Midget Jones’ Diary

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.