Midget Jones’ Diary

To all the people who found this site by googling “excruciating eye pain”,

GO AND SEE A FUCKING DOCTOR!

Also, those who searched for “midget rape”, do the same.

Thank you.

A WHOLE BOTTLE. Sorry if anyone thought I’d been poisoned, I just never got the chance to update.

But more of that later. Because it’s time for… ANOTHER MYSTERY SERVICE STATION! Unfortunately I haven’t been able to identify this one yet, but I can tell you that it’s somewhere on the route from Brighton to London. Similarly to my other Mystery Service Station, I remember very little of what happened thanks to having been unconscious in a Ford Transit for half an hour.

I do remember this, however: I bought a litre of gin. At two in the morning. I didn’t really understand the arse-clenchingly massive significance until the next morning when I resurfaced to find an unopened bottle of gin on my floor. I wish I could find out more information, as clearly the number of opportunities to buy spirits on Britain’s roads late at night is criminally small. We’re so far behind the rest of the continent in some ways.

The Mystery Service Station earns itself a well-deserved five unwaxed lemons out of five.

Now, back to the rancid champagne. It was a bottle of vintage cava, so not technically champagne, but it cost me an arm and a leg at the time so I thought I’d save it for a special occasion. Three years later, and I decided amongst myself that Tuesday the 21st of November was a suitably noteworthy day to enjoy it.

Now, I’m no Jilly Goolden, but it tasted a little odd to me. I gave it the benefit of the doubt though, because vintage champagne and I are not the most regular of friends. As with all things, after the first glass it started to taste alright.

So there we go then, two for one! Any news on the location of the illegal booze service station will be added as I find it. Any donations of vintage champagne are encouraged.

How much rancid champagne can one man tolerate?

Answer in just a few hours!

1. She has the same name as me. This is very important, as I’m a total narcissist. If you don’t believe me, just count the number of times I refer to myself throughout this blog. It’s not pretty. Anyway, it does make it easy to remember.
2. She can swim faster than me.
3. Her favourite All Saint is Melanie, “the one with the horse face.”
4. She accuses me of staring at her roots, which I think is rubbish as I never notice things like that. I’m more concerned that I may focus on people’s eyebrows rather than their eyes. I may need some more practise.
5. She can swim faster than Mr T. riding a dolphin.
6. The roof next to the clock at Slough train station looks like a robotic owl. You may notice that this isn’t really related, but it totally freaked me out just now.

So, in summary, NO I’M NOT BUYING YOU A HAT.

I remember this moment very clearly. I was with a friend of mine in Sainsbury’s, buying supplies for a birthday party that afternoon. I bought a bottle of Miller gin, twenty-four cans of tonic and six limes*

We’d just been listening to the Beastie Boys’ song Intergalactic in my car. As I was wandering around the aisles in search of cheap snacks it dawned on me I’d been singing “Another dimension, another dimension, another dimension” on constant loop in a crazy robot voice. Whilst pointing out my behaviour, my friend said that he’d always thought the words had been “Comin’ to getcha, I’m comin’ to getcha”. I think he may be suffering the early stages of paranoia**

It turns out that last night he thought he could hear people whispering the lyrics to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ behind his sofa. He clearly isn’t drinking enough gin, because I never hear these coded warnings in songs. I’m actually a bit jealous. Anyway, I hope he doesn’t read this because I’m planning on adding subliminal messages on to all the tapes in my car. With a bit of luck, the next post I write may be as the charismatic leader of a fledgling religious cult. Wish me luck!

* When I worked for a well-known off-license chain, they sent the promotional material through for the new Doritos ‘Hint of Lime’ flavour crisps. Some dyslexic/bored graphic designer had managed to get a tag proofed and printed and sent to hundreds of stores with the words ‘Hint of Lamb’ emblazoned across it.

** There may have been ‘outside influences’ involved.

Ok, my second service station review may not be as reasoned and detailed as the last one. It involved me getting up at 5.30 in the morning to do a 10 minute gig at 5pm, followed by another, proper gig at 10.30pm.

Anyway, I awoke at roughly 2am with a mini-hangover from the vodka, listening to a Brazilian man singing David Bowie songs in Portugese accompanied by an acoustic guitar, and my drummer holding his phone up to my ear, playing the sound of a woman screaming. This may go some way to explain my severe confusion and mental anguish. I have a vague recollection of wandering around the forecourt with my hood up. I’m not sure if I bought anything, so I can’t comment on the quality of service, although the drummer spent £3 on a sandwich, so I took that as karma for the emotional torture he put me through.

This isn’t really going anywhere, so I’m going to end with a more traditional anecdote, set in another Mystery Service Station toilet somewhere in the South West. There was a man, relieving himself and enjoying an ice cream at the same time. I think it was a Magnum, although I’m not sure what model. When he finished, he put the ice cream down on the edge of the sink, zipped up, retrieved his Magnum and left. Not really funny, but was the single most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen in a public toilet.

Subsequent research has told me that this was, in fact, Warwick South, so all I can say is go there sober. Warwick North receives two blood-curdling rape screams out of a possible five.

It just started out as a big scary monster, but due to my autism turned into a full scale scene of destruction, as sleepy town Normansville (pop. 10,000) is laid to waste in a horrifically violent fashion. Half the town is destroyed, half live in blissful ignorance of the terror ahead. So there you go, that was my Sunday. Thanks.

Click for full size impending doom

P.S. For extra credit, and to demonstrate how hardcore I am, I’d like it to be known that I drew this on a macBook trackpad.

And here it is, the inaugural Service Station Review! Ah, Leigh Delamere… a place of disparity; it is home to the highest highs and lowest lows you’ll ever find in a service station. Although not as low as Gordano, but more of that later.

• Marks & Spencer Simply Food - A very welcome addition to any service area. The westbound side has a really nice blonde girl working there. I want to marry her, but all she wants is my sushi and a curt conversation involving PIN numbers.
• Vibrating chairs - There’s something enjoyable about sitting on a massage chair in a public place. Everyone looks at you, and thinks ‘Man, he looks relaxed, I wish I wasn’t in such a hurry to go to Wales’
• The World’s Hottest Coffee - Courtesy of the Upper Crust, which also helpfully explains the origins of the French stick. They used to put them down their trousers for some sordid reason, those dirty, beret-sporting bastards. But they have harnessed the secret of ultimate insulation, because we’d almost got to Devon before I could even take a fearful, puckered sip on my cappucino.

• The petrol station, at night - Oh God, where to start? This place brings to mind some kind of petrol-station-of-the-damned scenario. It’s worth mentioning, for the sake of fairness, that I went here at 3am on a Tuesday morning, so my emotional state may have been somewhat clouded. But still, petrol station night staff aren’t well known for their social skills so I think it was a fair battle. All I wanted was to pay for my Eat Natural bar (macadamia nut and dark chocolate, potential stalkers and sponsors!) but the dried-up old crone serving was having a lengthy conversation with a trucker. When I eventually got to the front, all she could do was laugh manically. She was literally cackling while she was serving me and I still have no idea why. Maybe I reminded her of a joke the trucker told her. All told, it was very unnerving and I’m never going back there after sundown.

So, there you have it. Leigh Delamere; both the apex and nadir of Great British service stations. I give it four M&S borlotti bean salads out of five.

Well, I woke up this morning without being greeted by excruciating pain in my eye, so this is already better than last year’s birthday! Yes, scratched retinas are no joke, especially when you have to fill your eye with oozy paraffin-based antibiotics that makes you look like an extra from A Clockwork Orange. Apparently, though, the eye is the part of the body that heals itself quickest which was a blessed relief, even if the idea of wearing an eye patch was quite an attractive one.

The observant amongst you may have noticed that you’re reading a blog. To be perfectly honest, it’s all jealousy. Everyone else has got one now, and I mean everyone. I suspect even my Mum’s got one, and she only just knows how to turn on the computer. Jealousy gets a bad rap, though. I only took up the trumpet because my best friends Chris and Miggy started lessons. 13 years later I was a Royal College of Music dropout, realising that I didn’t really enjoy playing the f*cking thing, so I think we all know who the winner is there.

Anyway, back to the point. I’ve wanted a blog for a while but I always thought I’d code it myself, just because I can. The trouble is, if everyone saw that I had time to code a blog from scratch then the whole delicate façade I’ve created will be destroyed, and I’ll actually have to do things during the day rather than sit around in my pants and watch Diagnosis Murder. I’ve stupidly given myself a day off on my birthday, so rather than going to work and being able to corral people into wishing me well, I’ll be at home. Maybe I’ll go to M&S and buy a tiny cake, then throw it against the wall in impotent rage. I think that’s enough for now.