Until recently you could always rely on one thing at motorway service stations in the UK. A Pork Pie would be available in the chiller cabinet.
Yesterday, due to delays on my journey home I felt the need to pull in at Rownhams on the M27. Having read this thread yesterday I wandered into the shop and had a gander at the food on offer.
What's this? No Pork Pie? (Not capital letters; this goes some way to conveying my reverence of the sacred pie. Those that have met me will understand). Instead I was confronted with the moronic grin of some half forgotten TV chef and his super range of luxury sandwiches. £3.79 for a ham salad bloomer, anyone?
They can get stuffed. I know I won't be, not at those prices.
No Pies.
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Last spring I drove across France and Italy on good roads with "relatively" polite users, stopping at clean, well stocked, reasonably priced service areas on my journey.
It was the experience of using a service area on the m23 out of Dover that made up mine and Mrs JaB's minds that we didn't want to live here anymore and have been busy making plans to move to Italy ever since.
Don't get me wrong I love Britain and lots of things about it, it's British people I don't like :(
Obviously there are exceptions :) , it's just society as a whole I guess
JaB
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I wonder how many people have that conversation at those services? Mrs ND and I had exactly the same discussion there last year.
You drive unmolested through most of western Europe for a fortnight, stopping at modestly priced hotels with little or no notice, always finding clean service areas. To top it all, everyone pulls in to the inside lane when they finish an overtake.
Then you get off the ferry at Dover and get cut-up, cut-out, blocked, wedged and generally abused until you get to the M23. Then you find yourself behind some plonker who has clearly spent the last few years urinating on the armco to mark the outside lane as his, cos he sure as hell isn\'t going to pull over.
You pull in to the services to take a deep breath and try and calm down. You then see the fattest family on earth get out of a battered Sierra and proceed into the service area to fill their faces with sugar and lard, all the while showing that shell suits really are made of stretch-fabric. You get charged £3.20 for a curled up tortilla stuffed with limp salad. The cleanest part of the toilets is the urinal as nobody actually uses that. The staff lurch across your path, staring vacantly towards their home on planet zog whilst slopping ice-cold, grease-laden water all over the floor before wandering off to get a \"danger, wet floor\" sign. \"Cos dats helff\'n\'safedy, dat is\".
You return to your car and \'phone P&O, just to make sure you weren\'t deposited in the twilight zone instead of the UK. Depressed, you turn your \'phone off and turn to your wife and kids. We have got to get out of this sorry toilet of a country.
So here I am, working my socks off towards the goal of departing these shores for good. It\'ll happen, and I don\'t expect too many tears will be shed at my departure. God knows, I won\'t be crying myself.
No Dosh.
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I wonder how many people have that conversation at those services? Mrs ND and I had exactly the same discussion there last year. You drive unmolested through most of western Europe for a fortnight, stopping at modestly priced hotels with little or no notice, always finding clean service areas. To top it all, everyone pulls in to the inside lane when they finish an overtake. Then you get off the ferry at Dover and get cut-up, cut-out, blocked, wedged and generally abused until you get to the M23. Then you find yourself behind some plonker who has clearly spent the last few years urinating on the armco to mark the outside lane as his, cos he sure as hell isn\'t going to pull over. You pull in to the services to take a deep breath and try and calm down. You then see the fattest family on earth get out of a battered Sierra and proceed into the service area to fill their faces with sugar and lard, all the while showing that shell suits really are made of stretch-fabric. You get charged £3.20 for a curled up tortilla stuffed with limp salad. The cleanest part of the toilets is the urinal as nobody actually uses that. The staff lurch across your path, staring vacantly towards their home on planet zog whilst slopping ice-cold, grease-laden water all over the floor before wandering off to get a \"danger, wet floor\" sign. \"Cos dats helff\'n\'safedy, dat is\". You return to your car and \'phone P&O, just to make sure you weren\'t deposited in the twilight zone instead of the UK. Depressed, you turn your \'phone off and turn to your wife and kids. We have got to get out of this sorry toilet of a country. So here I am, working my socks off towards the goal of departing these shores for good. It\'ll happen, and I don\'t expect too many tears will be shed at my departure. God knows, I won\'t be crying myself. No Dosh.
I was trying to save myself the horror of actually describing the site but I think you may have been there the same day as me :)
I'm off shopping for a place in Italy next spring :D cant wait!
JaB
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ND, I suspect we do similar things to earn a crust, aside from driving Alfas. But I'd like to escape the UK and it comes closer each year. Spoke to my IFA the other day who has 3000+ contractors associated with him and his response. Around 1 in 4 or 3 of my clients are looking to leave the UK in the next year or so. My missus said (who was a foreign national, now UK resident) why should I be a 2nd class citizen elsewhere? My response is that I feel a 2nd class citizen here!
Jim
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The joys of contracting in the financial services industry.
As to second class citizen, I agree. The BS macho posturing and associated violence I witness here in the UK, especially on the roads, all make me all to aware that I'm not a 6'2" lager fuelled psycho and therefore "don't fit in".
The UK is going to self combust at this rate. I'd like to be at a safe distance when I witness the explosion.
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While I recognise the accuracy of your description, and rant almost daily on the subject of the meek not inheriting the earth but the chavscum instead, it depresses me beyond belief that so many people's response is to look to leave.
Is there nothing that can be done by the apparently reasonable?
Just for the record, there are two words which explain this situation IMHO and one of them is someone who makes roofs out of straw.
--
Matthew Kelly
No, not that one.
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Don't blame it all on the first little pig. Just because his two brothers knew better. After all, they dealt with the fox eventually.
I don't think the 1970s stand out as an example of how to run a country.
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I don't think the 1970s stand out as an example of how to run a country.
or the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s ...
... heck, where's that ticket to take car one-way to France?
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While I recognise the accuracy of your description, and rant almost daily on the subject of the meek not inheriting the earth but the chavscum instead, it depresses me beyond belief that so many people's response is to look to leave. Is there nothing that can be done by the apparently reasonable?
Not when the demographics of the UK have shifted to the extent that the chavs now represents a sizable chunk of the voting population.
But I digress. Back to motoring I guess. Sorry.
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Nicest UK services: Tebay. (nice setting, anyway - at the top of the M6).
French services have the most superb food in their restaurants. And you can wash it down with some wine as well. Mmmm, feeling peckish now! A nice steak haché (rare) & frites, and a pint of red plonk... La France here I come!
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Nicest UK services: Tebay. (nice setting, anyway - at the top of the M6).
I'd second that, truly a rose between thorns. Owned by an independant company and may be the one mentioned in another post that uses it's own produce. Blue Boar were, I think, the only other independant and they sold out to RoadChef, not that Watty Gap was ever anything to write home about.
As regard the best of the rest I'd suggest those run by Welcome Break.
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"A nice steak haché (rare) & frites, and a pint of red plonk... La France here I come!"
I'll join you with a bowl of moules, frites, home made mayonaise, fresh bread minutes old and a crisp chilled white then Mappy.
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I'll join you with a bowl of moules, frites, home made mayonaise, fresh bread minutes old and a crisp chilled white then
I'll have red with mine thanks ;-)
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French services have the most superb food in their restaurants. And you can wash it down with some wine as well. Mmmm, feeling peckish now! A nice steak haché (rare) & frites, and a pint of red plonk... La France here I come!
Mmm, you've just reminded me of that. I shall be sampling same a week tomorrow when we all shove off to a gite near Aix-les-Bains for a fortnight. 3 courses and drink for under a tenner a head in most of these places if memory serves. Can't argue.
Oh, and I shall make sure I fill up before we come home, too...
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Caution....thread drift warning
>>Yesterday, due to delays on my journey home
Was that the M3 SB slow moving load challenge perchance? Particularly good idea to have to have slow, wide loads using a 2 lane stretch of M3 during the rush hour :-((. I avoided the worst by using A30/33 from J7 and back on at J9.
This is sizing up to be one of my worst week's commuting on the M3 ever, all I ned now is an overturned caravan at J13 on Friday afternoon to round the week off nicley.
Sorry I'll get back in me box now :-/
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Caution....thread drift warning >>Yesterday, due to delays on my journey home Was that the M3 SB slow moving load challenge perchance? Particularly good idea to have to have slow, wide loads using a 2 lane stretch of M3 during the rush hour :-((. I avoided the worst by using A30/33 from J7 and back on at J9. This is sizing up to be one of my worst week's commuting on the M3 ever, all I ned now is an overturned caravan at J13 on Friday afternoon to round the week off nicley. Sorry I'll get back in me box now :-/
Yup, that would be the one. I caught it at the Eastleigh turn off, so was royally, er, stuck.
This morning was a jolly adventure too, what with the M3 being shut at Jn4 and all the matrix signs helpfully sending London-bound traffic on to the M4 via, which is reduced to one lane for most of its length. Couple this with the junction improvement works where the A34 and M4 meet and it really was a picnic.
I opted for the A30/A340, then took the unclassifieds through to pick up the A4 just west of my current office in Theale. Only 2 hours to complete a 70ish mile journey. Basingstoke was pracitally gridlocked!
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I didn't do too badly this morning; came off M3 at J5 ( back of the queue); up the A30 to Blackbushe & then turn right & over the M3 J4A. Luckily I've moved office from Camberley to Farnborough; I bet Camberley was totally gridlocked this morning. My co-worker from Andover was 2 hours late tho'.
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