The motorway service stations have improved of late. Now they boast large menus of healthy interesting food. Sadly when you get to the brightly lit counters, all that's ever left is one anaemic sausage and a boiled potato. Still, by browsing the numerous counters you can compose a balanced meal. Unfortunately that sausage and cappucino delicacy will set you back £8.75.
Gold Stars
The service stations have had the good sense to offer some alternatives though. Just to instill the good sense of taking a well earned break from your long journey and to take a few minutes out to recharge your batteries, they've given us fast food restaurants! For god's sake, why not a nice little tea shop selling tea and scones? Oh no, running into the service station (why is it always raining at those places?), you pause for breath and to enjoy the calm and relaxing atmosphere. What are you confronted with? That offensively clean stainless steel counter straight out of a mortuary, keeping you at a safe distance from the unfeasibly young staff in their corporate pajamas. Luckily I spot the fifteen year old manager with his five gold stars and know I'm in good hands. The skill with which he can skid across the tiled floor in his slip on shoes is nothing but a comfort to the weary motorist.
Please wait to be seated...
Motorways are of course a desperate measure. With a bit of forward planning there are many great roads still to be enjoyed between here and there. When hurtling along Britain's A roads at offensive speeds, you can be sure that every few miles there'll be the regular pie-eater's pitstop. Stuck in a time warp from the 1970's, you know what you're getting as you enter the invariably red school-like buildings. The humble little sign asks you to wait a month to be seated. A chirpy waitress will ask how many people are standing in front of her, then show you to your table. It's all so idyllic, but don't be misled.
Cress Eaters
Squeezing into the fixed tables and chairs in a swift manouvre distinguishes the veteran gutbuckets from the cress eaters. There's almost no need to pick up the laminated menu, still damp from the last punter's eager salivations. Any serious traveller will know the contents of those pages off by heart. Order away and marvel at how the skilled chef will transform frozen ingredients into perfectly formed, tasteless meals, all the while balancing a ludicrous paper hat on the top of his greasy head in a noble gesture towards hygiene.
Whilst waiting for this culinary miracle you are left at will to enjoy a number of pursuits. Generally the first item on the agenda is the important question of where did they find so many incredibly unattractive staff? I can reveal here for the first time that there's a small Scottish island where they're inbred, then distributed around the country and sent to Bulgaria to appear at the circus.
Nice blouse love...
Next it's important to work out if the horrendous multi-coloured blouses show any sort of hierarchy amongst the inmates. When spotting chief big-blouse you can congratulate yourself that however badly you did at school, worse was possible. After doing the crossword, your tax return and reading War and Peace, it's grub time. You shovel it in, you shuffle out and you sod off.
The lowest form of the roadside food chain is of course the greasy spoon. Once held in high regard it's now almost extinct it's and has been replaced by caravans and incredibly run-down shacks in laybys. Order a bacon sandwich and see it cooked live in front of you in the grease on your table. Bleached white bread and the manky entrails of a pig's backside yours for a pound. A huge urn of tea constantly boils away in the corner, occasionally topped up with Castrol GTX and the squeezed out dishcloth. It's good home cooking, which will line your stomach well for the journey ahead.
Pass the cress... I'm taking a pack lunch.
