I f you know me, you’ll know there is nothing I like better than a good old-fashioned service station. Where else can you jump out of the car for an overpriced Burger King, a go on a driving arcade game from 1993 and – most importantly – a wee? Service stations are mini utopias, housing everything that a human being needs for basic survival. Come the apocalypse, you’ll find me happily holed up in my nearest Moto.
Rightmove recently published a list of the happiest places to live in Great Britain, and I suppose I can see why that might be of interest. But it was a survey of the UK’s service stations by the consumer group Which? that really caught my eye, partly for its ludicrous claim that “no one visits a motorway service station for fun”. What nonsense.
Although with all the hassles of Christmas travel, I suppose some people may fail to find them quite so entertaining. In any case, ranking service stations is old news: my friends and I have been doing so for years. My mate Rich backs Birchanger Green on the M11 as “the epicentre of British industry.
Where else can you see fleets of BMWs transporting salespeople around the country, having meetings or even interviews?” For Nick, “Stafford northbound on the M6 is a beaut, but if you’re on the M4, I like Membury because I can sing it to the tune of Memory from Cats.” Charlie, meanwhile, champions the M40’s Welcome Break services at Oxford for its decorative fountains , while Phil is a dyed-in-the-wool L.
