Sue Townsend - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3⁄4

Quinquagesima

Had an argument with my father over the Sunday Express . He can’t see that he is a willing tool of the reactionary right. He refuses to change to the Morning Star . My mother reads anything; she is prostituting her literacy.

Once again I am spotty. I am also extremely sexually frustrated. I’m sure a session of passionate lovemaking would improve my skin.

Pandora says she is not going to risk being a single parent just for the sake of a few spots. So I will have to fall back on self-indulgence.

Shrove Tuesday. New Moon

Ate nine pancakes at home, three at Pandora’s and four at Bert and Queenie’s. Grandma was very hurt when I refused her kind offer to whip me a batter, but I was full up.

It is disgusting when the Third World is living on a few grains of rice.

I feel dead guilty.

Ash Wednesday

Our school dinner-ladies have got the sack! The dinners now come in hot boxes from a central kitchen. I would have staged a protest but I have got a Geography test tomorrow.

Mrs Leech was presented with a microwave oven for her thirty years of toil over the custard jug.

Got fifteen out of twenty for Geography. I lost points for saying that the Falkland Islands belonged to Argentina.

My thing is now thirteen centimetres long when it is extended. When it is contracted it is hardly worth measuring. My general physique is improving. I think the back-stretching exercises are paying off. I used to be the sort of boy who had sand kicked in his face, now I’m the sort of boy who watches somebody else have it kicked in their face.

My father hasn’t made or sold a single spice-rack all week. We are now living on Social Security and dole money.

My mother has stopped smoking. The dog is down to half a tin of Chum a day.

Quadragesima (Firstin Lent )

Had egg and chips and peas for Sunday dinner! No pudding! Not even a proper serviette. My mother says we are the nouveau poor .

St David’s Day(Wales )

My father has stopped smoking. He is going around with a white face finding fault with everything I do.

My mother and him had their first row since she came back. The dog caused it by eating the Spam for tea. It couldn’t help it, the poor thing was half crazed with hunger. It is back on a full tin of Chum a day.

Moon’s First Quarter

My parents are suffering severe nicotine withdrawal symptoms. It is quite amusing to a non-smoker like me.

I had to lend my father enough money for a gallon of petrol, he had an interview for a job. My mother cut his hair and gave him a shave and told him what to say and how to behave. It is pathetic to see how unemployment has reduced my father to childish dependence on others.

He is waiting to hear from Manpower Services.

He is still ill from not smoking. His temper has reached new peaks of explosion.

No news yet about the job. I spend as much time as I can out of the house. My parents are unbearable. I almost wish they would start smoking again.

He got it!!!

He starts on Monday as a Canal Bank Renovation Supervisor. He is in charge of a gang of school-leavers. To celebrate he bought my mother sixty Benson and Hedges and himself sixty Players. I got a family pack of Mars bars.

Everybody is dead happy for once. Even the dog has cheered up a bit. Grandma is knitting my father a woolly hat for work.

Pandora and I went to see the bit of canal bank that my father is now in charge of. If he worked for a thousand years he will never get it cleaned of all the old bikes and prams and weeds and Coca-Cola tins! I told my father that he was in a no-win situation, but he said, ‘On the contrary, in one year’s time it will be a beauty spot’. Yes! And I am Nancy Reagan, Dad!

Second in Lent

My father went to see his canal bank this morning. He came home and shut himself in his bedroom. Heis still there, I can hear my mother saying encouraging words to him.

It is uncertain whether or not he will turn up for work tomorrow. On the whole I think not.

He went to work.

After school I walked home along the canal bank. I found him bossing a gang of skinheads and punks about. They were looking surly and unco-operative. None of them wanted to get their clothes dirty. My father seemed to be the only one doing any work. He was covered in mud. I attempted to exchange a few civilities with the lads, but they spurned my overtures. I pointed out that the lads are alienated by a cruel, uncaring society, but my father said,’ Bugger off home, Adrian. You’re talking a load of lefty crap’. He will have a mutiny on his hands soon if he’s not careful.

Full Moon

My schoolwork is plummeting down to new depths. I only got five out of twenty for spelling. I think I might be anorexic.

My father has asked me not to bring Pandora to the canal after school. He says he can’t do anything with the lads after she has gone. It’s true that she is stunningly beautiful, but the lads will just have to learn self-control. I have had to learn it. She has refused to consummate our relationship. Sometimes I wonder what she sees in me. I live in daily terror of our relationship ending.

Pandora and Pandora’s mother have joined my mother’s women’s group. No men or boys are allowed in our front room. My father had to be in charge of the creche in our dining room.

Rick Lemon’s baby daughter Herod was crawling under the table shouting: ‘Tit! Tit!’ My father kept telling Herod to shut up until I explained that Tit was Herod’s mother’s name. Herod is a very radical baby who never eats sweets and stays up until 2 AM.

My father says that women ought to be at home cooking. He said it in a whisper so that he wouldn’t be karate-chopped to death.

My father had a good day on the canal bank. He is almost through to the grass now. To celebrate he brought the skinheads and punks round to our house for a glass of home-made beer. Mrs Singh and my mother looked shocked when the lads trooped into our kitchen, but my father introduced Baz, Daz, Maz, Kev, Melv and Boz and my mother and Mrs Singh relaxed a bit.

Boz is going to help me fix the brakes on my bike, he is an expert bike-fixer. He has been stealing them since he was six.

Boz offered me a sniff of his glue today, but I declined it with thanks.

Third in Lent

All the women I know have gone to a rally to protest about a woman’s right to work. Mrs Singh has gone wearing a disguise.

Saw Rick Lemon in the park, he was pushing Herod too high on a swing. Herod was shouting: ‘Tit! Tit!’

I am loved by two women! Elizabeth Sally Broadway gave Victoria Louise Thomson a note in Science. It said: ‘Ask Adrian Mole if he wants to go out with me.’