Adrian Mole: Diary of a Provincial Man

Ex-ham time

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 classroom. On looking through the glass 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 assistant.) 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 title 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 manuscript 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 sex, for my art, of course.