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[scooters]

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[fotorabia]

mate when i arrived up your end..my money bloody well halved..

[retrogeezer]

The catalyst was this morning when WHSmiths charged me 2.78 for 3 packs of polo mints

 

you cannot be serious shirley???

[Volksy]

Try Switzerland, £1.50 for a packet of chewing gum, £6.00 a pint of carlsburg.

 

Can't wait to get back to the uk....

[chaseracer]

The catalyst was this morning when WHSmiths charged me 2.78 for 3 packs of polo mints

 

you cannot be serious shirley???

Yup.

 

Packet of Minstrels/Maltesers/whatever - £1.90 or less in a supermarket, three quid in WHS...

[CreepingJesus]

The sheer price of stuff at MSA's is shocking enough. The underhand tactics used to make you 'buy up' are worse. I get around the cost of it, by taking my own when I go to work. But on the odd occasion that I run out of milk for my tea (coffee's always black with me), can I buy just one pint? Can I fuck. It'll be a big carton or nowt. Tho', if I'm lucky, I'll swipe some little UHT pots from the restaurant...

My real beef about MSA's is their attitude to truck parking, especially in summer. (Sorry to bang on about the truckism, but this really chokes me) If there's a pensioner tour bus too many for the bus park, they take a spot off the truck park. That's one thing, but the block booking of truck park spaces by the granny tour operators is quite another.

I got into a proper argument with the dickhead security guard at Stirling services some years ago, because they'd coned off half a dozen spaces. No buses in them, in fact the bus park wasn't even full, The gimp wouldn't let me park, even tho' I'd explained I needed my legally mandated 45 minutes, having come down from up north. And needing the bog, and some nicotine sticks! Even with a passing Greek driver backing me up...no dice.

Oh, and £16 to park overnight at Southwaite, the other month. Just as well it was on expenses...

On the upside...Starbucks at Abington give me 10p off my coffee, if I take my thermal cup in, rather than take a paper cup!

[barefoot]

I live close to M1 J23a Services.

When it first opened, they offered a local residents discount card & I was going to tell you all about that.

It appears that it's been discontinued, but I seem to have discovered that Moto services give 20% discount to RAC members.

I've not been aware of that before,

Can anyone confirm this or do I have to nip up & buy a doughnut?

[RedSparrow]

For all you rail commuters - Bite card - free, anyone can apply and gives 20% off food outlets at mainline railway stations.

 

http://www.bitecard.co.uk/home.asp

[scooters]

17.50 single train ticket for the ten miles from gatwick to Norwood Junction this morning!!!!!! Thieving buggarz!

[flat4alfa]

And there was me thinking this gonig to be was a nice discussion thread about Gypsy communities

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Everyone knows the UK rail 'customer experience' is a hideous rip-off and about as enjoyable as a rectal prolapse, thats hardly news.

 

Stick it in the GOM thread!

[dieselnutjob]

Only selling standard diesel at half the pumps. Of cource the "ultimate" crap or whatever is available at all the pumps and never runs out.

 

If nobody wants it why not reduce the price instead of pissing everybody off and only utilising half the space?

[Mr Lobster]

Surely the fact that everything in a motorway service area is very very expensive doesn't come as a surprise. Does it?

[warren t claim]

The sheer price of stuff at MSA's is shocking enough. The underhand tactics used to make you 'buy up' are worse. I get around the cost of it, by taking my own when I go to work. But on the odd occasion that I run out of milk for my tea (coffee's always black with me), can I buy just one pint? Can I fuck. It'll be a big carton or nowt. Tho', if I'm lucky, I'll swipe some little UHT pots from the restaurant...

My real beef about MSA's is their attitude to truck parking, especially in summer. (Sorry to bang on about the truckism, but this really chokes me) If there's a pensioner tour bus too many for the bus park, they take a spot off the truck park. That's one thing, but the block booking of truck park spaces by the granny tour operators is quite another.

I got into a proper argument with the dickhead security guard at Stirling services some years ago, because they'd coned off half a dozen spaces. No buses in them, in fact the bus park wasn't even full, The gimp wouldn't let me park, even tho' I'd explained I needed my legally mandated 45 minutes, having come down from up north. And needing the bog, and some nicotine sticks! Even with a passing Greek driver backing me up...no dice.

Oh, and £16 to park overnight at Southwaite, the other month. Just as well it was on expenses...

On the upside...Starbucks at Abington give me 10p off my coffee, if I take my thermal cup in, rather than take a paper cup!

 

Don't put a wheel in a coach bay or you'll be clamped!

 

96p for a standard size (not grab bag) packet of crisps at any MSA.

 

Has anyone else noticed the extinction of free cash machines at motorway service areas? £2.49 to use the fucking Hancrook ones that they've put in their place!

[Jon]

I was sort of expecting a thread where people would be able to offer an alternative eatery/cash machine/petrol station/bowls club etc nearby services, so as to avoid all this overpriced Polo buying. Not got any to offer myself unfortunately, though must admit that the few M&S food outlets I've visited at services were pretty reasonably priced and seemed to be bucking the trend.

[eddyramrod]

CJ, have you ever tried to find somewhere to take your statutory break on an A-road? First: all the laybys are being closed off and filled in. Second: if you find one, you can bet the snack van has gone. Third: transport caff? Yeah right, all closed down, allegedly on H&S grounds but more likely nimby pressure.

 

And I wasn't even driving artics! It's tough enough to dump a 7.5 for 45 minutes, never mind the ERF EC rigids I had in a couple of jobs, and loved to bits. So you go ahead and grump away, I'm right behind you!

[dollywobbler]

Driving around England is a bloody nightmare if you want to stop and alleviate the bladder. Some parts of Wales are brilliant - remember public toilets? They still exist here! The ones in our county even win awards...

[Pillock]

Yeah in all the miles I've been doing, taking a slash has been the problem - I've resorted to many McPisses but I feel a bit guilty not buying food. I definately won't go in a pub just to take a leak though.

Also prices are crap - M74 services, £1.09 for a Bounty. Over a quid, it's 45p in the vending machine at work. And petrol - I know it's expensive everywhere, but it's consistently 8p more expensive on the motorway. Excuse my ignorance but wouldn't it be easier (and therefore cheaper) to deliver petrol to a service station, seeing as it's pretty close to a main road? I want to know how they justify it above and beyond the obvious "over a barrel" reasoning.

[eddyramrod]

I want to know how they justify it above and beyond the obvious "over a barrel" reasoning.

 

They can't, there is NO other reason.

[pogweasel]

Re. pissing, driving commercial vehicles can have its perks. Need to urinate, simply stop, go round the nearside and get pissing. The first lay-by on the A14 after catthorpe is particularly recommended for this purpose.

[Justin Case]

I was sort of expecting a thread where people would be able to offer an alternative eatery/cash machine/petrol station/bowls club etc nearby services, so as to avoid all this overpriced Polo buying.

 

See the new 'antidote' thread

[Lankytim]

Re. pissing, driving commercial vehicles can have its perks. Need to urinate, simply stop, go round the nearside and get pissing. The first lay-by on the A14 after catthorpe is particularly recommended for this purpose.

 

Apparently this used to be perfectly legal in the eyes of the law, something to do with a law that dated back to stage coaches, the driver needing to stay close to the coach while having a wazz to stop the horses from running off or something (might be totally wrong on this one though).

 

It is very annoying though, I recently got out of my car and stepped straight into a puddle of truckers tizer. It stunk the car out afterwards- not very nice. Its also common practice for some to shit into a plastic bag and lob it into the trees in laybys, during the winter these bags can be seen hanging off branches like some sort of sick Christmas tree decoration. That, and fridge units running all night are prime reasons why laybys are being deleted one by one.

[CreepingJesus]

Don't put a wheel in a coach bay or you'll be clamped!

 

That was the nub of the matter. Or the security noddy's last word, more precisely. I actually gave up, because the Greek driver (strangely, he looked like a cross between Maradona and Jocky Wilson ) was on the verge of a stroke/punch up on my behalf. I thought I'd best spare him that!

The expensive cash machines piss me off too; but that's easily fixed - between my card, and cash, I can get by. Still not right tho'.

I regularly 'wash the wheels' with my 'trucker's tizer' (copyright Mr Tim), tho' I'm careful about 'visibility'; there is a £60 spot fine in it, if caught. Don't fancy that, really.

 

CJ, have you ever tried to find somewhere to take your statutory break on an A-road? First: all the laybys are being closed off and filled in. Second: if you find one, you can bet the snack van has gone. Third: transport caff? Yeah right, all closed down, allegedly on H&S grounds but more likely nimby pressure.

 

Actually, up here the situation's not so bad. But yeah, service areas both on M's and A's are closed due to licenses not being renewed after local pressure. Planning permission's nigh-on impossible to get for the same reasons, apparently.

Last time I was over the A69, I was sure some laybys had gone, especially round the Haltwhistle area. The only time I came a real cropper parking up, was at North Blyth dock. Nothing, for miles, except a pub I really didn't fancy the look of. Sickeningly, I could see the town across the water, all twinkling away with its' chippies 'n' stuff...

Anyway, off to the antidote thread!

[catsinthewelder]

Does that old services still exist a few miles north of Scotch Corner at the junction where the motorway restarts? I used to ride my moped down the road from Piercebridge to there and nip in to top up the petrol before joining the A1 south down to my grans. It was a proper old truck stop and had potholes which would have swallowed the bike whole if I wasn't careful. Seemed the sort of place for a well priced fry up though.

 

Theres an ace transport caff on the A489 a few miles out of Machynlleth for anyone heading out that way and several that I haven't sampled on the trunk roads of Shropshire and Herefordshire but we are a fair way from the motorway network.

[CreepingJesus]

I think I know the one you mean; This doesn't look quite right to me. Having said that, there's been a fair bit of work done to the A66,so maybe it has changed. Still, there's a Lotus Elite in one of the pics, so there's some gratuitous sports-shite!

[catsinthewelder]

A little further north and rougher than that Just looked on Google maps and it looks to still be there, theres a roundabout where the B6275 joins the A1 at the point that it becomes the A1M, the services are to the south of the roundabout on the east side of the A1 with the access road coming off the minor road which heads east towards Barton. Looks like a quarry further down the site labelled Johnson CBS.

[Jon]

Does anyone have any memory of the extremely dodgy 'Breakfast' van that sprang up on the A1 southbound just a few miles down from the Scotch Corner junction around 2007/2008? It consisted of a minging Series 1 Ford Cargo box van in a field, with a tiny gap in the fence for access to 'truck parking' and another one at the other end of the field for them to leave. The hand painted sign was about 50ft before the turn off - GR8 4 turning off an unnoficial junction of the A1 in a lorry!

 

Needless to say, it lasted a few days before getting shut down. Was pre my Autoshite days but still wish I'd had the opportunity to take a photo.

[STUNO]

Emigrate...see cav_estate

Lives in luxury and not even a traffic light

Not even a parking warden.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I'll take a Mc Piss or a McShit without a worry - various Laybys up and down the UK have been used as well. Always carry a bogroll.

 

I was in Warwick Services during the snowy section, picked up a Bounty and just wolfed it down whilst looking through the CD's. Did I get stopped? Did I pay for it? Did I fuck. I couldn't be arsed to queue up and give a quid or whatever to the miserable bastard on the till.

[cms206]

The WH Smith stuff isn't a joke sadly, when I worked there (2003-2005) it was £1.29 for a 500ml bottle of coke, at the same time everywhere else was doing 12 cans for £2.99 and price marked bottles were about 60p. I've a mate who still works in a WHS in a train station which apparantly charges about 92p for a packet of chewing gum.

 

Ripoffs though... BP filling stations always seem to be a good 2-3p/litre more than anyone else apart from the really shit ones like Thames, and anywhere that charges to go for a poo or piss gets a bodyswerve.