PUBLICATIONS
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Good food
FOR THOSE who arc not still wedded to the idea that a square meal has to contain bangers, mash and soggy veg, the latest (big) pocket guide from Egon Ronay via the Automobile Association should be interesting.
Rtmay's Guide to 500 Good Restaurants in the Major Cities of Europe is not the expected pretentious load of descriptions of twee eating houses run by people with impossibly contrivedsounding names serving eccentric dishes. While the expensive restaurants are in here for those who can spend £50 a head on expenses, sonic of the places listed fall into the good wine bar category.
The 500 restaurants are in 45 cities in 17 countries, am — in the case of 50 of thc listings — in the French countryside. There is a simple, but workable, map o each city centre, and other useful information, for a prict of £7.95. Published by The Automobile Association, Fanum House, Basingstoke, I lampshire RG21 2EA.
OS atlas
AS THE Ordnance Survey the source of most original map material in the UK, it maps should be good, and they are. The 1986 edition oi the Ordnance Survey Motorins Atlas of Great Britain is still in its established large paperback format (390x285nim) hut now has a square hack and more pages.
The maps are as informative as ever, if somewhat crowded in places — and unlike lesser atlases, this one shows important things like railway lines and stations as well as road features.
For sonic bizarre reason, the OS is still convinced that those driving north of Inverness don't need easilyread maps: up there, the information is crammed on to a scale of 3.2km/cm (5 miles/inch) instead of the clearer 1.9km/cm (3 miles/inch) used elsewhere.
The route-planning general maps are still infuriatingly split so that you cannot look at the whole country as one spread, and it will probably only last a year, but at £3.95 it is as good as you will buy.
Ordnance Survey, Romscy Road, Maybush, Southampton S09 4DH.
'86 Michelin guide
THE MICHELIN is the quintessential driver's guide to survival on Europe's roads. The 1986 guide to Great Britain and Ireland is as eccentric as ever, with the informative but ever-soslightly-confusing symbol system which can sum up a 300-room luxury hotel in one line and which reduces a garage to an entry consisting P just street, telephone amber and marques served ars and light commercial :aly, alas).
Still, the Michelin does ianage to cram 3,932 ■ cations, 3,364 hotels and .071 restaurants into its 620 ages. Its maps are very iixed in usefulness: those of centres, though small, ave the unique advantage in le guidebook world of aving street indexes ttached. The general maps at le front, however, are about s much use as a carburettor n a diesel: in very small rale, they show hundreds of awns but almost no roads ,nking thern, so the guide an onlv be used in onjunction with another nap. 1:6.25 buys this itherwise excellent volume. dichelin Tyre PLC, :,yon Road, HIarrow, diddlesex HAl 2DQ.