Pandora turned up at 7pm and made a speech saying that libraries are now redundant due to the growth of the internet.
One old man in the crowd shouted: "I can't afford to go on-line on 75p a week!"
I tried to talk to Pandora about my suspicions regarding Leo Blair, but she was in a hurry to get away, having realised that being photographed in front of a pyre of books was a potential public-relations disaster.
Thursday, June 1
Mrs Wormington is well enough to come out of hospital. Her son, Ted, turned up out of the blue and tried to persuade her to go into a nursing home. I was visiting her at the time with Glenn and William. She hadn't seen Ted for 21 years, because of a row about a clock. She was adamant that she wanted to return to her own home.
Ted said: "You're being daft, Mam. You can't live on your own at the age of 95. If you won't go into a nursing home, you'll have to come and live with me and Eunice."
A look of horror passed over her multi-wrinkled face. While Ted went to telephone Eunice, Mrs Wormington clutched at my sleeve. She said, "Don't let him take me to live with him and Eunice. I'll be dead in a week. That Eunice is a miserable bugger — she's never been known to crack her face." When Ted came back, he said that Eunice was still resentful about the clock. Glenn announced, "It's alright, she's comin' 'ome with us." I could easily have killed him.
Friday, June 2
Mrs Wormington has been slagging off the Queen Mother. "She's never done a hand's turn in her life," she said. "No wonder she's always smilin'." She moves in with us tomorrow. The adult Pampers delivery service has been alerted.
Saturday, June 3, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Because of Mrs Wormington's advanced age (95), it is like having a living history book permanently open on the kitchen table. A mention of Dunkirk brings an anecdote about the little boat, the Betty Grable, that her younger brother Cedric sailed across the English Channel during the evacuation. "He weren't the same when he came back," she said. "He took up knitting and joined the Communist party." Apparently, both of these activities were enough to banish him from the bosom of the Wormington family. "I used to write to him in secret," she said. "And on his birthday I'd send him a knitting pattern." William and Glen have been glued to the Dunkirk coverage across television, hoping to see Cedric on the Betty Grable.
Sunday, June 4
My mother came round to stay with Mrs Wormington and the boys while I went to see my father in hospital. His original injuries are healing, but he is still ill with the infection he caught in hospital. Apparently, his body has shrugged off most of the powerful antibiotics given to him. My father has taken to boasting about this — as in "there's not an antibiotic alive that can touch George Mole".
Tania, his newish wife, has worked hard to turn him into a middle-class new man. But, I fear, to no avail. Since his garden pagoda accident, he has reverted to type: the Sun is delivered to his bed every morning by the Women's Voluntary Service, and he inevitably picks all the stodgy items on the computerised menu form. Tania has given up reading improving literature to him, since he laughed out loud at the end of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
When I arrive home, I find a heartening scene of inter-generational harmony. Mrs Wormington, my mother, Glen and William are sitting in a circle passing the nit comb from one to the other. William has introduced head lice into our house yet again.
Ivan Braithwaite came to pick up my mother. He has recently been diagnosed as suffering from over-choice syndrome. He broke down in the washing-powder aisle at Safeway. He was observed on a CCTV camera to be acting bizarrely — walking up and down the aisle for a full 20 minutes while scribbling calculations on a notepad. He then knelt by the boxes of Persil biological tablets and wept. When my mother finally turned up to collect him, he was sitting in the manager's office, hungry and thirsty. He'd been offered tea or coffee and ginger nuts or digestives, but had, of course, been unable to choose between them.
I don't like the man, but I sympathise with his affliction. My own temples start to throb when it comes to choosing between the hundreds of shampoos on offer.
Monday June 5
Worked on Sty, my pig novel. Since finishing with Pamela Pigg, I have been writing better than ever I have done before. Was P. Pigg blocking me in some way?
Tuesday, June 6
While the boys were at school and Mrs Wormington was having her feet done by a peripatetic chiropodist, I wrote 250 words of Sty. Should I give my pig-hero a name, or should the pig stand for struggling humanity? I need literary advice from an editor.
10pm. Just looked up «Editors» on the net and found the editor of the year…
To: Walrus Books, Kensington
Dear Louise Moore,
Congratulations on your prestigious win. My name is Adrian Mole. I am a full-time carer and part-time novelist and dramatist (as yet unpublished and unperformed). My current work-in-progress is a stream-of-consciousness novel about a pig. I have set myself some problems — obviously, I am not a pig myself and I have no idea what pigs think about all day. May I come to see you?
I remain, madam, your most humble and obedient servant,
Adrian Mole.
Car trouble
Friday, June 8, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
I am on the very horns of a dilemma. An insert fell out of my Daily Express today, a colourful shiny piece of A6 paper headed "Celebrity Star Match!" invited me to scratch off the panel on an illustration of a Mercedes convertible, to reveal a picture of a famous star. I did as instructed. Slowly, as a tiny pile of metallic grey dust collected, I began to see features of Cameron Diaz.
Mrs Wormington was looking over my shoulder. "Oos she when she's at 'ome?" she said (the last time she went to the cinema was to see Rock Hudson. I pray she never finds out that Rock had to steel himself to kiss Doris Day, the truth could easily kill her.) I carried on reading the instructions: "Now, one at a time, starting with panel one, scratch the four panels alongside." At this point, Glenn and William begged to be allowed to scratch two panels each. Glenn read further instructions aloud as William scratched. "If you reveal a matching picture — stop scratching — you're a winner!" Alas, his vigorous work with the two-pence piece revealed Tom Cruise and George Clooney. Mrs Wormington peered at these two mega heart-throbs and pronounced them "Nancy boys" who looked as if they "couldn't stuff a lavender bag".
William pronounced himself to be «devastated» at his failure. I must stop him watching so much television, it is having a deleterious effect on his vocabulary. He has no sense of proportion. He fell off his tricycle yesterday. When I asked him if he was all right he said, "I'm cool Dad, I just want to get on with the rest of my life."
The tension grew as Glenn picked up the coin. He took a deep breath and scratched away. The features of Samuel L Jackson gradually took shape. Mrs Wormington confused him with Michael Jackson and seemed to be under the impression that M Jackson had actually married his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles. I tried to explain to her that the ape had, in fact, been the best man at Elizabeth Taylor's last wedding, but I could see that the ways of the modern world were beyond her comprehension.