Adrian Mole: Diary of a Provincial Man

La belle France

Saturday, January 27, Ashby-de-la-Zouch

It is Glenn's birthday on Friday. Yes, the lad will be 14. Mohammed, whose brother works for Midland Main-line, gave me two Eurostar vouchers to Paris last week saying, "You use 'em, Aidy. I daren't leave the country. I'm frit that immigration won't let me back in."

I said, "Mohammed, you were born in the Leicester Royal Infirmary maternity unit, you have a strong Leicester accent, you cried when Martin O'Neill left Leicester City Football Club. Nobody could possibly question your English nationality."

Oh, yeh," said Mohammed cynically. "And who was the only kid to be stopped at Dover when we come back from that school trip to France?"

I cast my mind back to that heady day when I became a European. I will never forget my first sight of la belle France. As the ferry prepared to dock, Miss Elf gathered her class of 30 around her on the vomit-stained deck and said, "Mes petits enfants, regardez vous la belle France, la crème de la crème, de la Continent". (Or words to that effect, diary. My French is a little rusty, as I rarely have occasion to use it.)

We lost precious time in France because Barry Kent tried to leap from the ferry on to the harbour wall before the docking procedure was quite finished. He wasn't in the water long, but by the time the gendarmes had finished their paperwork, a couple of hours had been lost.

On the coach, Miss Elf announced that, due to Barry Kent's foolhardy leap, there would now be no time for the planned visit to the war graves cemetery (we were doing a class project on first world war poetry). A few of the more sentimental girls wept, I recall, though Pandora was not among them. "Instead," she said, "we will sample French bread and French coffee, and we will visit a market and observe the care with which the French choose their fruit and vegetables."

When I returned home late that night, my mother was waiting for me in the car park of Neil Armstrong comprehensive. As I stepped off the coach, I said to her, "Maman, I have seen and tasted paradise. You must throw away your Maxwell House and your Mothers Pride thin-sliced and embrace the baguette and café au lait." I can't recall her exact words of reply, but they were said with a snarl.

Anyway, diary, what I said to Mohammed was, "It was your own fault you got stopped by immigration at Dover — you were openly smoking a Disque Bleu fag and you were only 12 years old."

Sunday, January 28

My plan is to take Glenn to Paris for his birthday. It is to be a surprise, so my preparations must be made behind his back. Tonight, I washed and ironed his least gangsterish-looking clothes and hid them in my wardrobe. There is nothing I can do about his hair or the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tattoo he's now got on his wrist, but with luck it will be cold and he'll have to roll down his sleeves. I'm looking forward to showing him the Louvre — he's a very lucky boy; I was 26 before I saw that the Mona Lisa wasn't worth the wait in the queue.

Tuesday, January 30

I was checking and re-checking my travel necessities list tonight. Two Eurostar tickets, travellers' cheques, Nurofen, map of Paris, French/English dictionary, passports, umbrella. There was something missing. Then the realisation hit me like an orange thrown by a toddler in a supermarket trolley: GLENN DOES NOT HAVE A PASSPORT!

Wednesday, January 31

Pandora has refused to help fast-track a passport for Glenn. I phoned Keith Vaz MP, but there was nobody available to take my call.