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 emaiclass="underline" "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.
Fool for love
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.
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.
Saturday, 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 Dyke, 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 shells, lentils and crushed cornflakes. I thanked him but privately thought it was disgusting, especially when half the world is starving.
Mushrooms in Stockport
Monday, April 3, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
My love affair with Pamela moved into a sexual 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.