Sue Townsend - Adrian Mole - Diary of a Provincial Man

"So, you are putting your koi carp pets in front of your step-grandson's dilemma, are you?" I said angrily.

"As a matter of fact, I am," she snapped. "I agree with Patience. Shorts and vests did make this country great." It's true: advancing age does turn people right-wing. Tania used to be a leading radical in the political circles of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Tuesday, March 14

Now William is in trouble at school for opining that Posh Spice should be the next Queen of England. According to him, Mrs Claricoates, his teacher, made him sit in the Wendy-and-Kevin house alone during storytime. As a punishment, I know that's not exactly in the bamboo-under-the-fingernails league, but he was still upset when he got home and totally confused about the hereditary principle.

I kept Glenn at home today while I considered my next move in the tracksuit row: a letter to Jeremy Corbyn? Alert the Leicester Mercury ? Or a petition?

Wednesday, March 15

Vince Ludlow has been arrested for failing to pay £140 arrears! Four policemen served a warrant on him at 7.30am. Apparently, he was fined £280 in October 1997. He stole the brass knob from the door of the magistrates court after celebrating his birthday at Snobs in town. Peggy was distraught as, from our respective doorsteps, we watched the police van turn the corner. She sobbed, "Vince gone, and not a bleedin' fag in the 'ouse."

Thursday, March 16

My father is worried about Longbridge. "It's bloody tragic. How'mi gonna get spares for the Rover?"

Saw Lizzie Broadway, my old schoolfriend, in the newsagents. She was buying cat food. I asked if she lived on the estate. "God, no," she said. "Do I look socially excluded?" before hurrying towards her BMW on the kerb, where a gang of local lads were measuring the hub caps with a tape measure.

Friday, March 17, St Patrick's Day

Pandora rang and ordered me to stop harassing her. In only three minutes she used the words «clear» or «clearly» 19 times. Is it now compulsory for politicians to use this word?

Monday, March 20, 2000

Glenn's photograph is on the front of tonight's Ashby Bugle . The headline said, "Glen cross about country run." It was not a flattering portrait: the combination of his new Beckham haircut and the way he was scowling into the sun gave him the look of a youth at a fascist training camp. As I paid for my copy, a pensioner behind me looked at Glenn and said, "I wunt like to meet him down a dark alley."

I longed to tell the mustachioed lard-belly that Glenn was a good boy, but she picked an argument with the newsagent about non-delivery of her People's Friend, so I left without defending my son. When I got home, I read the article with growing disgust; it was littered with inaccuracies.

To the Editor, the Ashby Bugle

Dear Sir, It is not my habit to write to the papers, but I must on this occasion as you have written an ill-informed and inaccurate article about my son, Glenn, and his refusal to wear shorts during cross-country running at his school, Neil Armstrong Comprehensive.

1. Glen is Glenn. You misspelt his name throughout.

2. I am Adrian Mole, not A Drain-Mole.

3. I am 33 years old, not 73.

4. I am not 'unemployed'; I am currently writing a serial-killer-comedy for the BBC called The White Van.

5. Glenn does not wear an earring in his right ear. He wears it in his left lobe.

6. Glenn does not have the support of our MP, Dr Pandora Braithwaite. She refused to back our campaign. I quote from her recent email: "I am too fg busy with the Onion Working Party to faff about with fg school uniform issues."

I remain, Sir, yours, A Mole, father of Glenn

Tuesday, March 21

Glenn came to me tonight as I was ironing and listening to The Archers . He begged me to allow him back to school, and said he would happily wear white shorts on cross-country runs. I reminded him that Midlands Today was interested in covering his campaign on its news spot.

He said, "It's not my campaign any more, Dad. It's yours." As I ironed his white shorts, I reflected on the sacrifices parents make for their children. I'll be a laughing stock at the next parents' evening.

Thursday, March 23

The following letter was in the Bugle tonight.

Dear Editor

The BBC would like to make it clear that Adrian Mole has not been commissioned by us to write a serial-killer-comedy called The White Van.

Yours sincerely, Geoffrey Perkins (Head of Comedy)

So, the BBC now employ spies to read the regional newspapers, does it? Institutional paranoia or what?

Friday, March 24

Pamela Pigg from the homeless unit called round on her way home from work, to tell me there's a vacant maisonette on the Prescott Estate. "It's a new housing complex, purpose-built for tenants aspiring to join the new middle class."

She said that Alan Titchmarsh had been consulted about the design of the patio/wheelie bin area. He had declined, but as Pamela said, "At least he was consulted."

I made her a cup of Kenco and broached the delicate matter of changing her name by deed poll. She got very defensive and said there had been a Pigg in the Domesday Book, a Pigg at Ypres, and recently a Pigg had been awarded an OBE for services to the post office. When I said tentatively, "Yes, but how can a Mole go out with a Pigg?" she said shyly, "Well, we'd be Pamela and Adrian, wouldn't we?"

Saturday, March 25

Pamela and I had our first tryst watching the boat race. I bet her £500 that Cambridge would win, but I don't care. I think I may be in love with a woman called Pigg.

Tuesday, March 28, 2000

It's Pamela! Pamela! Pamela! I keep whispering her name to myself. However, I don't whisper her surname — Pigg — though I remain optimistic that she will eventually seize the day and change her name by deed poll.

But oh, those sublime three syllables: Pam-e-la. It's Abba's music! It's a mountain stream. It's Leicester Town Hall gardens with the cherry blossom out. It's Edward Heath's laugh. It's a refrigerated Crunchie bar.

But Pigg. Pigg is brutish and short. It's slurry. It's the Queen Mother's teeth. It's that local authority prickly stuff that thrives next to inner ring roads. It's the predictable twist at the end of a Jeffrey Archer story. It's Ann Widdecombe's fringe.

Wednesday, March 29

Am I in love? I rang Nigel at work, and he faxed me a questionnaire. Some of the questions were relevant, some were not. He told me that if I answer yes to any four, then I am definitely in love. He had scribbled on the bottom that the questionnaire was obviously prepared for gay men, but it probably works for straights, too.

a) Do you think about him constantly?

b) Have you had your chest hair waxed?

c) Do you ring him more than four times a day?

d) Have you stopped going to saunas?

e) Are you afraid to have your hair cut in case he doesn't like it?

f) Are you writing overwrought poetry about nature?

I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of Kenco and a ballpoint, and quickly found out that I am in love with Pamela Pigg. I rang her at the housing office to tell her so (my fifth call of the day), but the senior housing officer, Terry Nutting, told me that he had given Pamela "compassionate leave" to have her hair done.

Nutting thinks he is such a wit. He'll be laughing on the other side of his beardy face when Pamela leaves to become my wife. According to Pammy, Nutting is an incompetent idler who sits all day in his office answering the personal adds in Private Eye.