Part I: Relax, It's Only The Electric Char

A while back now I was in London for a few days visiting a mate. I know, exciting right? – London! Londinian! The Big Smoke! The Bright Lights! The Nation's Capital! - well no, not really actually. It wasn't that great at all as it goes. I mean, I've been there before and it's alright I guess, but I just never stop being disappointed by the sheer lack of stereotypes in the area. Literally nobody you'll meet ever says, 'What a palaver!' nobody says, 'Ave a banana!' and no-one shouts, 'Cor blimey!' or 'Love-a-duck!' It's all a bit disheartening I find. Plus I don't know what they're using to clean their chimneys down that way nowadays, but it sure as hell ain't chimney sweeps, I can tell you that much. I couldn't find a single one and it wasn't for lack of trying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not slagging it off or anything: it's a very modern, multicultural, thriving place – which is brilliant – I'm just saying that, very early on in life 'Mary Poppins' gave me certain expectations of that town, which the reality has just never quite managed to live up to. Maybe that's the reason why almost every time I visit, I can't help feeling that if London really is calling, it must be talking to somebody else.

Still, I enjoy the drive down at any rate. Or at least I usually do – this particular journey was a bit of a pain, tons of delays and diversions and stuff like that, so I was glad when we eventually pulled in to a service station for a break. Always am. See I kinda like service stations...dunno why really, I'm the only person I know who does. They interest me in an odd sort of a way; everyone in them has somewhere different to be and is typically in an incredible hurry to be there, giving the whole place this sort of mad, frenetic energy which is sometimes fun to just sit back and watch zip around you. Nights are good too because when they're really quiet and near deserted, you can use the poignant alone time to just ponder life, the universe and everything, if you're the philosophical type. I'm not though, so I much prefer to spend the hours after dark gliding around on the slidey floors and playing the Dance Dance Revolution arcade machine until my ankles shatter. Once me and a few other nocturnal travellers recreated the Thriller dance routine step perfect on one of those things…and I mean step perfect, absolutely in sync, not one of us missed a move. It was genius. Nobody saw it, I can't prove it – but the important thing is that me, Martha the cleaning lady, a travelling salesman from Ipswich called Gary and the entire night staff at the Welcome Break branch of The Little Chef will always know what we achieved in those early hours.

On this most recent trip however, I didn't have time to stick around like that and was really only in to quickly pick up supplies. But while waiting in the queue to pay for my items, I spotted an advert for the in-station Electric Massage Chair. I had never seen anything like it before and was quite intrigued. The poster claimed that if you had one pound coin and three minutes to spare, the relaxing chair could leave you as stress free as the man pictured. Now you didn't see this guy, but take it from me, he looked almost illegally chilled out, so – bearing in mind the car ride hadn't been the best thus far – I figured I could do to get me some of that before hitting the road again.

When I finally found the chairs they looked comfortable enough; they were big wide, black leather things with a timer and a slot for money in the arm. Hopping on, I inserted the cash…nothing happened. I had expected it to start vibrating or something right away but I couldn't feel anything so I leaned forward to check the arm for any switch I might have missed. Nope. I slumped back in the seat feeling a bit ripped off…and that's when I felt it. These big metal lumps suddenly jutted out the backrest and cushioned only by a thin plastic cover, thumped mechanically into my spine repeatedly. It was agony! They started in the middle of my back, gradually smashing all the way up, before starting an excruciatingly painful vice-like, pincer motion, crushing my neck. I began to seriously wonder if the chair was trying to relax me or recycle me. Then the wrecking balls were off again, slowly beating back down to and working my kidneys. My kidneys! You can't even do that in boxing! I swear to God, if the inventors ever decide to market that thing to the public, they should call it the Sado-9000 and give it away with complimentary nipple clamps and a ball-gag, cos I promise you, that's the only sort of demographic who would be partial to this experience.

It soon became apparent that this process was going to repeat once a minute for two more minutes. I decided at this point I was gonna have to cry out. I was fine with it, I'm not proud like that. Unfortunately just as I was about to do so, a young mum and her child walked up to watch the chair in action and seemed to be pleased by the spectacle. Obviously I couldn't do it now. The blood curdling scream would have scarred the kid for life, so I put a brave face on for the remaining time. After it had finished and the audience was gone, I just sat there limply for a minute until I saw what looked like a station employee coming, giving me a chance to complain. When I sat up to do so she just winked at me, smiled and said "Another satisfied customer, eh?" before walking on. At first I thought she was taking the piss, it was only afterwards when I caught sight of my own reflection, I discovered that – thanks no doubt to the effects of the chair – my face was now locked in a weird lopsided smile and I was winking completely involuntarily.