Adrian Mole: Diary of a Provincial Man

Feet of clay

Friday, August 18, Ashby-de-la-Zouch

I have been brutally betrayed! I feel humiliated and sick! How could he have told such terrible lies to me over the past five weeks?

I admired him so much. He was the type of man I would have liked to have been myself. He was a man who could cope with adversity (the death of his young wife in a car crash). A man who led other men (an officer in the Territorial Army). He was also a healer (like Jesus), and a reiki master to boot.

I would have followed him into the jungle with hardly a qualm. So confident was I that he would win the £70,000 that I withdrew £50 from my long-term diamond deposit savings account (incurring loss of interest) and placed a personal bet with my father. It was with glee that my father phoned me at 4.45pm today from his hospital bed, where he is still languishing with several NHS-bred infections, to tell me that my hero was about to be evicted from the House.

I didn't believe my father at first, diary. He once told me that I had won £7 million on the lottery. This cost me dearly. To celebrate my «win», I rang the Lotus Flower home-delivery service and ordered the banquet special for six. On discovering my father's cruel joke, I tried to cancel the order, but ended up having an angry confrontation on the doorstep with Mr Wong, who wouldn't get back on his moped without the £96.21 he insisted that I owed him.

However, when my mother rang my mobile to tell me that she and Ivan were watching on the net, I knew it must be true. I could hear Craig's dental lisp quite clearly down the phone. The Ludlows came from next door to disclose this world-shattering news, and Vince said, "It's a bleedin' triumph for the working class, if you ask me."

Peggy Ludlow said she'd always thought Nick was Tim Henman, who had fled to the Big Brother House in disguise in order to avoid playing tennis.

I couldn't sleep last night. Do all my heroes have feet of clay? I have only recently recovered from Mr Aitken's downfall. I pray that Lord Hattersley will not be unmasked as the secret author of Mills and Boon romances, or that Will Self will not be revealed as a committee member of the Caravan Club of Great Britain.

Saturday, August 19

I said to Glenn today, "Glenn, you will always remember where you were when you heard that Nick had been expelled from the House."

He looked back at me and said, "Course I will, Dad — I was watchin' it on the telly."

"You were taking part in history," I said.

"What, like the Second World War?" he asked doubtfully.

"No, more like the day Beckham had his hair cut," I said.

"You're mixin' up popular history with proper history, Dad", said Glenn.

Chastened, I went to my bedroom to start the third chapter of Sty! (Swine fever has wiped out the entire pig population of Britain, apart from Peter, my hero. I may retitle Sty! and call it The Last Pig, instead.

My father rang this morning and insisted that I honour the bet! Personally, I think it was a great mistake to provide hospital patients with bedside telephones. They give their long-suffering relations no peace with their incessant, peevish demands for Lucozade and boxes of tissues.

Monday, August 21

The Last Pig: Peter watched from the sty as the 4x4 drew up by the computer shed in the farmyard. He saw Farmer Brown emerge from the chemical store and greet the Sky News crew. "Where's the last pig in Britain?" shouted a researcher. Peter rolled in the mire. He wanted to look good on camera: he was going to be famous.