However, I couldn’t help noticing this morning’s effort, which manages to juggle tragedy, absurdity, bad taste and utter irrelevance with a startling clarity of intent. What strikes me first here is the juxtaposition of image and headline. So, while the top third of the page carries an image of utter devastation and a woman wrapped in a blanket who has clearly lost everything she ever loved, the bottom two-thirds blares “TAX AND PENSION JOY FOR MILLIONS”. And what better place to position a teaser for a competition to “WIN A PEUGEOT MOTORHOME WORTH OVER £30,000″ than in between the two?

Simultaneously, the phrase “Nuclear nightmare looms” is virtually hidden. Indeed, an equal amount of space on the front page is devoted to the fact that Amanda Holden has produced a “brave smile”.

Just look at it. It really is a startlingly odd jumble of words and pictures.

• Penguin Crime – a set on Flickr
• Penguin Books – a set on Flickr
• Penguin & Pelican Collection – a set on Flickr

Everyone has surely suspected for a while that ITV was going to do something like that. Everything about its footy coverage is slightly amateurish and has been for a while. Throughout the match I felt the cameras seemed to be wandering all over the place with random crowd shots and player close-ups at important moments. And as for Clive Tyldesley…

The FA apparently “wants answers” but since it took ITV on as the highest bidding broadcaster, perhaps it only has itself to blame. (And the other winning bidder, Setanta, has its own problems related to its choice of satellite.)

The cause of the blunder, according to ITV, was an automated system that caused adverts to appear in their normal slots, regardless of the fact that the programme had overrun. Is it me, or does this sound vaguely bonkers? I know ITV’s share price has taken a battering but surely it can afford to pay someone to push a button, rather than rely on the whims of a malevolent idiot machine.

The Daily Mail is gloating excessively over the event. Clearly it has reorientated its disapproval away from the BBC and and towards its main rival since yesterday. Oddly, it may actually have a point.

Press Statement

28.11.08

Statement from The Yes Campaign in response to Ofcom ruling

Lis Phelan said: “The time has come for everybody to drop this obsession with adverts, websites and the wording of ballot papers.

“This referendum is not being decided by lawyers or watchdogs, but by the mother who needs to get her child to school; the pensioner worried about getting home safely at night, and those who will welcome the chance of 10,000 new jobs. Let’s just get on and vote.”

-Ends-

So, just to clarify: Issuing a press release containing nothing except for a condemnation of a distasteful YouTube video produced by associates of the No campaign that virtually no-one has seen and that has now been withdrawn, like the Yes campaign did on Tuesday, is perfectly OK. But when Ofcom rebukes ITV for showing an advert that’s biased in favour of the congestion charge in the ad break for Coronation Street, “everybody” is being obsessive.

[Sound of forehead being slapped and man shouting "D'oh!"]

The exhibition is held in the Crypt underneath the Metropolitan Cathedral. I’ve only been in here once before and that was for a university exam, when the place was full of little wooden desks. The space itself is spectacular (it’s the only part of Sir Edward Lutyens’ original concept for the cathedral to have been completed) but the approach by foot is torturous. We followed signs for the Crypt and soon enough found ourselves stumbling through a building site. After squeezing between a gap in a fence we then found our path blocked and had to about turn before finally finding the entrance after gambolling over a footbridge in near total darkness (it was about 4.30pm). This wasn’t ideal.

Then, quite a strange thing happened as we were driving back along Catharine Street at just before 6pm. I was listening to Radio Five Live and started to notice the faint sound of ghostly choral voices in the background. I turned the radio off and the choir was silent but when I switched the radio back on, I could hear it again. I figured it was interference from another station and didn’t think too much about it. But the laser beam emanating from the Anglican cathedral at the time aroused my curiosity and, as it turns out, it appears that at the music was reaching my car via an invisible beam. And no, I’m not going insane.

The explanation is a project by sound artist Peter Appleton that aims to connect the Anglican and Metropolitan cathedrals by way of musical resonance. It was happening between 5pm and 6pm yesterday, just as I was driving past.

Starting at the Ace Cafe bikers’ hangout on the North Circular – a prototype for the modern service station that reopened in 1994 after a 25-year closure – we travelled up the M1 all the way to Watford Gap in an attempt to unravel the architectural and cultural significance of the route, focusing especially on the service stations. Update: James Adams has uploaded some excellent shots of the day to Flickr.

The trip was organised by the School of Life, a new venture based in Bloomsbury, that runs courses, sermons and “holidays” like this one for people who enjoy thinking about things just for the sake of it. It recently ran a holiday to the Isle of Wight with Martin Parr and is planning a holiday to Heathrow Airport with Alain de Botton (pictured on the far right), who also popped up yesterday at Newport Pagnell to explain the unique qualities of motorway service stations.

De Botton is a surprisingly bouncy chap and the author of The Art of Travel. His theory, explained yesterday as bemused KFC punters looked on, is that beauty can be defined in terms of how interesting something is, and that service stations are very, very interesting. He believes the travelling mindset releases something in our brains that we don’t have when at home, and that this, in combination with the inherent loneliness and “good sadness” of the service station can lead to creative, interesting thoughts.

The trip was led by archichect and design historian David Lawrence (pictured to the left of de Botton in the green jumper), who is without doubt Britain’s foremost motorway enthusiast and a genuine expert in his chosen field. Lawrence is the only person in Britain with a doctorate in motorway service stations. His thesis, which required him to travel 8,000 miles by motorway, was published as a book called Always A Welcome: The Glove Compartment History of the British Motorway Service Area (it’s out of print but I’m assured it’s excellent). He exhibits some traits of the gonzo journalist, having put himself in the extraordinary position of spending Christmas 1998 in a Travelodge next to a service station near Newcastle just to see what it was like.

Lawrence guided discussions with admirable clarity of thought. There was a detailed examination of the origins of the service station, which lie in “road houses” for rich motorists of the 1950s. As the M1 was completed, service station operators like Forte (owner of the Waldorf and Criterion hotels) sought to deliver a luxury experience for diners.

The dislocation of service areas from their surroundings, and what this means for the experience of visiting one, was also investigated.

We also explored the experience of motorway service station life with staff at both Newport Pagnell and Watford Gap. Lawrence took great pleasure in the Roadchef staff member badge that was made for him by Michelle, the duty manager at the latter.

If spending a day in the company of these people and around a dozen other curious motorway enthusiasts sounds a little bizarre then make no mistake, it was. It was perhaps the most postmodern experience I’ve ever had. But it was refreshing to take a look at something as ordinary as the motorway and its service areas through fresh eyes. I felt like I had landed from another planet and was being given a crash course in the ways of the British human.

Last photograph by James Adams. Some rights reserved.

Updated Friday 31 October: BBC News reporter Stephanie Holmes, who was on the trip, has written a feature about the day called The M1 appreciation course for the BBC News website.

One of a series designed by Tristan Eaton, with quotes from real voters. If you ask me, and I’m aware you probably aren’t, this has every chance of becoming a future design classic. More here.

However, I feel the sequence doesn’t quite live up to this 1970s effort from Brazil. There seems to be some doubt as to whether or not it’s genuine. I hope to God it is.

When Ilva opened its three UK stores a couple of years ago – in Thurrock, Gateshead and Piccadilly – it was supposed to be the new Ikea. The name and the Scandinavian heritage makes the comparison hideously obvious. As this Piccadilly-promoting website put it when Ilva opened in September 2006:

Move over Ikea, there’s a new player in town. And it’s right on our doorstep too, not an annoying half-an-hour-drive-to-Warrington away.

The problem, and perhaps the reason Ilva’s UK business has gone into administration posting annual losses of £62m, is that it sells stuff that’s a maximum of 20% better in terms of quality and design than Ikea but on average is at least 50% more expensive. And that goes for everything, from sofas to wardrobes to mugs.

Ilva also sells some laughably overpriced rubbish, such as a yellow, banana-shaped sun lounger – made of wicker – that rocks from side to side when you lie on it. If memory serves it was reduced to £114, so Christ knows how much is was before disaster struck. They had at least a hundred to get rid of.

The other problem is that a month after Ilva opened in Piccadilly, Ikea opened a new store eight miles away in Ashton. So there was no need to drive to Warrington to get there after all. Whoops.

And so despite the nice logo, the whole thing was, sadly, doomed to failure. Still, at least I got to exploit the 50% fire sale by extravagantly purchasing some teaspoons for £1.60.

I suppose it ties in with the artwork for their new album, which comprises an 1830 painting called “Liberty Leading the People” by Eugene Delacroix, with the album title Viva La Vida scrawled over it in the style of a political graffito (ooh, edgy!). But sorry to point this out: Isn’t the idea of a stylist decking a band out to match the “theme” of the album cover a bit, you know… naff?

You can imagine the thought process: The last album, X&Y, with its enigmatic, mathematical title and abstract artwork, was perceived as cold and mechanical. So this time, they’ve decided to go all emotional and heartfelt and they’ve raided the fancy dress box. This is what passes for creativity.

Aside from the music, which, from the two tracks I heard on telly, plumbs new depths of terribleness, Coldplay represent the axis at which rock and big business cross paths. “Private equity guitar music” adequately describes the genre.

Coldplay dressing up and “having fun” in the style of Parisian revolutionary (new) Romantics is not a convincing sell. It’s like trying to relaunch a Volvo estate as a cool choice of car or a job at McDonalds as a worthwhile career. It doesn’t wash. In fact, the whole contemptible enterprise is mesmerising for its piss-awful idiocy.