I was determined to make it back from Leeds to Liverpool without stopping off for an unnecessary extra night in, say, Rochdale, Oldham, Manchester, Stockport, Warrington or Widnes. The method I’ve developed to do this is to stare at the horizon and not pay any attention to the hypnotic road signs that will pass you, trying to tempt you from your natural course with the promise of all sorts of exotic locations and mysterious adventures.
I’ve noticed one thing about the road signs I’ve passed on my odyssey from Sunderland to Liverpool and that is they have all been directing me to The South. This is because you have to drive a long distance south from Sunderland to get to Liverpool, even though it’s commonly believed that Liverpool is in ‘The North’. It isn’t, as any basic map of England will point out. Liverpool, along with Manchester and Leeds and other, so-called ‘Northern’ towns, are in fact in the middle of England.
So why are counties like Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire considered ‘Up north’? To my mind, it’s because they’re not in London, and therefore are – for the purposes of the London-based media and power mongers – Northern. Even though this is quite inaccurate, it’s a blessing really because saying ‘�I live up North� is a lot better than saying “I live up Middle.� And films like Saturday Night, Sunday Morning or A Taste Of Honey wouldn’t have been so enticing if they’d advertised themselves as ‘a slice of gritty Middle life.’
There was one stop to make on the journey home however, and that was to check the price of a prawn sandwich and small bottle of water in a Moto service station to decide, once and for all, which is the better of the two service station franchises, Moto or Welcome Break.
The Moto service station on the Westbound carriageway of the M62 before Manchester is a good one, as I pointed out in my description of it in January 12th’s entry, but crucially could it pass the test and beat Welcome Break by charging more than £5.08 for a horrid sandwich and small amount of water? I was genuinely excited as I made my entrance and walked towards the sandwiches. But the horror! They had no prawn sandwiches! For shame, Moto, for shame!
But then I noticed a separate shop, within the service station, called Amigo. We could question why it’s called that by I’m quite pushed for time today and so we’ll leave that little gold mine for later. Anyway, they did sell a prawn sandwich, but only at the almost reasonable price of £2.67. Their water was also priced at £1.20 which means the total cost of the meal would have been a disappointing £3.87.
Does this count? Does the fact that Amigo is in the Moto service station mean it represents Moto’s pricing strategy? After all it could be owned by Moto. But it made me uncomfortable to make this assumption and until I find a prawn sandwich in the main Moto food area, this dispute will go unanswered. What we DO know is that the Amigo chain of shops are worse than Welcome Break, to the tune of £1.21. Also, the sandwich in Amigo looked nicer than the one I ate a bit of in the Welcome Break so they fail there too – service station food should never be nice. Amigo are rubbish!
I wasn’t going to leave without being ripped off though, it would leave me with an empty feeling, and so I decided I’d ruin my new healthy food regime by buying a fried breakfast – obviously the staple food of any service station or airport.
“I’m sorry. We’re not doing any breakfasts at the moment� the woman behind the food counter said.
This was bizarre behaviour because everyone knows you can get a cooked breakfast at any time of day or night in a British service station. “The closest thing we have is ‘Brunch’.�
I asked what you got with a Brunch?
“Three sausages. Beans. Two fried eggs. Bacon and chips.�
I love the way that a service station, in which the culture of fry ups is so enshrined, can invent a new meal that isn’t a fry up but still is one. It’s brilliant.
And the cost of this, a bottle of water, and an orange juice? £11.20 my friends! Look at it! £11.20! It’s glorious! It’s exactly the same price as The Savoy would charge and, as discussed two days ago, this is how all service stations should base their prices.
Also, because it’s only possible to eat a little bit of the ‘brunch’, being as it was a turgid collection of rancid waste, it made it all the better – perhaps more than a pound a bite.
I almost got as far as my home but stopped in at K’s house on the way and we watched Challenge TV for a bit, specifically an edition of Blind Date from 1987 and an amusing dose of Beadles’ About from a similar era.
I got home eventually to find a pile of no Valentine’s cards waiting for me. But looking back over today’s entry I’m not greatly surprised. They’re stupid anyway. Sending an anonymous anything is at best pointless and at worst threatening. I got a valentine’s text message from Renata. It was signed ‘?’ but the fact her name came up before I’d even opened the message because her number’s stored in my phone was a bit of a let down. Or not, because it saved me going to the Police.
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