The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

8:35 am

Dear Diary. My friend Joe has invited me to Ibiza. I'm leaving today and staying three nights.

I'm currently standing at the bus station waiting for the bus to come to take me to Barcelona airport. From there I'll get a plane to Ibiza.

I'm not normally out and about so early on a Saturday. There is a surprisingly high number of attractive women on their own at this time. For example, there's an immaculate, beautiful woman standing outside the bus. She looks Eastern European and she's in her early twenties. She's driving coffee. She looks alert and awake, perhaps due to the coffee she's drinking.

Everyone gets on the bus. The beautiful woman gets on last. As she sits down, I see a tattoo of the sun on the back of her neck. I need to get tattoos soon, to add to the 'sexy man' vibe I'm trying to obtain.

It strikes me that the back of the neck is a good place to get a tattoo. But is it only a good place for women? Maybe back-of-the-neck tattoos are feminine. I don't know.

The bus starts to leave. It's going BEEP, BEEP, BEEP as it drives backwards out of the parking space. I hope the driver doesn't plan on driving backwards the entire way to the airport, tee hee.

The bus drive will take two hours to reach Barcelona airport. And there's no toilet so I don't know what happens if I need to do a wee. Piss in a bottle I guess.

By the way, I've brought five books with me and they're all shit.

9:10 am (25 minutes into the bus journey)

I start singing "We're going to Ibiza" by the Vengaboys out loud, forgetting I'm on a bus full of other people. The guy seating in front of me turns his head, thinking I'm talking to him. I quickly stop singing.

9:15 am (30 minutes into the bus journey)

We've reached an airport. But it's not Barcelona airport. No, it's Girona airport. This is just one of the stops on the way to the final destination.

Shit, now I've started thinking about Final Destination, the film that starts with a plane crash.

Out the window are a group of lads, big football hooligan types. They're stuffing suitcases into a couple of taxis. They all have the same sneery better-than-you attitude that implies they'll be smacking me in the gob any minute now. They probably like rugby, fingering lasses, drinking beer, drunken songs about rugby, and getting sunburned. It's unclear who their leader is because all look aggressive and dominant, though I suspect the leader is the biggest one. He's a big ginger brute with a cigarette balanced precariously on his lips as he effortlessly picks up a hefty suitcase and swings it into the boot of a taxi.

I keep looking for the token geeky guy, but there isn't one. Maybe they've already killed him.

There's also a group of four men in their forties. These men are standing around in a rough circle and enjoying a bit of wistful banter, perhaps about how many women they fingered when they were younger. They look hard and macho like the first group of men, but they're also older, softer, and kinder. Age has given them wisdom. They look like they'd take pity on me. Note: two of the four men have near-identical sleeve tattoos.

And now a completely different group of people: twenty or so young blonde women. But while all are blonde, not all are natural blondes - many have dark roots that are visible even from where I'm leering at them from my vantage point on the bus. One of the women is wearing a black boob tube and a pair of black skin-tight leggings with the word JUICY written across the bum in silver glitter in a gothic typeface. There are no men in their group, implying they're on an all-girls holiday or a cheap hen-do abroad.

10:00 am (1 hour 15 minutes into the bus journey)

I've run out of things to do on the journey. I'm tired and bored. Also, I probably shouldn't have drank so much water before getting on the bus. As I mentioned, there are no toilets. And now I need a wee.

10:35 am (1 hour 50 minutes into the bus journey)

Our bus is driving through Barcelona now. We're going through small, seedy side streets. Outside the bus window is a happy dog carrying a stick in its mouth, a fat man unsuccessfully trying to sleep on a bench made of stone, and a Burkha-clad woman pushing her husband in a wheelchair. As the wheelchair goes over the curb, the man throws his head back in an exaggerated gesture. He looks bored too.

I close my eyes, pull down my cap over my eyes and try to fall asleep. It doesn't work.

10:45 am (2 hours into the bus journey)

We've finally reached Barcelona airport. It's a large, flat building (presumably it's flat so the planes don't crash into it) with a huge car park. We reach Terminal 2, a big glass building. Lots of people are walking around outside. I need to get off at the next stop, Terminal 1, So far, my bladder's holding.

2:35 pm

The plane takes off, only ten minutes late. All the air hostesses are English even though this is a national flight inside Spain. Then again, Jet2 is a British company.

And someone's brought a dog on the plane. A dog!

I injected myself with testosterone this morning. I don't usually inject myself with testosterone; I use testosterone gels instead. I don't feel any different yet. What I do feel is fear, anxiety and trepidation about meeting Joe and his cool friends.

4:00 pm

I meet Joe at the airport. He looks exactly the same as I remember him at school except he's fifteen years older and he's bald. So completely different, in other words.

"Hey man," says Joe. "You're looking good," he says, admiring my muscles.

"Thanks," I say. "I work out."

"I can tell."

This isn't gay at all.

We go to the car park. There's his jeep. I know nothing about cars so all I can tell you is it's big and black, like the type of cock your granny loves.

In the back seats are a man, a woman, and a baby.

A baby. A baby on an Ibiza holiday.

I soon find out the man and woman are the dad and mom of the baby. The man's name is Joe, the woman's name is Sachiko, and the baby's name is Amelie, like the girl in the movie Amélie.

Hang on. So now there's two Joes on this holiday. For Christ sake. Why can't anything be simple.

So I learn that Sachiko knows Joe (my friend Joe, not the dad Joe) through university, and Sachiko, her husband Joe, and the baby are coming on the holiday for "a nice time". I'm not sure if they know about the drugs Joe's brought with him or not.

We set off the villa. Joe's driving. As we're driving along the motorway, a convertible drives past us, with its roof is down. All the passengers in the convertible are young drunk women, and they all have their arms in the air and are shrieking with laughter. They look like they're the time of their lives.

We get to the villa. There are more people to meet and more names to remember. Jesus Christ. Why can't everyone just wear name tags.

The new people are:

• Madison, a hairdresser from Norwich in her early 20s
• Ben, Madison's boyfriend, also in his early 20s
• Niller, Joe's girlfriend, a 26-year-old girl from Denmark
• Quirina, a 35-year-old blonde massage therapist from Norwich
• Antonina, a 35-year-old brunette woman from Russia

9:30 pm

Some conversations I've had so far:

Niller: *opens a jar of spices and sniffs it* "Is this MDMA?"

Me: "I'm pretty sure it's a jar of spices."

Niller: "You'd be surprised at what people leave lying around."

***

Niller: "So what drugs have you tried?"

Me: "Uh, not many."

Niller: "Have you tried heroin?"

***

It's night. It's hot. There's the sound of crickets. Okay, just one very loud, very horny cricket. I feel the breeze on my legs and arms. I'm feeling sleepy now; it's almost my bedtime. Unfortunately, everyone's planning on going out to a "super club" whatever that is.

The sky is a very dark blue, almost black. No stars are yet visible. There are pinpricks of light in the darkness from the lampposts lining the nearby road. There's the sound of cars driving by. A small blue insect lands on my hand. I wave it off.

11 pm

We're in a car heading to Ibiza's old town. Ben's driving us. Between us all, we're breaking at least five laws:

1) Ben's driving at 120 km/h in an 80 km/h zone

2) He's had three or four beers to drink, which is in blatant disregard of drink driving laws

3) Antonina has a bag of cocaine hidden in her knickers.

4) No one in the back seat (including me) is wearing a seatbelt (Quirina says the middle seat belt is broken)

5) There are four of us crammed in the back, even though there are only three seats

But if we crash, I have a plan: I'll brace myself for impact by pushing my arms on the seat in front of me. Like this, I might actually survive. But the two girls in the middle? They have no chance. They'll be going straight through the windscreen and out the other side. Their parents will have to fly to Ibiza to come take them home in doggy bags.

Just when I think there won't be an accident after all, a moped in front of us stops suddenly, causing Ben to brake hard. Our car stops abruptly and the girls in the car fly forward. Not me though: I'm holding onto the seat in front of me.

"Fucking hell," says Quirina, getting back into her seat.

The next problem is there's nowhere to park. This is, after all, Ibiza, the world's most popular island of sin, in summer, at peak season and on a Saturday night.

Ben and Joe drop me and the girls off and they leave to find somewhere to dump the car. Now I'm alone with three women. I suddenly feel like a pimp. What should I do? As the only man, am I now the leader? I wish I hadn't gone to an all-boys secondary school because I have no clue how to interact with women, let alone three of them.

But the girls know where to go. I tail along after them.

We pass a transvestite man standing on a podium outside a club. He's gyrating his crotch in my direction.

"Want any fun tonight?" he calls out to me suggestively.

"No thanks," I say politely.

He shrugs and turns his crotch towards someone else.

The girls have found Sacha and Joe. They're sitting outside a cafe called Cafe Sol i Mar. The waiter comes. The girls order cocktails. I order a Coke.

"Make that a Coke Zero," I shout to the waiter and he heads back inside. I don't want any sugar. Because what if I forget to brush my teeth tonight?

Joe and Ben arrive. They announce they've left the car by a skip.

"What are you drinking?" says Joe, looking at my Coke with disgust. "Jesus, Paul. Here, drink this."

He passes me a cocktail. I put the glass to my lips and take a sip. It's orange juice. But I'm sure there's alcohol in there somewhere.

"Down it," says Joe.

I push the drink away. "I'm tired," I complain. I'm ready for bed now. In fact, I was ready for bed two hours ago. It's way past my bedtime.

"Give Paul some cocaine," says Joe. "He needs waking up."

Antonina rummages around in her knickers and takes the bag of cocaine out. Then she passes the bag of cocaine to me. But she gives it to me in a very awkward way, with her fist tightly closed until the last moment where she drops the packet into my hand. All the while she has her head turned in the other direction as if this will make people think she's just checking out the ocean or something. Jesus Christ. Could she be any more conspicuous? If any cops were watching, we'd all be going to prison.

I go to the toilet of the cafe (which is now, I realise, a family-friendly cafe), lock the door and tip some of the cocaine out onto the counter. I can't remember what you're supposed to use to snort cocaine so I just lower my nose to it and snort it like that, with nothing.

Then I remember you're supposed to use a rolled-up bank note. Oh well, too late now.

I go back outside to the table.

"How do you feel?" says Joe.

"The same," I say.

"Go back and take some more," says Joe's girlfriend, Niller.

So I go back to the toilets, hoping it doesn't look suspicious that I'm using the toilets twice in the space of five minutes. Maybe if anyone asks, I can just claim I have diarrhoea. This time I tip a bigger amount of cocaine out, and I use a banknote to snort it. Right then the effect hits me. I'm now high on cocaine.

I go back outside and sit down. No one notices me. Everyone's too busy talking.

Should I talk too? I probably should.

But I can't bring myself to say anything. God dammit. Even on cocaine, I'm shy and unsociable.

Midnight

We're walking to the club. Madison's complaining about her shoes: "Fucking arseholes, these shoes are." I don't know why girls wear high heels. If I were a girl, high heels would be the first thing I'd refuse. The second thing I'd refuse would be makeup. Except perhaps for black eyeliner, drawn around each of my eyes. Eyeliner looks cool.

We pass a police blockade. Police are stopping cars and doing spot breathalyzer tests. Thank Christ Ben didn't drive this way.

Then I remember the bag of cocaine in my pocket. I freeze. What's the penalty for possessing cocaine here in Spain? Five years in prison? Ten years? I can't go to prison! I wouldn't survive!

Take it easy Paul, I tell myself. Be cool.

We walk past the police blockade. All the while, I'm acting cool and casual, like I don't have a bag of cocaine in my right pocket. And it works. The police don't even look at us.

When we're safely past the police, I say to Antonina, "What's the penalty for having cocaine in your pocket?"

"What?" she says. "Oh, right, you still have that. Do you want me to take it back?"

"Please," I say. I give her back the small plastic packet of cocaine, which she quickly rummages back into her knickers.

We get to the club. Miraculously I haven't lost the group.

Joe takes me behind a bush and says, "Take this."

In his palm is a small white pill.

"What is it?" I ask suspiciously as I take the pill out of his hand.

"Don't worry. It's ecstasy."

This is a pleasant surprise. I've always wanted to try ecstasy. The name alone makes it sound good.

"Just swallow it," he says.

"Bottoms up," I say, and toss the pill into my mouth.

"Good. Now take this one," he says. In his palm now is a small green pill. Where do all these pills keep coming from?

"What's this one?" I ask as I take the pill out of his hand.

"Don't swallow it," he says. "Not yet, anyway. It's 2C-B."

I don't know what 2C-B is but I nod anyway as if I know.

"Keep it in your wallet or something and take it when I tell you to," he says.

"Okay," I say. I take out my wallet from my pocket and stuff the green pill inside.

"Good," he says. "You're going to have a great night."

I'm sceptical but we'll see. I follow Joe back to our group of friends. They're all waiting outside the club.

"Is everyone ready?" says Joe.

"Yeah," says one of the girls. "We were waiting for you."

We all go to the club. There's no queue. "I don't think there's any tickets left," says Joe. "If not, then I'll have to bribe our way in."

Joe pays for our tickets (or bribes the bouncer to let us in, I can't tell which.)

"How do you feel Paul?" asks Quirina.

"Joe gave me a pill behind a bush a few minutes ago and I'm not sure what it was," I say.

"Don't worry, just go with it," she says.

"Hey, is that Richard Branson?" says Antonina suddenly.

We all look. There's a man who could very well be Richard Branson. From behind, at least. Because when he turns around, we all see it's not Richard Branson, but just some random schmuck. We're all disappointed.

We enter the club. The music's loud. I take a moment to put my ear plugs in. Good job I brought them with me. I wouldn’t want to get hearing damage.

I leave the group to buy a bottle of water at the bar. It costs 9 euro. Then I find everyone again.

"This bottle of water cost me 9 euro," I shout, over the noise of the music.

"Paul, don't buy any more drinks," shouts Joe. "Don't worry, I've got this. I'll buy you drinks. What are you drinking?"

I don't know. "Orange juice?" I shout into his ear.

"Okay, one orange juice," Joe shouts back.

He buys the orange juice, plus drinks for everyone else. The girls go off to the toilets to snort cocaine. I finish my water then start drinking my orange juice.

"Do you still I have that pill I gave you?" shouts Joe.

"Yeah," I shout back.

"Well, now's the time to take it," he shouts.

I take out my wallet and find the pill. Then I put it in my mouth and swallow it.

We all head to the dancefloor. I guess we're dancing now? But no. We're heading to the VIP area.

There's a velvet rope and a bouncer in front of it. Joe pays a woman an inordinate sum of money to let us in. I don't know how much exactly because I can't see the card machine. But it's at least 500 euros I reckon.

The woman undoes the velvet rope and lets us into the VIP area. We're now VIPs. I've never been a Very Important Person before.

The VIP area is a balcony over the top of the club. It looks down at the dance floor and the DJ.

"How do you feel?" shouts Joe as we climb the stairs to the balcony.

"I think the ecstasy is broken," I shout back to him. But I don't know if he hears me.

We reach the balcony. We have our own table. A waitress comes over and Joe starts ordering drinks. I can't hear him over the noise, but I'm imagining he's saying something like, "Champange, beer, vodka, and water. Oh, and Paul’s orange juice. And keep everything coming." The waitress enters numbers in her card machine. The first number is a 2. Then a 1. Then a 0. Then another 0.

Jesus Christ, Joe's paying 2,100 euros.

He taps his card on the card reader without hesitation. (I witness this happen again with a similar amount - 1,900 euro - later on in the night.)

One guy, Ben, goes to the balcony and starts dancing like he's on drugs. He has his eyes closed and a big smile on his face and he's waving his arms about everywhere. To be fair, he probably is on drugs.

I join him on the balcony. "What drugs are you on?" I shout to him.

He opens his eyes for a moment, looks at me in amusement and disdain, and closes his eyes again. Clearly, these aren't drugs that make you talk.

Hang on, wait. I think the ecstasy's kicking in. Things are becoming more... vibrant?

Then I realise I'm going to be sick. I shouldn't have drank orange juice. I can taste it coming back up my throat.

I have two options:

1) be sick off the balcony onto the dancers below

2) run to the toilets and be sick there

I go with option 2 and run to the toilets. On the way I have to pass a bouncer and he stops me to shine an ultraviolet light on the back of my right hand. I don't know why. I presume it's some kind of drug thing. Maybe he's checking my hands for signs of cocaine.

The bouncer shouts something in my ear I don't understand.

"I'm just going to the toilet," I shout back. "El lavabo."

The bouncer lets me go past. I reach the toilet. There's only one cubicle and the door's locked. Fuck sake. I wait patiently outside the cubicle, trying my best not to look like I'm

a) on drugs, and

b) about to puke

Fortunately I don't have long to wait - the cubicle door opens and a man wearing a wig and a dress steps out. I rush past him/her, close and lock the cubicle door, and put my head in the toilet bowl.

And... nothing.

I guess I don't need to puke after all. I can still taste the sugary, overly-sweet orange juice in my mouth, but the urge to puke has subsided now.

I head back to the VIP area, all the while trying to seem normal and avoid eye contact with anyone in case they suss out I'm on ecstasy. But when I get to the VIP area, there's the big bouncer from before, blocking the rope.

"Excuse me," I say. "I left just now to go the toilets." I squeeze past him to re-enter the VIP area. Then a hand grabs my shoulder and squeezes it. I turn around. It's the bouncer.

Then I hear a "Hey!" It's Joe. He's spotted me and come to save me. "What are you doing?" he shouts to the bouncer. "He's with me!" The bouncer lets me go and slinks back to the velvet rope.

"Thanks, man," I shout to Joe.

"No worries," he shouts back. "The girls saw you leave just now."

"Yeah, I thought I was gonna be sick," I shout back.

"You were sick?" he shouts.

"No, but I thought I was gonna be," I shout. But I don't think he can hear me.

3 am

Three hours have passed like three minutes. It must be the drugs.

Most of the time I'm just dancing half-heartedly on the balcony of the VIP area. Every now and then I'll stop and look down and try to focus on the scene before me. And it's always something incredibly weird. A huge golden Scaramouche mask is hanging from the ceiling, with beams of white light shooting through its eyes. Various costumed people on stilts are dancing in the middle of the crowd, including a woman with a giant jester hat (including white pom-poms) and another woman with transparent wings covered in fairy lights. Other people are dressed as robots and are dancing on podiums. At one point two cannons shoot golden confetti all over the crowd; the confetti flutters to the floor like Willy Wonka's golden tickets.

And the lights. There's a dizzying array of lights, including chandeliers, strobe lights, lasers, scanners, and ceiling-mounted moving heads. In fact, the entire ceiling is glowing and pulsating with colours.

But the thing is, I only notice any of this when I force myself to focus on it. Otherwise I’m just lost in some kind of mental fog.

Sometimes I look down and I’m amazed to see all this stuff going on I haven’t been paying any attention to. Definitely something has affected my brain. My guess is the drugs Joe gave me earlier.

Most of the club experience is lost on me. I feel like I've taken a horse tranquillizer. I can't focus on anything.

And every time I go back to the VIP table for a break, my new friends send me back to the balcony to go dance some more.

There's another thing: I've drunk loads of water but weirdly, I don't need to take a piss.

Also, Joe confiscated my phone earlier. He saw me using it, came up and took it out my hands. “No phones,” he said. “You’re on drugs. When you’re on drugs, it’s easy to to just get sucked into your phone and you’ll be on it for hours. Just enjoy the experience.” I was only trying to take a photo.

4 am

The group decides to leave the club. I follow behind them. I do my best to keep up with them as we push our way through the dance floor. Once or twice I lose sight of person I’m following, Quirina, but I always push through the crowd until I can see her again. Finally we’re outside, in the smoking area. A thought occurred to me later that if I had lost my friends, I wouldn’t have been able to call them, since Joe had my phone. I also didn’t know where the villa was. I don’t know what would have become of me. I would have become homeless. Outside, we stop to have a smoke. Even I smoke a cigarette.

"I think I might like ecstasy," I say quietly.

Only Quirina hears me. I can tell because she starts laughing. "Guys, did you hear what Paul just said? He said he might like ecstasy."

5 am

Now we're in the swimming pool at the villa and looking up at the stars. Everyone else is relaxed and comfortable but I'm freezing and shivering. It's probably some kind of comedown effect of the ecstasy. Which I'm still high from, by the way.

"So how long did you say this ecstasy trip would last?" I say to Joe meekly.

Ben laughs. "This guy, man. This guy's hilarious."

I smile and shrug. "I try," I say. "But really though, how long does an ecstasy trip last?"

"Generally three to six hours," says Joe.

I'm sure he told me it'd last half an hour. The bastard.