"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I've long thought a really good book to publish would be a guide to pubs and restaurants that are just off Britain's main motorway junctions, for those who can't stand motorway service stations with their £4 chesse and pickle sandwiches or £7 Burger King meals.

Maybe the establishments concerned, like say the King's Arms in Easton-in-Gordano (barely half a mile away from just such a service station, perfect for those looking for a halfway stop between Manchester and Exeter), would even pay to be in a such a directory, I thought, with a glowing reference and a nice photo.

In the Oxfam bookshop in Preston at the weekend I found precisely the publication I'd long thought would be my original money-spinner. It covered every main juction off the M1 to M6 inclusive (I guess no-one thinks they need to hop off the M25 for a meal, although by all accounts it can take hours to circumnavigate the thing at certain times).

It was only published in 2004, and was now on sale second-hand for £1.99. I assume it wasn't exactly the massive bestseller I'd hoped "my" idea would become.

[Guy Profumo]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

Looks like it's already a crowded market...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nip-Off-Motorway-Thousands/dp/0954854705/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257185726&sr=1-1

[WOM]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

Good ideas can die for a lot of reasons unrelated to the idea itself. Maybe it was poorly written or poorly marketed. Probably the latter.

Buy the rights from the original writer and have a go at re-releasing it.

[Wyatt Earp]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

Beer-tasting tours to Bavaria, Bohemia, Flanders and the Lower Rhine.

Met a bloke in "Zeitgeist at the Jolly Gardeners" who does just that.

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

http://www.offmotorway.com

Jesus, that site is awful.

Anyone fancy VC'ing me the cash to build a better one? All I ask is a Herman Miller chair, a 30" monitor, a couple of grand after tax a month and all the Dominos Pizza I can stuff in my face.

[The Exploding Vole]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:

for those who can't stand motorway service stations with their £4 chesse and pickle sandwiches or £7 Burger King meals.

Yes, it's certainly that but (at least in my case) it's also something more. It's the smell of grease-fat, the smell of lavatories, the smell of cigarette smoke the minute you step outside. It's hyperactive children who appear never to have been told "no" in their lives, it's disaffected shop assistants who can't be arsed to open another till, it's profoundly obese people waddling in their wittily-designed t-shirts and putting you off the very idea of having anything to eat. It's advertising signs and branding everywhere you turn, and music you don't want to hear. It's people eating on their way back to their Mondeo and throwing the packaging onto the pavement. It's people who either can't or don't wish to park between the fucking lines.

When I die, I will be sent to hell, and by Jesus it will look like just about every motorway services I've been to, including that one in the Lake District that everyone thinks is so much better than the rest and yes, I'm having a bad day.

[Toby Gymshorts]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

that one in the Lake District that everyone thinks is so much better than the rest

Which one? They're pretty much all shit, in my experience.

[The Exploding Vole]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

Bless you, Toby.

I can't remember its name, and I'll be damned if I'm going to look it up. But it is (used to be?) the only one that was independently owned. The lavatories there smell bad enough to make you want to piss outside.

[blameless]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

A couple of my friends recently came up with the "novel" idea of christmas-pudding-flavoured liqueur.

Two days after their catastrophic attempt to make this concoction (involving xmas pud, vodka, a sieve, several ruined tea towels and a kitchen that was a whole lot browner than when they started), they found... christmas-pudding-flavoured liqueur in a local offie. Whoops.

[blameless]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

TEV: the services are at Tebay. I've never seen what all the fuss is about either - as far as I can see, it's a barn on a moor, selling hideously expensive petrol.

[Banana Banana]

"Original" ideas that someone's already tried

Yes, but lots of people in wellies and barbour jackets buying Kendal mint cake and not a Chelsea top in sight.