ANY bar, pub, coffee shop, sandwich shop or ordinary shop within 200 metres of a station is far more horrible than its distant counterparts.
No matter what the establishment, its location near a train station automatically downgrades it to at least two levels below its equivalent elsewhere, and in the case of major London stations as many as five.
Retail expert Helen Archer said: “You head to the station early. Your mate agrees to stay for one. You drink a miserable pint by lone travellers with wheeled cases and wish you hadn’t.
“Or you have a quick coffee only to realise in a single sip it was brewed in a cistern by a clever dog and you’ve lost the tastebuds on that side for life. And your table was last cleared in August ’22.
“Or you’re facing a 95-minute journey to Crewe so you buy a sandwich that turns out, by Milton Keynes, to be made of shit. Or you go the most miserable shop you’ve visited in years and pay £5.40 for Monster Munch and a Panda Pop.
“Even the supermarkets are horrible and grimy. Even the pub across the road has the feel of death’s waiting room. The very proximity of transport covers every experience, physically and spiritually, in a thin, uncleansable film of grime.
“It probably isn’t true of tiny little rural stations in places called Scrumpington-over-Willow. But they’ve closed all those down.”
