An interesting thing I didn't know until today

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

In the excellent book Map Addict by Mike Parker, the author describes his experience of visiting Midsummer Boulevard in Milton Keynes at dawn on the summer solstice day to test the story behind it. He gets harrassed by some highly suspicious commercial security guard (or copper, can't remember which) whose suspicion is only increased by his explanation, as if he thinks Parker (with his rucsac) is a member of some Wiccan organisation's paramilitary wing.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Fucking hippies.

Given their/our age most hippies aren't doing much of that anymore.

[Furtho]

Milton Keynes was planned in a NSEW grid arrangement, but the planners lined up the towns central street so that it aligns with the summer solstice, hence Midsummer Boulevard.

Fucking hippies.

Hi!

[Jah Womble]

His name is just ‘Ben Folds’ though.

[Snake Plissken]

Ben Folds Five?

[Jah Womble]

I never knew that Sade were a band rather than a soloist. Alice Cooper were a band named after a singer's stage name and Gillan were from a surname but I'm not sure I know of many bands that took the singer's real first name.

Toyah would be another.

[ursus arctos]

I think that it would have confused the antiwar message of the song, especially in the context of the Cold War

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

You mean it would have been perceived as pro-Warsaw Pact propaganda?

[ursus arctos]

No real reason

As you know, they aren't red in the original, and the song would have landed rather differently if they had been

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Yes, but why not? I mean, it needs to scan, and "air balloons" would just sound weird to English speakers.

[ursus arctos]

Is that actually what it was called in English?

(not a bit, honest)

[WOM]

If Nena had actually taken their singer's real first name, they'd be called Gabriele.

The video for 99 Red Balloons was the first real confirmation that most NA teens had of the persistent rumour that German women didn't shave their armpits.

[Snake Plissken]

Milton Keynes was planned in a NSEW grid arrangement, but the planners lined up the towns central street so that it aligns with the summer solstice, hence Midsummer Boulevard.

Fucking hippies.

[3 Colours Red]

Nena.

If Nena had actually taken their singer's real first name, they'd be called Gabriele.

[Lymeswold Snork]

I never knew that Sade were a band rather than a soloist. Alice Cooper were a band named after a singer's stage name and Gillan were from a surname but I'm not sure I know of many bands that took the singer's real first name.

Nena.

[Satchmo Distel]

I never knew that Sade were a band rather than a soloist. Alice Cooper were a band named after a singer's stage name and Gillan were from a surname but I'm not sure I know of many bands that took the singer's real first name.

[WOM]

If only you lot knew my full client roster...

[San Bernardhinault]

I went to a Red Lobster once. It wasn’t bad. Not Applebees or Cracker Barrel or Olive Garden or Sizzler bad. But it's not something I'd choose to repeat. I can't think of any reason to go, now I know what it's like. At least Applebees and Olive Garden - terrible though they are - have cheeziness value, and are sometimes in places which don't have other dining options.

[ursus arctos]

I don't think I have ever seen a Melting Pot.

Red Lobster is somewhat famous among sociologists for being a particularly striking example of a place that is perceived as "basic fast casual" by "middle class" diners while also serving as a long-estsblished "special occasion" destination among the less fortunate.

Starbucks (and Dunkin's) are among that limited category here that exist and thrive in both shopping centre parking lots and the closest we get to "High Streets".

The only other places I can think of that do that are real franchised "fast food" outlets of the McDonalds genre.

[San Bernardhinault]

Starbucks is actually not a bad comparison at all. The closest I could think of in terms of “real” restaurants might be somewhere like Red Lobster or perhaps Melting Pot (which I’ve still never been allowed to go to). But even those are generally in parking lots of strip malls.

[ad hoc]

The best comparison in the US would be Starbucks. It's obviously selling something different, but the "brand" is about supplying an above-shit, below-high-quality product and service.

[ursus arctos]

SB is spot on, and I think a large part of that is that the most common setting for a US chain of that type is plopped down in the middle of a parking lot in a suburban/exurban shopping centre.

We don't have anything like Nando's, either (though we now have a handful of Nando's in somewhat random locations).

[Tony C]

I know a real life child called Max Factor. Or I did. I guess it was a few years ago. He's probably a young adult by now.

I taught a young boy called Armani a few years ago. Didn’t think anything of it. His sister Chanel later came to the school. The twins Paco and Rabbane then joined us a couple of years later.

I’m not joking.

[San Bernardhinault]

I’m only a short way into the article, and it seems interesting. But in the opening where they compare Pizza Express and Wagamama to Olive Garden and Dairy Queen, I think they’re definitely off. Olive Garden and Dairy Queen are definitely not mid-level. Olive Garden might be ersatz-real restaurant, but it’s an object of almost universal derision. Dairy Queen is its own category (I enjoy their ice cream treats, but their hot food is indistinguishable from a million other fast food places). I’m not even sure we have national chain equivalents of Wagamama here. The sit down chains, the Applebees and Cracker Barrels and Golden Corrals and Cheesecake Factorys and Dennys and Olive Gardens have rarely had the credibility of Pizza Express. Prince Andrew wouldn’t be seen dead in any of them.

[Levin]

The CEO of fashionable now sliding into ubiquity pizza chain Franco Manca is the same man who was CEO of Pizza Express as they went to being common on the high street in the 90s.

I got that but from this article about the design of Pizza Express.

The intro suggests that we don't love mid level chains, that the British distrust success. But as someone who adored the original Honest Burger I've always thought it was a demonstration that good food requires high standards and you can't keep those standards up when spread over a dozen plus locations.

Anyway, the CEO thing was a real surprise.