Glenn returned home from school today with a letter from his physical education teacher, Mr Lunt. It said:
"Dear Mr Mole,
Glenn gave me the following note at the beginning of games today. Although it is not written in Glenn's handwriting, I feel sure that it is not written in yours either."
I read the enclosed ill-written note. It said:
"Dear Mr Lunt,
something tragic 'as happened to Glenn my son he has got a terminal decease and he wont live long it is only a matter of time he dous not no so dont tell him it wood be better if he did not do cross country running as it mite set him off yours sinserly Mr Mole."
Glenn broke down and admitted that he had persuaded his mother, Sharon Bott, to write the note. He said,"I 'ate cross-country runnin', Dad. We 'ave to wear shorts an' run through villages an' the villagers laugh an' call me chicken legs."
I confronted Sharon in her chaotic kitchen, where she was defrosting chicken korma for the kids' tea. Not for the first time, I was appalled that I had once enjoyed sexual relations with this woman. She now makes Moby Dick look dainty.
As she prised the lids off the foil containers, she whined, "I've gotta soft heart, Aidy, I don't like to think of our Glenn 'aving the piss took out of him."
I asked her not to interfere in Glenn's education in future. She said, "I am his mother. 'E's got 'alf my genes."
I said, "Yes, the grammar, punctuation and spelling genes, unfortunately." As I was leaving, she said, "I still love you to bits, Aidy." I pretended not to hear her
I wrote Mr Lunt the following reply:
"Dear Mr Lunt,
My own adolescence was made a torment by taunts about my acned complexion. Glenn has a similar complex about his abnormally thin legs. Will you please allow Glenn to wear tracksuit trousers on his next cross-country run, or change the route and stick to unpopulated fields and lanes in future, thus avoiding the taunts of ignorant fox-killing, songbird-culling, hedge-removing, river-polluting country dwellers.
I remain Sir, AA Mole."
Tuesday, February 29
Leap Day. A letter from the Rt Hon Neil Kinnock! Whom I met once when I was the offal chef in Hoi Polloi, the Soho restaurant before it was reopened as the Oxygen Bar, H2O.
The letter said:
"Dear Mr Mole,
I have great pleasure in enclosing your invitation to the Labour Party Centenary Dinner on Monday, April 10, 2000. I will be hosting the evening, and I am delighted that once again the Prime Minister will be our guest of honour.
"As you may expect there will be very strict security. I regret therefore that I am unable to give you the exact location at this stage except to say that it will be at a central London hotel…"
I obviously made a lasting impression on Mr Kinnock. He must have truly enjoyed his sheep's testicle in blackcurrant coulis.
8.30pm Sharon Bott has just left this house in tears. She arrived uninvited at 7.30 in a taxi. She produced a bottle of Safeway's Cava, then got down on one huge knee and asked me to marry her. I turned her down. Glenn was disappointed. He said, "I would 'ave bin the only one in our class to 'ave a mam and dad livin' together."
Wednesday, March 1
A terse reply from Lunt: "Dear Mr Mole, The wearing of tracksuit trousers is prohibited during cross-country runs. Best wishes, Mr Lunt. PS As a country dweller, I find your remarks about country folk extremely offensive."
Friday, March 3
My mother has just pointed to the small print at the bottom of my Centenary Dinner invitation. The tickets cost £600. I have made an optician's appointment.
Patched up
Sunday, March, 5, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
I spent the day debating with myself — should I continue to fight the tracksuit-trousers ban on Glenn's behalf or should I give in, thus subjecting the lad to mental torture during cross-country runs and possible trauma in later life? I rang around and sought the opinion of others. My father reminded me that he had "gone out on a limb" to support me when I stood up against the tyrannical headmaster, pop-eyed Scruton, by wearing red socks to school, thereby defying the black-socks-only rule. My mother said, "Give in, Aidy — you can't beat Jack Straw's authoritarian regime."
I rang my MP, Pandora Braithwaite, who had joined me in my red-socks rebellion 20 years ago. She said, "Can't talk now, darling, I've got Ken and Frank round for dinner, and I'm about to serve the pig's brains in goat's cheese." So, it is as I suspected all along! Ken Livingstone and Frank Dobson are hand-in-glove with each other. Their true enemy is Tony Blair. They have conspired to make Mr Blair look as though he can't control his party.
After Glenn had gone to bed, I wrote to his headmaster, Roger Patience:
Dear Mr Patience,
My son, Glenn Bott, has abnormally thin legs, of which he is very self-conscious. In the circumstances, would you please make an exception to your PE-shorts-only rule and allow him to wear tracksuit trousers during cross-country runs.
Yours, A. A. Mole
Tuesday, March 7, Shrove Tuesday
Peggy Ludlow came round at tea-time to borrow flour, a lemon, eggs, milk, a frying pan and oil. I said, sarcastically, "Wouldn't it be simpler if I made your pancakes in my kitchen?" She agreed, and the whole Ludlow family trooped round and sat in my living room watching Jerry Springer while I tossed in the kitchen until my wrist was aching.
Vince Ludlow doesn't seem to do any work, though his family are always well rigged-out in designer clothes. Peggy continues to invade my thoughts. Today she was wearing a snakeskin sleeveless shift dress. It was the first time I'd seen her upper arms. She has several tattoos, the most recent being a depiction of Jeremy Paxman's head. When I said that I, too, was a fan of Newsnight, she said that she had asked for Jeremy Clarkson and was suing the tattooist.
Wednesday, March 8, Ash Wednesday
My mother invited me and the boys to a No Smoking Day party to celebrate her proposed new status as a non-smoker. We arrived slightly late, at 7.30. She answered the door looking irritable: "You've missed the ashtray-smashing ceremony." At 7.45, she smoked her last cigarette in the garden, surrounded by family and friends. Tears ran down her tobacco-ravaged face. Ivan then ceremoniously applied a nicotine patch to her upper-arm. When I strolled back into the house, it didn't seem the same without its perpetual pall of smoke. No reply yet from Patience regarding the tracksuit trousers.
Thursday, March 9
A telephone call from the school secretary to tell me that Roger Patience can now be reached only on the following e-mail address: patience.com@sailschool
Friday, March 10
I called on my mother unexpectedly this afternoon: she was smoking a cigarette and both wearing nicotine and chewing it. She begged me not to tell Ivan.
Saturday, March 11
I went to see Pandora at the ceremony to close down the community centre on this estate. She told me that her dinner guests were Ken Dodd and Frank Skinner — a grim night, then.
Tracksuit trouble continues
Sunday, March 12, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
The tracksuit row drags on. The headmaster is refusing to budge. I ordered Glenn to don his tracksuit before the cross-country run, and to return home if he was ordered by his PE teacher to take it off. Glenn was home by 11.15 with the following note.