Sue Townsend - Adrian Mole - Diary of a Provincial Man

Thursday, June 22, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire

There is great excitement in the street. Brandon Ludlow, 22-year-old soccer fan, is due home this afternoon from Charleroi, Belgium. A banner has been erected outside the Ludlows' house. It says Welcome Home Our Hero.

Brandon was arrested before the England Romania match. Apparently, he was having a quiet meal at a pavement cafe and was talking about Jane Austen with his friend, "Mad Dog" Jackson, when a brutal Belgian policeman in riot gear thrashed him unmercifully with a baton.

Mad Dog Jackson escaped, but Brandon was restrained with a cable tie and thrown into the back of a police van where he lay, face down, only inches from a pool of urine. When the van was full, it was driven to a police station. Brandon was pushed towards a holding cell, where he and 40 others stood until daybreak. Brandon was not allowed to phone the Ludlows, his family (and anyway, it would have been a futile exercise since the Ludlows' phone had been cut off by BT for non-payment).

Peggy Ludlow is threatening to sue the Belgian prime minister as soon as she finds out who he is. As she was preparing the party food, she said, "Adrian, our Brandon is the only one of my kids who ain't a hooligan. Our Brandon's always been a strange kid, you know, reading books for pleasure and talking about things that none of the rest of us are interested in."

She told me that Brandon only went to the match for research purposes. He is writing an essay about David Beckham, entitled “God or Idiot Savant?” He is hoping to see it published in the London Review of Books .

4pm

I can tell from the noise outside — car horns blaring, whistles blowing, Dobermans barking — that Brandon has arrived home. We have all been invited to the party. Glenn and William are very excited, as they have been watching the rioting in Charleroi avidly.

In fact, they have shown more interest in the fighting on the streets than they have shown in the football on the pitch. Mrs Wormington talked to me as I ironed one of her vast, full-skirted summer frocks. According to her, certain sections of young Englishmen have always behaved like Barbarians when they have travelled abroad as a group. She said, "How do you think we managed to capture all them foreign countries. It weren't the limp-wristed brigade what done it and coloured the map pink."

She insisted on wearing a hat to the Ludlows' party, seemingly under the impression that it was Ludlow Castle she was going to rather than the front room of a council house. I had a very interesting talk to Brandon, who is indeed a sensitive, intelligent, young man. He reminded me of my younger self, before I became trapped in single fatherhood and the endless round of domestic duties (which now includes caring for a nonagenarian). Over Mother's Pride and Kraft processed cheese sandwiches, we discussed his ordeal. Brandon said that his night in the cells was only made tolerable by the fact that a barrister had also been arrested and had happened to have a copy of last week's Spectator magazine on him. This same barrister kept trying to get his fellow hooligans to chant Boris Johnson's name, but few joined in and eventually he gave up and went to sleep, but only after confessing to Brandon a particularly lurid sexual fantasy that included Petronella Wyatt and Bruce Anderson.

After a heated discussion with Vince Ludlow about Mrs Worthington's habit of banging on the party wall with an orthopaedic shoe every time the Ludlows enjoyed sexual congress, I took my family home.

Sunday, June 25

Brandon came round as promised to read my manuscript of Sty! I dare not let it out of my sight. A lot of work has gone into the first three chapters. Brandon looked up after the first few pages and said that he thought it was a mistake to call my pig hero Lucifer, as it set up false Mephistophelean expectations in the reader. I could have done without such stinging criticism but I have to concede that Brandon has a point. While waiting for the washing machine to finish its cycle, I re-christened Lucifer and call him Peter. It is amazing what a difference this has made to the tone. It now reads like a children's book. I may subtitle it A Farm Yard Allegory . Watch out, Harry Potter. Peter Pig is on the way!

Saturday, July 1, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire

To kill two birds with one stone, I decided to read the opening chapter of Sty! to William as a bedtime story. The political and philosophical sub-text will be beyond him, but I hoped that the narrative would grip him. After a few paragraphs, he bleated that he wanted a Noddy and Big Ears story, but I persevered.

Peter Pig lifted his porcine head from the trough and looked up at the mercilessly grey East-Midlands sky. A cloud, which looked like a Boots cotton-wool ball, scudded across the aforementioned sky like a Eurostar train leaving Waterloo station.

Peter sighed and walked around the sty. The filth and mud oozed between his trotters. It was disgusting, the condition he had to live in, he thought. Why should farmer Hogg and his wife, Pamela, enjoy the comfort of carpets and vinyl tiles under foot while he and his fellow pigs be condemned to wading through their own excrement.

Peter looked over the sty, towards the patio where farmer Hogg and Pamela were holding a barbecue for their friends. The foul stench caused by pork fat dripping on Do It All charcoal briquettes drifted over to him, causing his eyes to run. He listened to the conversations of the humans as they gorged on their buffet, which Pamela had been preparing since The Archers finished on the radio.

Peter watched the guests quaffing Bucks Fizz and longed to feel the liquid in his own mouth. He looked across the sty to where his fellow pigs, Antonia and Miles, were having a heated discussion about the nature of existence. Peter sighed, he was sick of philosophical debate. It was just his luck to be trapped in a sty with two intellectuals. How he craved for small talk! He twitched his ears towards the patio. He strained to hear the conversation.

'Well, I'm sick of it, said a grey-haired man called Ken, 'after all Mo's been through. A well-presented woman called Barbara hissed: 'Not here, Ken, there's a chap called Derek from the Ashby Gazette standing by the gherkin jar. 'I won't be silenced, Ken thundered. 'It's unmanly of Tony to stab her in the back. From the sty, Peter watched as Derek turned from the pickle jar, took out his reporter's notebook and edged towards Ken and Barbara.

It was at this point that William started whining about wanting a Noddy story. However, I continued with Sty! for a few more lines.

Another group of people provided the small talk that Peter thirsted for. From a woman in white jeans, he heard: 'We do support the comprehensive system, but our children are terribly sensitive, so. And a man wearing wire Raybans opined: 'House prices have got to come down soon. We bought ours for… Peter was in heaven. Later that night, the barbecue long extinguished, Peter looked up at the stars and ruminated on the nature of small talk. To help him sleep, he practised the art. He selected one of his favourite topics: 'Call this a summer? I can't remember the last time the sun shone.

Within minutes, William was asleep.

Sunday, July 2

I loathe Noddy, but I had promised William, so I made up the following story.

It was Big Ears' birthday, so, to celebrate, Noddy drove his car to Toytown. The pals went from pub to pub, drinking pints of beer. Big Ears' face got very red and the bell on Noddy's hat rang like mad. When they came out of the last pub, a gang of Skittles accused Big Ears of being a pervert, and started a fight. Mr Plod was called and saw Noddy head-butting the largest Skittle.