Archistorys
narratives of architecture and design where people and movement meetThe Little Chef legend lives on
How sad to hear of another large helping (67) of the Little Chef cafes to close. To be truthful, the chain has been struggling for some years, and even the fab restyling by Ab Rogers and Heston Blumenthal has not been able to roll back the changing tastes of the British motorist. But the restaurants had three glorious decades when they were leisure destinations and on-trend architecturally. Read about all this in the company of David Lawrence, Alain de Botton, Iain Borden, Laurie Taylor, Sancha Briffa and Richard Wentworth in Food on the Move, available at Amazon: it IS in stock, just look under ‘More buying Choices on the right of the screen. Happy eating and reading!
Back from the night
Today, yesterday and Wednesday, the Royal Geographical Society held its annual conference in London’s South Kensington. Our section talked about Manila telephone call centre workers who work all night and take lunch at 2am), government plans to shift the time zone so we can work longer (as long as we all cook dinner at 6pm), and of course David presented motorway cafes and their night-time lives. In these out-of-the-way places we discovered transvestites, sex workers, cruising gays, musicians, ravers, motor cyclists and truck drivers. David was interviewed for the press too. The book ‘Food on the Move’ covers all this and much more. And Amazon does sell it. Now it’s back to work, and back to uncovering the geography of the transient, interstitial places in our lives.
New event: the Geography of the Night
At the end of this month the Royal Geographic Society features a conference on the Geography of the Night. An intriguing title indeed. Come along and hear David – author of motorway Service station book ‘Food on the Move’ talk about the night life of the motorway service station, and how dance, GPS and gender studies can all help our understanding of the real human lives beneath the commercial crust. Visit www.rgs.org/ac2011.
Food on the Move
Food on the Move is a colourful and informative itinerary of Britain’s motorway pit-stops, a road-show of everywhere and nowhere places. The book is written by David Lawrence with Alain de Botton, Laurie Taylor, Iain Borden and Sancha Briffa. It is acclaimed by Will Self, Martin Parr, Iain Sinclair and Robert Venturi.
Service areas are fascinating locations: helping us understand our tastes, habits, behaviours, and the way in which government, business and designers work to tell us, or to imagine what we want and need in a concentrated twenty minute break from the real purpose of being out on the road: to go somewhere else. They have become places where Britishness still resides, where design and everyday life came together in subtle, sometimes unexpected ways. The environment of service areas has been the scene of community meetings, family gatherings, paid-for clutches, trading in goods, romantic meetings, great solitude, cultural happenings, sports star appearances, fortitude and loss. It is a place haunted by writers and film-makers, artists and drifters. All are included in this book, alongside a host of wonderful images underpinned by detailed research and contributions from individuals who have never before told their story. With Food on the Move, a trip to the services is unmissable and entertaining, an informative and disturbing voyage of discovery.
To order Food on the Move please email buybetweenbooks[at]gmail.com – it’s quicker than amazon.
