his name is either 'Geoff' or 'wanker'. You also conclude with a free tray of fanta but you're not to tell anyone.

The only family member more pleased than a child to ride in the passenger seat of a white van is a small dog, usually a terrier, usually with its head stuck out of the window looking happy beyond reason because surely there is no greater thrill than accompanying your dad on a job, unless it's sticking your head out of the window and letting your ears blow about in the rush of wind.

Postcard from the M25

Motorway service stations are like little villages. The village idiot is usually to be found behind the stainless steel counter of a fast food franchise, wearing a name badge that lies ‘happy to help’, a nylon baseball cap in corporate colours, an expression that would curdle the milk were it not UHT and a posture that suggests to the world that they are not at all happy with their current employment status, and that their ambitions are either to throw themselves into the next X Factor audition or under the next HGV that passes.

Actually, such motorway service station village residents are a dying breed, and not just because they are too busy sulking to reproduce. Rather, they have been replaced by young keen people who have worked out that, very much like the British during the Victorian era, a few years in some far flung corner of the corporate Empire will allow you to make mistakes without anyone noticing, indulge in a spot of gin-fuelled vice and then transfer back to civilization with experience far beyond your years, at least one interesting scar, many interesting stories, something of a reputation and a salary band at least three grades above your contempories.

Such a one was the young manager of Costa Coffee at Clackett Lane Services on the M25. Her name badge hinted at a Portuguese heritage, her accent hinted at Portuguese citizenship and her desire to flog coffee accessories hinted at a desire to be sitting behind a big desk in head office before the age of 30. Yes, we did want coffee, no, no biscotti, no, no sandwiches, no, no soft drinks, no, no extra shots…actually, yes, we have a motorway journey ahead of us and I want to be alert to the point of wired.

The barrista was no less enthused (I was wondering if the staff had been overdoing it with Colombia’s second most stimulating export, or whether they just cut to the chase and bang off a couple of lines of the most stimulating followed by a bucket of espresso to take the edge off before each shift), trying to convince us that chocolate sprinkles were an essential addition to any coffee experience.

Such enthusiasm was stimulating and refreshing, the bloody coffee was going to have to go some to compete.

Out on the car park, the media were prowling. The RAC had just today issued a press release, possibly written in crayon for all the sense it made, suggesting that it would be a good idea to raise the speed limit on motorways to 80mph. As we sat in heavy traffic, in roadworks and in tailbacks, it was remarked upon that it might be a good idea to raise the speed on motorways to 40mph before we contemplate any further increases.

As we had pulled into the car park, we had noticed a clean cut chap and a less clean cut cameraman rushing after a middle-aged motorist. Such was their enthusiasm that we tried to see if he was famous, a politician likely to be caught with his trousers down, or a rogue trader. He was none of these, instead he was a middle-aged demographic for their vox-pop. This is where the media had come to record the opinion of the nation about the proposed increase in speed limit.

They didn’t ask us, no matter how slowly we walked or how media-friendly we looked. And I even had my ‘I look intelligent and trustworthy, like a doctor before that bastard Shipman spoiled it for the whole profession’ spectacles on.

The presenter sported a classic look. A sharply pressed blue shirt, neat tie and close shave above the waist, faded jeans and disgraceful but comfortable shoes below. This meant he was either a teevee type or a Divorced Dad Dating Again. The cameraman was the giveaway, unless he’s the subject of a new Channel 5 reality train-crash ‘Divorced Dads’ Dating Disasters’. Also a giveaway was the lack of producer, researcher and sound guy. Five years ago a bloke with a microphone and a bloke with a camera alone would mean that they were doing a piece for the service station’s in-house video show ‘Channel Clackett’. Today and thanks to falling advertising revenue and lack of investment, this was probably ITV or local independent news. You could tell it wasn’t BBC because they didn’t have the normal news crew of half a dozen including guide and interpreter for journeys outside central London. And you could tell it wasn’t Sky, they would have had a helicopter thundering overhead.

Obviously though, I was not pop, or possibly not vox, enough to make up part of this particular vox pop. Possibly they already had the demographic I fitted, we had seen them covering startled pensioners (reaction: it’s far too fast, bring back boys with red flags) and they had probably already covered teenage louts (there’s a speed limit?) and businessmen in BMWs (80mph is far too low) and, given that they want some extreme views, probably had their bases covered. Or possibly, because this was ITV, they considered my lack of tattoos as likely to intimidate their audience.

A Road England

Motorways have changed Britain, and not just by concreting over large portions of it. For instance, they allow yogurt to travel more miles than a comedian turned traveller can rack up filming an entire series of taking a quirky journey while taking a sideways look at the locals, they allow for family bickering to take place in a controlled enclosed environment for many hours and, of course, they provide an opportunity for the driver to look into the people-pods passing left and right and make judgements about the travellers within, based on how many windows are blacked out with holiday gear and children packed into the back of the family saloon, how loved-up the couple making their way to a mini-break look, or how that mini-break went based on how far away the passenger and driver are attempting to get away from one another while remaining in the same car on the journey home.

They also provide the opportunity to eat an entire packet of wine gums in one go and spend the next two hours wondering if its possible to sweat sugar. They have given rise to the motorway service station, somewhere to pee and eat warm sandwiches in the car park while wondering if the crab paste smells funny or if it’s just the diesel fumes making you a bit queasy. They do have their charms, such as service stations and the occasional decent view, but set against this you have a seemingly endless ribbon of tarmac, only decorated with the occasional tyre debris where stimulation is rare, if you are lucky you can play games such as ‘what the hell language is that on the back of that truck’ or ‘having been sat in a roadwork filter system for an hour, how angry am I that the roadworks appear to be unoccupied?’.

In-car distractions have developed. As well as radio, tape and CD, there are in-car DVD players, the only things more stimulated than drive-time DJs are lab monkeys with electrodes inserted into their thalamus and of course those knights of the road, the long haul truckers, have sex with prozzers in laybys to relieve the monotony. Sometimes they even close the curtains in the cab first.

Motorways have changed Britain. Before motorways we had main roads, now known as A roads. A-road Britain is a slower, more picturesque and, I think, kinder place that M-Way Britain. Motorways may be a great way to get from A to Z quickly, but the M can often stand for ‘misery’ and, what’s more, there’s a lot to be said for visiting B to Y on the way from A to Z.

Driving to Blenheim Palace I kept seeing signs to Evesham, very near my next destination, Malvern, and somewhere it takes another hour to reach by M-Way. I was rather wondering if the M40 takes a bloody huge loop out of the way, possibly there’s some sort of geographical rift allowing more or less instant access from London to the Cotswolds. Thinking that a fold in spacetime sounded more exciting than the M40, I decided to take the A road route.

And so, I rediscovered A road Britain. This is the way to travel, armed only with an AA book of the road from 1957 and a sense of adventure, one travels at a more human pace than one does on the motorway, and is not shut off from the world by culverts and landscaping. Instead, one passes through towns and villages, under the arms of sheltering trees. One follows road signs and tractors, not the instructions of the sat nav.

There is a lot to see. Oddly, although the journey is probably longer, it feels shorter. There’s a lot to do too, with time to study ones surrounding, you can play ‘name that road kill’. Seeing more flat fox than shredded lorry tyre adds to the rustic appeal of the journey.

And it has to be said, travelling through the Cotswolds is a pleasant way to spend the day. One makes one’s way through villages where each is progressively prettier than the last. Just when you thought that the last village, with its Cotswold stone houses, lovely pub, charming shops and good looking population was just the most charming place ever, you happen along the next village and realise that the one five miles back was, by comparison, a right shithole. All of the villages seemed to be thriving and I wanted to stop at book shops, knick-knacks shops and charming pubs.

One of the villages we went through was Chipping Norton and so, naturally, I was relishing the opportunity of bonneting one of the ‘set’ and doing the world a favour.

But, I pressed on because I was on a mission. The summer had ripened fruit to perfection and in the Vale of Evesham one fruit reigns supreme at this time of the year; the plum. I was looking for a roadside stall selling not so much PYO as PBL (Picked By Lithuanians). I didn’t see a stall but did spot a farm shop and screeched to a shuddering halt as I pulled in (apologies to the no-doubt surprised driver behind me and may I also take a moment to congratulate him on his lightening reactions. Congratulations too to the staff of the farm shop who were unruffled by my hasty entry to their car park, safe to say they have probably never seen a car come to a halt that quickly without it deploying a parachute out the rear).

The Wayside Farm Shop was something of a find. There was a selection of fruit and veg by the door (and yes, plums), but out the back was, basically, a delicatessen. It sold Teme Valley Brewery beer (rather lovely, they do a beer called ‘This’, a beer called ‘That’ and a beer called ‘Wotever next’. Seeing these bad boys lined up, one has to purchase the set. Verdict: oh yes! They also had cider on tap, bring your own bottle. Actually don’t bother with the bottle, they recommend that you bring along your empty plastic milk container and fill that up, as it holds more. Classy. There were cheeses, breads, cakes and, best of all, meringues the size of dinner plates hanging from the ceiling. One of these, a punnet of strawberries and a large pot of cream meant desert was sorted. Went in for a dozen plums, did sixty quid. Farms shops. Not threatening Lidl for market domination any time soon.

Travelling the motorway one arrives quickly but somewhat frazzled and smelling of stress and wine gums. Taking the A road, I arrived relaxed and happy with a box of (bloody expensive) fresh veg in the back of the car, not to mention the beer, which I’m drinking while I write this. Overall, there’s something to be said for taking the road less travelled.

Postcard from Oxford

Oxford has a reputation for being car-unfriendly. It’s not. It’s driver un-friendly. The city has adopted, in the city centre at least, a Dutch traffic model where they remove all of the street furniture and drop the kerbs so that the pavements and pedestrians are at the same level as the road and traffic, with no bars, railings or other rational safety features to protect people from cars, or cars from bloody tourists too intent on photographing and gawking to watch where they are bloody going.

The theory is that this makes the driver more cautious, slower and safer. In practice the result was a bloody terrifying experience, not just because after a day being buzzed by acrobatic aircraft and weaving round airshow entrance fee-dodgers lining the rural roads of Oxford I was a little wary of pedestrians, but because while there is no street furniture or kerbs in the centre of Oxford, what they do have is a plethora of the sort of road signs that you normally only see right in the back of the Highway Code, the ones you don’t even memorise for the test and you only ever expect to see again in a waggishly photoshopped picture with the caption ‘Evel Keneveal ahead’ attached to that one of a motorbike on top of a car.

These signs had circles, times, cars, busses, lorries and confusing arrows on them. I wasn’t worried about hitting a pedestrian, I was worried about driving into a sixty quid, three point street that I should not have entered between three thirty and the end of Michalmas term.


Once I had safely parked and stopped shaking, sweating and sobbing, a quick shower, some jazz and a decent meal, and a nap, and I was ready for a walk round Oxford. It is, without doubt, a beautiful city. I suppose this is one of the benefits of the colleges owning a lot of the land here, they can actually make more money from the fees from their foreign students, and operating a meth lab in the chemical tutorials, than they can from flogging the estate and relocating to Milton Keynes. What you have as a result is a series of fantastic buildings that rise tall on either side of the street, allowing plenty of room for intimidating architectural features and looming.


It was a night-time walk around the city, possibly the best way to avoid all the tourists. Two things were apparent, that there is enough money in the surrounding area to support the short of shops that sell cashmere shorts and that Oxford likes to hide their pubs up narrow alleys, with twists and turns in them. While elitism, obvious wealth and looking down on anyone without their own large haydron collider might me acceptable, the consumption of pork scratching and a decent brew apparently is not.


I wandered around soaking up the rich cultureal heritage of the city; Morse and Lewis.

Oxford has an odd high streeet. It’s from 2008. They have Oddbins, they have a Waterstones with a Costa in it (why never a Costa with a bookshelf sized bookshop in it to return the favour). I was expecting to see a Woolworths.

Stayed at the Old Bank Hotel. Great staff, great rooms, free wi fi and jazz floating up from the courtyard.

Driven to distraction

The thing about being off work is that you get to be around and about during the day when you normally wouldn't be. What the bloody hell is everyone doing driving round in the middle of the day? Going to Tesco by the look of it. The sheer volume of cars constantly on the road is staggering. The thing is that with the global economic meltdown, folk will be hanging on to their old motors, but will still, presumably, be driving like loonies. The whole thing will be like the shittest version of the Goodwood festival of speed ever.