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 "compa.s.sionate 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.
She said, in that sweet voice of hers (like a zephyr blowing across a linnet"s egg), "Terry Nutting wouldn"t recognise a homeless person if he fell over one in a shop doorway."
Friday, March 31 Pamela"s new hairstyle is growing on me. Not, of course, literally growing on me. What I mean is that I can now glance in her direction for seconds at a time without flinching. I still think it was a mistake to go quite so short: her head is a rather peculiar shape, and her scalp is criss-crossed with scars and the evidence of childhood accidents.
Sat.u.r.day, April, 1 - April Fool"s Day At 11.30am, my sister Rosie rang to say that there was a letter at their house addressed to me from Greg d.y.k.e, head bloke at the BBC, to say that he had read the Restless Tadpole, my epic poem, and wanted Andrew Davies to adapt it for BBC2. When I asked her to fax me the letter, she laughed her horrible laugh and put the phone down.
Sunday, April 2 So, I have reached the age of 33 - the same age as Jesus was when he was killed. Glenn gave me a card which said on the front in gothic print "Happy Birthday Single Father". There was a picture of a man with a moustache standing on a hump-backed bridge and staring down into a river - as though he was thinking about throwing himself in. Perhaps to escape his responsibilities. William had made a card at nursery school out of egg sh.e.l.ls, lentils and crushed cornflakes. I thanked him but privately thought it was disgusting, especially when half the world is starving.
Monday, April 3, 2000, Arthur Askey Way My love affair with Pamela moved into a s.e.xual stage tonight, though "full union", as she calls it, has yet to take place. Pamela is a fan of the female condom, but, after examining one she took out of her briefcase, we discovered that it had been issued in 1998. We decided not to risk it. Pam was keen to consummate, saying, "I just want to get it out of the way, Adrian."
I explained that I hadn"t kept condoms in the house since William took one to nursery school as his contribution to the hot-air-balloon mural. It was an eagle-eyed Ofsted inspector who spotted the "big boy arouser" rising between the cotton-wool cloud.
Pamela asked me if I"d like to go to Stockport next weekend to meet her parents. I lied and said, "Yes, Wiggly." She asked me to call her Wiggly. She calls me Snuffly. I"ve had a slight head cold since we met.
Tuesday, April 4 The Ludlows held a welcome home from prison party for Vince tonight. I went next door at 10pm, after William and Glenn had gone to bed. I don"t want my boys to a.s.sociate the word "prison" with the word "party". Vince said he had seen Jonathan Aitken in the prison chapel, and had witnessed Mr Aitken"s religious fervour. Vince said, " "e was shakin" "is tambourine so "ard that "is Rolex fell off". Vince told me to back Papillon in the Grand National. I said it was highly unlikely that another son/jockey and father/ trainer combination would win.
I rang Pamela as soon as I got home. She said she was in bed with a Trollope. "Anthony or Joanna?" I asked. Pamela laughed, as though I"d made a joke.
Thursday, April 6 The Piggs" don"t like children, so my mother is babysitting William for the weekend and Glenn is going to his mother"s.
Pamela warned me tonight not to tell her father that I am an unpublished poet and novelist. I pointed out that I have published two cookery books: Offaly Good and Offaly Good Again. She told me that her father was a militant vegetarian and a former RAF kayak instructor. I dread meeting Mr Pigg.
Friday, April 7, The Olde Forge, Stockport He is even worse than I feared. "Call me Porky!" he boomed. He was wearing a sort of fleecy Babygro garment and rubber socks. He had just returned from a training session on an artificial slalom course on the River Tees. He has offered to take me down the rapids in his double kayak on Sunday. Mrs Pigg was loading her van in preparation for a country fayre, at which she sells the hedgehog boot sc.r.a.pers she makes out of pine cones and plastic bristles.
As Mrs Pigg was showing me to my single bed, she asked me to call her Snouty. When I enquired what her real Christian name was, she glared and said, "Why are you presuming that my parents were Christians?" I told her I"d seen the photograph on the mantelpiece of her parents" wedding, which had been taken outside a church and been attended by a vicar holding a copy of the Old Testament. She said that I "mustn"t bother" Pamela in the night, as Mr Pigg did not approve of s.e.x before long-term commitment.
Sat.u.r.day, April 8 The Piggs took me to a Beefeater restaurant for dinner tonight. A cardboard cut-out of the TV chef Brian Turner welcomed us in. The conversation ground to a halt over pre-dinner drinks, when Porky discovered that I am a single father living in a council house. The tension was palpable. Pamela developed a most unflattering tic in her left eye.
But all was not lost because Porky and I chose the lightly breaded deep-fried mushrooms at PS2.95 (with a choice of two dips). Porky and I now have something in common: we will talk about our Beefeater experience for many years to come.
Thank you, Mr Turner.
Monday, April 10, 2000, Arthur Askey Way William woke up screaming in the night. He"d been having a nightmare about the exams he will be taking when he is seven. He was mostly incoherent, but I managed to glean that his nightmare included David Blunkett"s guide dog and the gay Teletubbie. I didn"t press him for details.
Pamela hasn"t rung me since our weekend with her parents. I fear that beside the hirsute masculinity of her father I appear a poor specimen. My expert knowledge of the early poetry of Philip Larkin cannot compete with Porky Pigg"s ability to roll a double kayak in white water. I could tell that my refusal to join Porky in his flimsy plastic boat sowed doubts in Pamela"s mind.
Did some primeval instinct warn her that my spermatozoa and her eggs were incompatible and wouldn"t add to the quality of the gene pool? Whatever - as they say on Jerry Springer - she was very quiet as we drove south and didn"t offer her tongue when I kissed her goodnight. Ugh.
Tuesday, April 11 This morning, I handed William his usual carrier bag full of toilet rolls and squashed cereal packets and was amazed when he handed it straight back to me, saying, "We can"t play at school any more, Dad, so don"t collect "em up."
At home time, I broke the rules and waited outside William"s cla.s.sroom. On looking through the gla.s.s panel in the door I saw that the children were sitting in rows being taught exam techniques by an "exam trainer". (Formerly known as a teaching a.s.sistant.) The weather chart and the nature table were nowhere to be seen. The hamster cage was empty.
There were various exhortations around the room. As I watched, the exam trainer wrote "Exams are good, play is bad" on the white board. The children dipped their pens in their inkwells and copied this slogan down. Since when has it been compulsory to write in ink? I fear that once again Mrs Parvez has misinterpreted education-department guidelines.
She won"t be content until the children are wearing clogs.
Wednesday, April 12 I embarked on a new novel, Sty, today. Progress was slow. I only managed to write 104 words, including the t.i.tle and my name.
Sty, by Adrian Mole.
The pig grunted in its sty. It was deeply sad. Somehow it felt different from the other pigs with which it shared a home.
"Look at them," thought the pig. "They are oblivious to the fact that they are merely part of the food chain." The pig had felt discontented since it had glimpsed Alain de Botton"s TV programme, Philosophy: A Guide to Life, through a gap in the pig farmer"s curtain. The wisdom of Socrates, Epicurus and Montaigne had brought home to the pigs that it was completely uneducated and knew nothing of the world beyond the sty.
Notes on new novel
1. Should the pig have a name?
2. Should the pig"s thoughts be in quotes?
3. Has the story got legs? Or is the main protagonist (the pig) too restricting a character, ie, being (a) unable to communicate with the other pigs and (b) never leaving the sty?
Sunday, April 16 Pamela Pigg has just left this house after flying into a rage and accusing me of stealing her life and turning it into "fifth-rate art". She read my ma.n.u.script of Sty which I had foolishly left on the kitchen table under a copy of Men"s Health. As she ran to her car, I shouted, "I"m an artist, we must forage where we can for our materials."
Pamela shouted back, "I"m a housing officer. We must cancel the artist"s move to a maisonette as promised." I went inside and read page 124 of Men"s Health - bed-busting s.e.x, for my art, of course.
Monday, April 17, 2000, Arthur Askey Way William begged me for PS2.49 today. He wants to buy a booster pack of Pokemon cards. When I refused, he burst into tears and threw himself down on the kitchen floor. Glenn came in and said, "You"ve gotta give "im the money, Dad, he"s lost respect in the playground."
Apparently, there are 151 characters in a set and William has only collected 37 of the most common. Glenn said, "It"s like, you know, wearing Marks & Spencer"s trainers, Dad?" Glenn has never forgiven me for making him go to school in my M&S trainers when his own Nikes disappeared. He still wakes in the night sweating and crying out for the NSPCC.
Tuesday, April 18 Tania rang at 10.30 this morning to tell me that my father had fallen off a ladder while trying to construct a paG.o.da in their garden and had injured his back. He was waiting for an ambulance, she said. I could hear my father groaning in the background and the sound of splashing and birdsong.
I left William and Glenn next door with the Ludlows and hurried off to The Lawns. My father was lying half in, half out of the Koi carp pool and appeared to be in agony. Tania was squatting by his side, instructing him to "breathe the pain away, George". The ambulance took another hour to arrive, having been misdirected by the computer to The Lawns Lunatic Asylum in Rutland. The ambulancemen, Derek and Craig, were remorselessly cheerful. It was their fifth gardening incident in two days. They blamed Alan t.i.tchmarsh for the recent alarming rise in accident and emergency admissions. Tania stayed behind to calm the carp and pack a bag, and I went in the ambulance with my father. To take his mind off his pain, I tried to engage him in conversation about Charlie Dimmock, but he wasn"t interested.
At 2 o"clock in the afternoon he was diagnosed as having two cracked vertebrae, a fractured shoulder and a deep cut in his left thigh caused by the Homebase Spend & Save card in his trouser pocket. At 8.30pm he was finally taken up to Bevan Ward and put into a bed. Without his teeth, and with his grey hair sticking up around his head, he looked every one of his 56 years. He is lying flat on his back and is unable to do the slightest thing to help himself. "So, not much change there, then," said my mother, his ex-wife, when I rang to give her a progress report.
Query: Where can I buy two Pok?mon Easter eggs?
Wednesday, April 19 When I visited my father today I found him in considerable distress. The hospital has lost his teeth. "Not that it b.l.o.o.d.y well matters," he gummed, "I couldn"t reach my bleedin" food anyway." Apparently, his breakfast tray had been placed 6in out of reach of his good arm, 2in nearer than the emergency call b.u.t.ton. He is worried about Tania"s reaction when she sees him for the first time without his teeth. Apparently, she is under the impression that his teeth are his own.
Pamela Pigg rang to tell me that she wants to renew our relationship. She has bought the boys two Pok?mon Easter eggs. I said yes.
Sunday, April 23, Easter Day, St George"s Day I didn"t know which trousers to put on today, or what to have for breakfast. Am I suffering from the modern illness Choice Overload Syndrome? I just can"t decide. Somebody has written N F R O T H in red pen on my father"s notes. I asked a junior doctor what it stood for. "Not for resuscitation, over the hill," she said and hurried away. I hope this was a joke. When I wished Pamela a happy St George"s Day this morning, she accused me of "celebrating fascism". We are doomed. Doomed.
Tuesday, April 25, 2000, Arthur Askey Way, Gaitskell Estate My father begged me to help him escape from the hospital this afternoon. He said he is losing the will to live due to lack of sleep and the pain from his bedsores. His false teeth have not turned up, despite a top-level internal inquiry. He is living on soup and porridge - when somebody remembers to feed him. He is almost entirely helpless.
Personally, I blame Tanya, his new wife, for his accident. My father is too old to be up a ladder trying to construct a j.a.panese-style paG.o.da under her exacting instructions. I have suggested to the rest of the family that we arrange a rota so that one of us is always in attendance at hospital meal times.
I rang Pandora at her Westminster office and asked her to visit the hospital incognito. I said that she should see the third-world conditions for herself. She said she would "drop in if she could", but she was "terribly busy" with Dobbo"s campaign. I laughed a hollow laugh and said: "Did she realise it was Anzac Day; the anniversary of a similarly doomed campaign."
Thursday, April 27, Bevan Ward A letter from my ex wife, Jo-Jo.
Dear Adrian, Your mother has written to tell me that William is living in "morally dubious circ.u.mstances". She writes that he mixes with criminals "on a daily basis". Can this be true? I have looked at Arthur Askey Way using the world wide web satellite and was disturbed to see a burned-out car in front of your house. I also saw that your front garden was extremely squalid. Is that the mattress we used to sleep on?
Please do not forget, Adrian, that William is part Nigerian and is the grandson of a chief. It is essential that he is brought up extremely carefully. My circ.u.mstances are such that I cannot send for him at present, so I beg you to move William away from the Gaitskell Estate before his character and personality are irrevocably damaged.
I have tried to reach you on the telephone, but a recorded voice tells me "it has not been possible to connect your call". I looked you up on the net and was alarmed to see that you are considered a bad credit risk and that you owe PS75.31 to your newsagent, PS43.89 to your milkman and to BT PS254.08. A further search revealed that you are overdrawn at the bank by PS947.16. I scrolled on further and found that you withdrew all monies from your savings account with the Market Harborough Building Society on December 19, 1999. This money was put aside to pay for William"s piano lessons. Is he having them?
I am very concerned about your mental health. A search of your medical records revealed to me that you visited your doctor"s surgery three times last month, complaining that you were being spied upon. Your doctor has written on your notes "could be mildly paranoiac". Please contact me at jojomole.comataol.com.
So, 1984 is here in the year 2000. It is the end of privacy. I may as well walk naked through the streets shouting out the small details of my life.
I went to see my mother and charged her with gross disloyalty. She was unrepentant. She said, "William spends too much time playing round at the Ludlow"s house." She said, "Vince Ludlow is a career criminal, for Christ"s sake!" I have to admit, Diary, that William"s frame of reference has widened lately. Last night I overheard him saying to Glenn, "Mad Frankie Fraser was well harder than Charlie Kray."
Sat.u.r.day, April 29 I ask Pamela Pigg about that maisonette she promised me. She said (with relish, I thought), "I"ve let it to a family of asylum seekers." I asked her to arrange a swap. She said, "They"re not that desperate."
Monday, May 1, Arthur Askey Way I was driving my mother to the hospital today to visit her ex-husband, and my father (the same man). We were sharing a jumbo-sized Mars Bar in a companionable sort of way - taking alternate bites - when I was pulled over by a police car.
I was not drunk or drugged, and I had been keeping to the speed limit. I asked my mother if she had made a rude gesture to them via the rear-view mirror. She denied it. I was, therefore, baffled as to why I"d been stopped. Two policemen got out of the car. Policeman One said: "Would you step out of your vehicle please, Sir." I did as he asked. Policeman Two said: "You like a bit of chocolate, do you, Sir?" in a sneering kind of way.
"I am a bit of a chocoholic, actually," I joked.
"Like to munch on the cocoa solids in your vehicle, do you, Sir?" said Number One. I was slightly baffled, but answered, "Yes, I usually buy some chocolate when I fill up with petrol."
My mother had been listening to our conversation with ill-concealed irritation. "It"s not against the law to eat in your own car, is it?" she snapped.
Policeman Number One slowly walked around to the front pa.s.senger window. My mother wound it down. "It is against the law to drive without due care and attention, Madam," he said. "And that jumbo Mars Bar was being pa.s.sed between you and the driver of the car like a parcel at a kiddies" tea party."
"The policemen in The Bill are always driving and stuffing their faces," she said.
I saw a nerve twitch just above his temple, and he ordered my mother out of the car while he and his colleague examined the interior. (Looking for what: Twix, Smarties, Aeros?) We were late getting to the hospital. My father"s catheter had become detached. While we waited for two sheets to be found from somewhere in the hospital, I watched Beryl, the privatised cleaner, push a filthy, ragged mop around the ward floor. I shuddered to think of the viruses swarming on the end of that mop. I hoped that they hadn"t encamped into my father"s bed sores.
Wednesday, May 3 What has happened to the Archers? It was once possible to listen to it in the company of the young and impressionable. Now, I have to switch off if Glenn or William are in the kitchen.
The love scenes between Sid Perks and Jolene are audible p.o.r.nography. It is like overhearing two warthogs mating. Will somebody please put Cathy Perks in the picture. And will the person in charge of accents at the BBC teach that s.e.xual-hara.s.sment bloke, Simon, how to speak Canadian?
Judging by the present storyline, I predict that a socially-concerned villager will soon suggest that Ambridge needs a youth club. Suggested script: Jill Archer (with warm concern): Have you seen the graffiti on uncle Tom"s gravestone, "Sid Perks is tooling Jolene"?
Socially-Concerned Villager (with liberal concern): Yes, and I deplore the damage done to the statue of Walter Gabriel on the village green.
Jill Archer: Yes, it was cruel to stuff an organic turnip up his ...
Socially-Concerned Villager (interrupting): It"s the set-aside generation, Jill. They"ve nowhere to go and nothing to do. What they need is a youth club.
Jill Archer: Do you think so? Do you really think so?