The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Today I've dragged my family to a car boot sale. Literally no one wants to go but me.

"It'll be really good," I say. "It's the biggest car boot sale in the UK."

The website says it's "UK'S BIGGEST CAR BOOT". However, I neglect to mention to my family that when I googled this car boot sale, there were almost zero results. Perhaps the organizers are making up self-aggrandasisng lies about themselves to get more people to come. But surely they wouldn't do this. Surely they are a respectable car boot company.

My dad's driving us to there in his car. We arrive at a muddy field. There's a beige Citroën C4 in front of us.

"Move!" my dad tuts.

The Citroën starts moving, but slowly.

"He's driving like it's new," my dad says with disgust.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"His car, it's fifteen years old but he's driving it like it's brand new. Bloody move!" he shouts.

Finally, we're at the car boot sale. I think we're a bit late though because most people are packing up and leaving.

I haven't been to car boot sale for about twenty years. As soon as I step out the car, it all comes back to me. The familiar smell of chips from a chip stand.

There's also a man in a van selling meat and shouting things like, "Yeah, you can have that as well, and that too. That's £30, love."

A ten-year-old Asian boy with a white turban on his head sees me and says, "Want some toilet paper?"

"What?" I say, confused.

"We're selling toilet paper, five pounds."

Next to him is a pile of packets of what looks like toilet paper, but on closer inspection turns about to be kitchen roll.

"It's kitchen roll," I point out.

"Oh yeah, sorry. I meant kitchen roll. It's five pounds."

I have a closer look at the kitchen roll. There's 24 rolls in a packet, which is quite a lot of rolls. 24 rolls of kitchen paper for £5 sounds good. I think about buying some for my dad, but then I get an image of my dad jumping up and down in anger and pulling out the last of his hair while shouting, "WHAT DID YOU GET ALL THOSE FOR? BLOODY HELL PAUL, ARE YOU STUPID?" So in the end I leave them.

5-year-old has a good get-rich-quick scheme: "Daddy, we can sell your hat," he says. "We can sell it for a thousand million pounds." I should point out it's just a normal baseball cap.

I'm walking around but lots of people are putting their stuff back into the cars and packing up. I think we got here too late. It's noon now and the car boot sale's supposed to finish at 1 PM, but I guess people have been here from 5 AM and they want to go home.

5-year-old has a go on an inflatable slide - ten slides for £2 - while I go and have a look around what's left of the car boot sale.

"How much's that?" asks a guy, pointing to a pebble art set.

"A pound mate, if you want it."

He wants it. He pays the pound.

It's hard to tell what people are selling at this car boot because when I try to focus on the tables in front of me, my eyes glaze over due to disinterest. It's like the perception filter around the TARDIS that prevents people from noticing it, thus allowing the Doctor to leave the TARDIS in the middle of a busy London street while he goes off on an adventure. For the sake of immersing you, reader, more fully into this car boot sale, I focus on the bric-a-brac long enough to write a list of what people are selling: assorted clothing, books by Josephine Cox, a book called A Rose Amongst Thorns, faded soft toys, a Bissell magic room vacuum cleaner which looks like it's from the 1980s, decorative plates, a Coronation Street DVD game, Books about the SAS, DVDs, packets of Lockets, and Colgate smiles baby toothpaste.

I'm forced to admit that it's all a bit crap.

"How much is that bab?" says a man pointing to a kettle.

"It's a pound, but it needs a new battery," says the woman at the stall.

"Ah right. Alright bab," he says, walking away.

Jesus, they're selling kitchen appliances that don't even work.

I buy a dot-to-dot book for 5-year-old because he likes doing dot-to-dots. It costs me twenty pence but half the dot-to-dots have already been completed.

"Here 5-year-old, I got you this," I say.

5-year-old sits in the pushchair with a pen and tries to complete the dot to dots but he gives up after five minutes. Perhaps it's because it's a dot to dot book desinged for adult.

I don't think I'll be coming back here again.