The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

2022-06-30

Dear Diary. I'm on the phone to my sister Corryn.

"Paul, you know what will be good? Let's go to Butlins this August!"

Butlins.

"I think you might have the wrong definition of 'good'," I say.

"But Paul! Stephen Mulhern's going to be there!"

"What's a Stephen Mulhern?" I ask. It must be some child who's been famous for five minutes for spinning plates with a dog or something.

I google "Stephen Mulhern".

Hang on. That's the guy from CITV! The presenter. You know, the magician one. He's the CITV magician presenter!

He's actually quite famous. I'm impressed.

Well, I'll definitely go to Butlins if Stephen Mulhern's going to be there. Imagine going to the same toilet as Stephen Mulhern! There he is, taking a piss at the urinal! I'd walk up to the urinal next to his, unzip my fly and start pissing, all the while sneaking surreptitious glances at his penis. Is it big? Is it little? I bet it's little. I'm certain Stephen Mulhern's got a little willy.

"Can't you do some magic to make your willy bigger?" I'm ask him, while motioning with my eyes towards his penis.

"I'm not a real magician, I can only do tricks," Stephen Mulhern will say, with a sigh.

2022-08-12

The day to go to Butlins is getting closer.

We're at my Dad's house. There are weeds growing through the bricks that make up the concrete island in the middle of the cul-de-sac. Bits of litter are strewn in the street.

"The next-door neighbour's a Romanian," says my dad with disgust.

"I'd rather live in Romania than here," I say.

"All the Romanians are here," says my dad with disgust.

All the Romanians are here? The entirity of Romania?

Corryn: "Have you been to Butlins, Dad?"

Dad sighs. "Yeah, we went to Butlins twenty years ago"

Corryn: "Well, it's changed since then! It's not the same Butlins you know. It's all different now"

My dad's eyes light up.

Dad: "Oh, I could get one of those wheelchair things for the weekend. The ones disabled people use."

Me: "You mean a wheelchair?"

Dad: "No, not a wheelchair. An electric scooter."

Corryn "Yeah! They give you them for free, Dad! Shall I ring up and tell them you're disabled?"

Day 1

Morning campers! Hi de Hi! We're going to Butlins today!

There are five of us in the car: my dad; my girlfriend Girlfriend; my sons, five-year-old 4-year-old and four-month-old baby 0-year-old; and, of course, the most important person, me. Plus my sister Corryn and her daughter Aurora are coming in another car.

I haven't been to Butlins in over fifteen years. My memories are the big white tent, slushie machines, two pence machines, dads drinking beer, moms smoking cigarettes, kids wielding flashing LED swords, and me knocking my brother's tooth out at the bowling alley. It wasn't my fault: he was standing right behind me when I was swinging the ball back, and the ball hit him right in his teeth. My mom had to drive him to an emergency dentist, which put a bit of a downer on our holiday, but now that I think about it, I only chipped his tooth, I didn't knock it out, so I don't know what he was complaining about.

Anyway, we're all getting ready to leave. It should be a three-hour drive.

"I've put the drinks in the little fridge," says Girlfriend.

What little fridge?

Oh. She means the cooler bag. She's from Spain, so English isn't her first language.

"Okay," I say.

Then we make some sandwiches and put them in the cooler bag too.

"Don't forget the cooler bag," my dad says, as we're leaving. I have 0-year-old in one arm and I'm carrying a suitcase with the other, so hopefully someone else will get that cooler bag. Hopefully.

9:30 am

We set off for Butlins. It's Butlins Minehead so there's a three-hour drive ahead of us. 0-year-old's asleep in the car seat. 4-year-old's awake. The sun is shining through the window and onto my face and arms. I have a feeling today's going to be a good day. I imagine us rolling up at Butlin's gates in three hours' time, with good old Billy Butlin himself coming out to shake our hands.

Dad's sworn two times so far. The first time he swore, he was stuck behind a little old lady in an Audi ("Fucking old people, they should all be shot,'' he said). The second time he swore, he saw a poster of then Prime Minister David Cameron ("Tory cunt, he should be shot."). If it was up to my dad, everyone would be shot and there'd be no one left.

12:33 pm

We've been driving for three hours and we're stuck in traffic.

There are cars all around us. None of them are moving.

"This is the worst day of the year to travel," my dad says.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"It's the long weekend, isn't it? The bloody bank holiday." (The bank holiday is actually next weekend but I don't correct him.) "It's all the families going on holiday before school starts again. Look at them all, bunch of tossers," he says, gesturing to all the cars except ours.

We should be at Butlins by now but we're only halfway there.

0-year-old's crying from the back seat so we stop at a service station. As we sit down at a picnic bench to eat, we realise we've forgotten the cooler bag at home. The cooler bag full of sandwiches that were supposed to be our lunch.

"They'll be sitting there all weekend now, going spoiled," mutters Dad.

We still have some crisps to eat though. And I've bought some nuts.

As we're sitting there eating — me eating nuts and everyone else eating crisps — a fire alarm goes off and the entire service station is evacuated. Hundreds of people spill out from the building onto the street. It sounds like I'm making this up, but it's real. Everyone leaving the building looks happy and cheerful, as though being evacuated for a fire is a great time.

In the end, there is no fire, and everyone can go back inside.

13:32 pm

We're on the road again. And we're stuck in traffic again. According to the satnav, we've only driven five miles in twenty minutes. That's a speed of 15 miles per hour. At this rate, it'll take us another four hours to get to Butlins. And that's on top of the four hours we've already been driving.

13:43 pm

There's only 36 miles to go before we reach Butlins, so it's not that far. On a good day, you can drive 36 miles in half an hour. But I think as we've already established, today is not a good day. At this rate, it's going to take us four hours before we reach Butlins.

Four-month-old 0-year-old's on the verge of crying so we stop at another service station. But Dad can't find a place to park. Every parking space is taken. There are cars everywhere.

"Fuck this!" Dad shouts. He turns the steering wheel, pointing the car at the service station exit.

But this plan fails: the exit is blocked by a line of non-moving traffic. Gridlock.

"THIS IS ALL CORRYN'S FAULT!!" my dad shouts. "NEVER TRAVEL ON THE AUGUST WEEKEND!"

I don't think Corryn made all this traffic appear.

But I blame her too. It was her idea to go to Butlins.

"It's definitely Corryn's fault," I say.

0-year-old's crying in the back seat now. Poor guy. He's been trapped in his car seat for hours.

"I'm getting out," I say. I open the car door.

Girlfriend and my dad both shout at me to get back in but I ignore them. I slam the car door closed. The hot sun is shining down overhead. The line of cars stretches off into the distance, like a metallic river. I start walking down the line of cars. None of them are moving.

Then the traffic starts moving. I spin on my heel and head back towards the car. But which one is my dad's car? With a jolt of panic, I realise I have no idea what my dad's car looks like. Absolutely no idea. I don't even know what colour it is, never mind the make or model. It's a problem of mine: I can never seem to notice or remember the detail of cars. I think it's related to my disinterest in football since both cars and football are traditionally things that interest men.

I walk back past the line of cars, peering in the window of each one, hoping to see the faces of Girlfriend, Dad, 4-year-old and 0-year-old. But no - all I see were strangers.

Then see a car turning into a car park for lorries. It looks like it might be Dad's car, so I walk over to it. The angry faces of Dad and Girlfriend glaring at me through the windows confirm that this was indeed Dad's car. I open the passenger door.

"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE GOT OUT!" screams Dad as I climb back into my seat.

"Yeah, well, now you've parked, we can all get out, can't we?" I say.

"WE'RE IN THE LORRY CAR PARK!" Dad explodes. "WE CAN'T PARK HERE! WE'LL GET A BLOODY FINE!"

He drives the car about ten feet then we're stuck in traffic again.

"I'LL GET A BLOODY FINE NOW!" he shouts. "TWO HUNDRED POUNDS!"

"You don't know that," I say.

"THERE'S A SIGN UP THERE! AND A CAMERA!"

A sign says NO STOPPING AT ANY TIME UNDER PENALTY OF £200 FINE.

"I bet that camera's not even connected to anything," I say.

"OF COURSE IT'S CONNECTED! THEY'RE GOING TO GIVE ME A FINE!"

"They don't even know where you live," I say. "So how can they send you a fine?"

"THEY'LL USE THE BLOODY DVLA DATABASE! IT'S A DATABASE WITH ALL THE NAMES AND ADDRESSES! THEY'LL FIND MY ADDRESS AND SEND ME A BLOODY FINE!"

"Look, if they send you a fine, I'll pay it, okay?"

Dad doesn't look convinced.

2:40 pm

Because the traffic's so bad, Dad's decided to stop at a town called Burnham-on-Sea. As the name suggests, it's a town next to the sea. A town called Burnham. Burnham-on-Sea. The beach stretches on forever and CHRIST is it windy, my hat almost blew off my head just then.

A notice reads, "WARNING. Dangerous sinking sand and mud exposed at low tide". There's also a little image of a man trapped in the sand, halfway up to his waist.

This is a British beach, not an unexplored jungle. How bad can sand be?

So 4-year-old and take a walk on the beach. It's all fine, just a perfectly normal sandy beach, apart from some parts that look wetter than others. As an experiment, I try walking on one of the wet areas. My feet sink and disappear into the sand. This is mildly funny except when I pull my feet back out, my shoes are covered in gross wet sand. And they're my only pair of shoes.

The consistency of the sand is like a mixture of porridge and treacle. If I'm not careful, I'll end up sinking right into it, and when I finally climb out I'll covered in sand and the police will shoot me on sight thinking I'm a mud monster.

By the way, I remember reading about this man who had a quicksand fetish. He had a website full of clips of women getting trapped in quicksand. The clips were taken from all different movies. Well, he'd love this place. Just as long as he didn't really get stuck in the sand and died. Then he wouldn't like it.

Anyway, I get out of the sand, and we go and have lunch in a Wetherspoons. 4-year-old wants a hot dog, but Wetherspoons don't sell hot dogs, so we make do by ordering a sausage and a slice of bread.

5:50 pm

According to the satnav we were supposed to arrive at Butlins half an hour ago. However, my dad took a 'shortcut' and now we're stuck behind a line of cars leaving something called the "Dunster Show". According to Google, the Dunster Show is a traditional one-day agricultural show situated below Dunster Castle. According to my view of the traffic out the car window, it's a pain in the arse.

6:00 pm

We now only have two miles to go and the traffic is worse than ever. It's barely moving. I've noticed a pattern: the closer we get to Butlins, the slower the traffic moves. Which means that all these cars ahead and behind us are converging on Butlins.

I consider getting out and walking the rest of the way as it might actually be faster. I could even take 0-year-old with me, I'll carry him in my arms. But Girlfriend and Dad forbid me from doing this.

6:30 pm

We finally arrive at Butlins. The journey was supposed to take three hours. It took nine hours.

Day 2

9 am

The food court of Butlins is like a school canteen. Even the pizza tastes just like the pizza at my secondary school. It's even got the flour on the bottom of the pizza (I've never understood why that flour is there.)

10 am

The rest of my family have gone to see a Peppa Pig show. I've decided that a Peppa Pig show is probably not for me given that I'm 35, so I've walked to the beach just across the road from Butlins. It's a very British beach, in that it's cold and windy, maybe that also explains why there’s no one else apart from me. The beach is deserted. It's one of those long beaches in the sense that when the tide goes out and goes out along the way.

On the sand are little sand-like sculptures. I don't know what they are but there are thousands of them, tiny worm sand sculptures. My dad told me once that they're the things that get left behind when sand worms bury themselves into the sand.

Hang on, fuck - one just moved! I'm not sure if it moves because there's something in there or because it's just falling over due to gravity. I'm going to kick it.

Okay, never mind. I think it was just the pull of gravity pulling it down. For a moment that was like one of Cronenberg's body horror films. [Unclear 00:03:37] steep hills, piles of seaweeds. In the distance are the giant white peaks of the Butlin's main tent, like meringue. the beaches [Unclear 00:04:27] it's not at all like those sexy Spanish beaches where the sand is golden and the water is clear. Here the water is kind of, dark colour. Going to be going in that water to see, it looks cold and freezing.

There's a sign that says it's not safe to use inflatables when the wind is towards the sea. This gives me a mental image of small children on inflatable toys drifting away further and further out to sea, as their parents panic.

11 am

We're at the Butlins swimming pool. The changing rooms are weird. They're unisex. Now, when I go to a unisex changing room, I expect to see some boobies and pussy, like at the changing rooms in Scandinavia or something. That's the good thing about unisex toilets. But no. It turns out there are cubicles, and you go inside one of these cubicles and get changed in private. What a disappointment. Come on Butlin's, sort yourself out. I want to see some boobies and pussy!

4-year-old and Girlfriend left me and 0-year-old in the changing room while I found the place to put the pram. Then we went to the pool.

The first thing that hits you at the swimming pool is the noise. It's the noise of a thousand people shouting and laughing and splashing all in a big room where the noises echo around.

Then you notice how fat and ugly everyone is. It's especially noticeable in the swimming pool because you can see people's bodies. People are fat. Men are bald. Everyone has strange, ugly misshapen faces.

But it's only the adults that are like this though. The children look like normal, healthy children. No children are fat. So it must be something that happens to people in England that when they get to adulthood, they suddenly gain weight and their faces begin to look like Cabbage Patch dolls.

Then there's an area called the wave machine. As soon as the waves start, people flock toward it. It looks like it's another Hillsborough disaster waiting to happen. The waves get surprisingly high and the people bounce up and down. How many children die each time, I wonder? At the end, the lifeguards must come with a big net to scoop out the dead children's bodies.

I needed to use the toilet, so I went back to the changing rooms. The first toilet water was full to the brim. It was blocked. The second toilet had some poos floating in it. I flushed the toilet but it wasn't enough, the poos were

still there. The third toilet, the lid was down. I didn't dare open the lid to find out what was inside. So I moved on to the fourth toilet. That one, the only thing bad about it was water on the toilet seat. It may have pee stains but I thought this was okay. I didn't need to sit down anyway. Just had to take a piss.

I couldn't find Girlfriend and 4-year-old. It took me half an hour of floating around the Lazy River to finally locate them.

Aurora wanted to know if I wanted to go on the flumes. "Sure," I said.

Then there are the flumes. There are four flumes to choose from. I forget their names. The names are something like Rib Crusher, Widow Maker, Ball Breaker and Neck Twister. Aurora points one out to me and says "That's the one you are most likely to die on because you drops into a two-metre pool of water at the end. And if you can't swim then you drown."

"Oh right," I say.

"Last time I went on it, I landed in the water head-first. I head my hit my head on the bottom of the pool and started drowning. The lifeguard pulled me out."

Fun times at Butlins.

The levels of intensity of these flumes go from easy, to medium, to severe. The only severe flume is one where you sit in a little dingy and you shoot off down a slide. But Aurora and I did one called blue coaster which is the tiniest one. We would have done more but the queues were bad. We had to queue for like half an hour just for the blue coaster.

There was one boy who looked only about three or four years old. He was dressed in a Buzz Lightyear swimming outfit. He went on the Ball Buster all by himself, poor little kid. He's probably dead now. They’ll have to fish his corpse out of the flume with the net. On his gravestone will be written his last words: "AHHHH!"

As we were in the queue a woman's voice on the tannoy said, "Can Paul Jones and Aurora Bruton come to the reception, please?"

Fuck that, we were almost at the front now. So we might as well go down the flume. Aurora went first. Then I went next At first, it was slow but then it started to pick up speed. And then there were twists and turns. Wave after wave of water was splashing over my face, like waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. And then, finally, I reached the end with a massive splash.

It turns out to Girlfriend and Corryn were looking for us and that's why they asked the woman to call our names.

I had to use the toilet again. And the only free cubicle was the one where poo was floating in it. And I took away trying not to think about the poo down there that I was weeing on. In the end, I couldn't help but look down at the poo, it took hold of me and forced me to look down at it. And it was these like two maybe child-sized poos floating there.

7 pm

Corryn wanted us to go to a thing called Reds Night which is Redcoats Butlins they do competitions, music and entertainment, all that sounded a bit shit. So we and Aurora instead to a late night pool party, open the pool outside of the normal opening hours of nine to five open from 7 pm to 10 pm. And I thought it’d be a good way to get on the flumes without having to queue for very long. I was right. The lines were only 10 minutes long for flumes. I went on the super bowl one and I ended up going extremely fast, probably faster than I meant to. And when I got to the part with the ball, I kept spinning around round and round the hole more times than it is supposed to because of my momentum. And Aurora said she could see my legs going round the hole but not the rest of my body, only my legs had come out. Finally, I fell through with a plop, like poo coming out of a toilet.

And Aurora and I went on the lazy river. Aurora was dancing to the music. She was the only one dancing as well as the lifeguards, they were all dancing as well. And I said, "This music is cool." It's like there's a DJ. As we turn the corner, we saw the DJ booth with a DJ putting on all the classics and 90s party tunes. Saturday Night by Whigfield, I'm Sexy and I Know It by LMFAO. Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65.

On the way out, Aurora was telling me that Corryn gets drunk every night and falls asleep on the sofa. And she's also been drinking a bottle of wine every day since she's been here. She started drinking in the morning and then goes back to another drink. We went to see Corryn and the rest of my family at the studio. I think it's called Studio 38 venue for the entertainment and Girlfriend said that Corryn had brought a plastic water bottle, tipped the water out and put the gin in it instead. Then she was topping up her gin and tonic from the bar with her own gin. This made me angry because she's taking us to places she wants to do, activities she wants to do where she can get drunk. We stayed at the Reds entertainment for about 10 minutes before I managed to get my family to leave. It wasn't hard because Girlfriend and 4-year-old both wanted to leave. On the stage, they were three Redcoats doing a contest of who could pack the suitcase the fastest. There was a woman and a man and after that, they had to put on a pair of pants so you could put the most things into the pants. It was like something dumb.

9 pm

We went to fair at night. It's the normal fair but open from 7 pm to 10 pm. I'd promised 4-year-old I'd take him on the go-karts, so I paid for 4-year-old and me and we got into the line. Then an obese mom and her infant son squeezed past us to join her boyfriend in the queue.

"Sorry," I said to 4-year-old. "We might have to wait a little longer in the queue now."

4-year-old groaned. I shoot the obese mom and her pikey boyfriend an angry look.

People started getting on the go-karts.

"Bollocks," I said as I realised we weren't getting on. The dad in front of me turned and looked me. I guessed my swear word had shocked him.

Then something unexpected happened - three families in front of us in the line, including Obese Mom and Pikey Boyfriend, decided to wait for the next race so they could all race together with their mates. This meant 4-year-old and I could go on the go-karts!

I had to walk past Obese Mom and Pikey Boyfriend to get to the go-karts. I felt humble and foolish now. As I passed Pikey Boyfriend, I caught his eye. I expected him to sneer at me, or be angry, but no. Instead, He smiled. He wasn't Pikey Boyfriend anymore. He was just Friendly Dad, with an expression of innocence and friendliness. A man of the world; the best of men. (ALbeit a man with a slight head deformity.) I felt ashamed that just a minute ago I'd been shooting him angry looks and wished evil tidings on him and his family. What a fool I felt.

When 4-year-old got off the go-karts, I remarked, "That was fast!"

"No Daddy," said 4-year-old. "That wasn't fast."

"Oh," I said, slightly dejected.

"That was fun and fast," said 4-year-old.

Hurrah for go-karts!

I am at the fair now, there's a ride called the chairoplanes, this is where you sit in a chair and you get swung around. A woman came off it just now and she collapsed on the floor from dizziness. She's okay though, five minutes later she was bravely walking down the steps.

Day 3

Today I had constipation. Maybe it's because of all the greasy fatty food I've been eating here at Butlins: sausages, eggs, bacon.

I tried to take a poo in the comfort and privacy and the toilet in my own chalet, but I couldn't relax enough for the poo to come out because Corryn and Aurora were waiting for me outside.

So I tried later, in a cubicle in the swimming pool. But the toilet was blocked and the water was up to the brim of the toilet. I still couldn't do a poo which is probably for the best.

So, while the rest of my family went to see a pantomime, I bought some dried prunes and flax seeds from the local Tesco. I was munching on them all the back to the Butlins site. I ate two packets of dried fruit, which is about 20 grams of fibre in total. I still had the flax seeds in my pocket as an emergency backup if the poo still wouldn't come out.

When I got back to Butlin's, my family were still in the pantomime. The arcade was nearby so I went to a two-pence machine and tried to win a rubbish bottle of bubbles that was right lying on the edge of the two-pence pieces. I fed in fifty two-pence coins but the bottle of bubbles was no closer to falling off. However, 22 two-pence coins came out. So I fed these coins in and I won 18 two-pence coins. Then I fed these coins in and I won one coin. I kissed my final coin for luck and fed it into the machine, hoping for a miracle. The coin fell in and landed uselessly on top of another coin. The little shelf that goes in and out seemed to be mocking me.

Two hours later, I did a great big poo in the toilets.

6 pm

Dad sent me a message that just said "bring the tubs". He wanted the "tubs" (plastic containers) so he could steal stuff from the buffet.

Day 4

9 am

I open the fridge in our chalet and there’s a Costa Coffee Cup with the smell of pickled onions coming from it. I open the lid of the cup and inside are five cherry tomatoes and five pickled onions. I put the lid back on.

There's also something mysterious wrapped up in a napkin. I open it and it's four pieces of corned beef.

11 am

We're the Butlins gift shop. There, among hoodies and mugs, is a book written by Billy Butlin himself: "The Billy Butlin Story: a Showman to the End". I want it but I don't want to pay for it, so I steal it instead.

5:22 pm

We're in the car, driving back to Birmingham. There's an hour left of the journey home. We stopped for 30 minutes at Gloucester services. 4-year-old and 0-year-old slept most of the way so far. My mind feels numb, like when you've watched TV for four hours straight with no break. When we got out of the car at the services, my legs felt weak, like they'd atrophied, like the spacemen who spend so long in space that their muscles atrophy and they can't walk when they get back to Earth.

[I've been reading the Billy Butlins book and there's some interesting things in there. I'll include them here if I ever get the chance.]