h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To any unbelievers: this is exactly what it's like - EXACTLY, I would like to add that tucking yourself behind the lorry makes it extremely difficult to read road signs and heaven help you if you take the wrong exit as you'll be in Walsall before you know it. However, at least you are the right lane to turn off at the last minute. This allows the lorry behind you a sporting chance to clip your rear

Suddenly I'm not so sure I want to drive to Birmingham next month...

Don't blame you for not wanting to drive to Birmingham.As the
comedian Mike Harding once said:"If the world had piles,
Birmingham is where they'd be.They ought to rope the area of
and have signs saying 'Danger:hole in the world'"

Oi! When was the last time you were here? It's simply not that bad! I daresay Mike Harding said that about 20 years ago and Birmingham has VASTLY changed since then. For a start they've bulldozed the Bullring now.

Admittedly though anyone with any sense who does liver here will *never* use the M6 at any time approaching rush hour. A simpler methd of getting to Birmingham's city centre is to leave the M6 at J4 and head south down the M42. Youcan then leave this at either Jungtion 3 or 2 and head up the A441 Redditch then Pershore Road and this will avoid the carpark betweem Junctions 6 and 10 that only ever moves between the hours of 2am and 4am.

I must remember to write all this down! I'm coming up on Sunday the 18th of November.
A sort of unofficial mini meet. purplejenny and I to meet Mandragora. A bit of a girls get together at the Bizarre Bizaar.

As a student, some friends and I went on Spaghetti Junction on its first day of opening - and went the wrong way! It was called SJ even then, although it was not so busy.

A little later, there was a review at the local theatre called 'Up Spaghetti Junction' - very funny.

As a student, some friends and I went on Spaghetti Junction on its first day of opening - and went the wrong way! It was called SJ even then, although it was not so busy.

A little later, there was a review at the local theatre called 'Up Spaghetti Junction' - very funny.

I passed my driving test about 6 months ago and have not really been on the motorway. This week I plan to go on the motorway, at night, right through SJ. Should be fun!

In fact this entry has several flaws. Firstly Spaghetti Junction only marks the confluence of two motorways, and that is only if you count the A38 (M) “Aston Expressway” as a motorway which neither the Highways Agency or myself do so. The complexity is accounted for by the presence of the A5127 a minor road that connects the city centre with Sutton Coldfield. In fact it is impossible to get lost on the Gravely Hill Interchange since once a route is selected it is impossible to return to the Junction without leaving it. It is well signed and only someone who didn’t know where they were going could possibly make a mistake.

Traffic flows through Spaghetti are usually quite good, only during peak periods does traffic tend to slow. This is despite the fact that the Junction serves almost all traffic leaving the City Centre and surrounding area bound for any destination more than twenty miles away. The traditional bottleneck on the M6 occurs two junctions further up the road at Junction 8 where the M5 joins the M6 delivering two major motorways worth of traffic onto a single motorway heading North. Heading South the traffic flow even here is reasonable compared to the M40/M25 and M4/M25 confluences.

The M6 as a whole is an outstanding piece of engineering, the longest motorway in the UK linking the English Midlands, the great cities of the North West and Scotland. The section which runs through Birmingham is probably the most ambitious piece of motorway building ever undertaken on the British network. For most of the route the roads carriageways are supported on huge concrete pillars stretching mile after mile. Uniquely outside London the motorway cuts through, or rather flies over the city rather than laboriously skirting its edge. Unlike the M4 “West Way” in the Capital the quality of the design of the road has allowed to retain the full seventy MPH rather than being restricted to a mere forty.

The views afforded across the Birmingham suburbs from the M6 are not replicated in any other British city. Amongst the sights to be glimpsed from the carriageway are Fort Dunlop, The Castle Bromwich Jaguar Factory, The neon lights of Star City and the Fort retail park, Chelmsely Wood (reputedly the largest housing development in Western Europe), Villa Park, Aston Hall, The Bescott Stadium, The modern architecture of RAC control centre and of course the impressive skyline of the City Centre itself. The motorway passes with a couple of miles of the heart of the city. Perhaps not to the taste of people whose imagination stretches only to the appreciation of another hill covered with Frisians and an endless panorama of agricultural industry but to the discerning a welcome change from the usual motorway scenery.

Spaghetti Junction was built more to celebrate the great achievement of the West Midlands and British motorway network than for any practical purpose, they could have built it on the ground rather than elevated above the city. However the architects chose to make a statement of their engineering prowess by building a classical temple of motorway pillars and carriageways. Future generations will no doubt marvel at the tremendous effort and ingenuity that marked its construction.

More than that Spaghetti has a spiritual element, the three routes which cross at the point are joined by a railway and a canal at ground level making the site a great hub around which the ancient and modern transport systems radiate. Under the Junction there is a large traffic Island linking sundry local roads into the elegant structure. Overlooking this Island stands a pub. This pub itself is of minor sociological interest, filled as it is the unique culture of the locals and drawing a strange ambience from the transitory nature of the nearby colossal Junction. Not for nothing did the visionaries who constructed Spaghetti name this establishment The Armada, referencing another great British achievement.

To the innumerable hoards of thoughtless drones employed in the pathetic service industries of modern Britain, Spaghetti is nothing more than an inconvenience with a funny name. Mentioned only to try and raise a predictable laugh in a formulaic diatribe and to imply the geographical adventurousness of the individual. To those who can see things in a more critical light Spaghetti is an inspirational piece of engineering and a monument to human effort and ingenuity.

NB It would be unforgivable to mention Spaghetti Junction on h2g2 and neglect to mention the legends surrounding the disposal of several gang land generated corpses said to have been entombed in its thousands of tons of concrete. It is even said that a victim on the notorious Cray Brothers lies within its massive foundations……..