The caravan is too confined. I can hear everything through the plywood walls. I overheard my mother saying to Ivan Braithwaite tonight, "Ivan, why are we all cramped up in a caravan in Hunstanton when we can easily afford to stay in a decent Aparthotel with free watersports somewhere abroad?" He chuckled in that maddening way that makes me want to rip his smarmy head off his hairy shoulders and said, "Pauline, you're in denial about your working-class heritage. I'm doing this for you. I want you to rediscover your roots".
My mother snapped that she had spent most of her adult life trying to better herself and hoped to be lower-middle class by the time she was 55, and middle-middle class at death. "The Co-Op won't be doing my funeral," she hissed. I heard her move along their bed in the kitchen (it doubles as a work-top and ironing board during the day). I was glad that their ardour was cooling. I was sick of having to listen to their pathetic attempts at love-making every night. Ivan is having trouble with his prostate. Fortunately, Mad Dog and Rosie are sleeping outside under the awning extension on a double Therm-A-Rest.
Monday
Jackson has gone into Norwich to have a drink with Professor Malcolm Bradbury. He is hoping to get some lecturing work out of him. Is Professor Bradbury being terrorised into giving Jackson work? Has the notoriously gentle academic been threatened and intimidated? It would explain why that monosyllabic thicko, Jackson, has two degrees.
Thursday
I took the boys to Wells-next-the-Sea today. As we strolled up the crowded main street, I saw Glenn looking with interest at a tray of tripe in a butcher's shop window. "It don't look too bad, Dad," he said. "I could get that down my neck."
Friday
The Hog Roast-On-The-Beach has been cancelled due to the unreliability of English pigs.
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.
Love in a cold climate
Thursday 24 August, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire
Glenn has been upstairs for an hour with the unopened envelope with contains his GCSE results.
I can hear him muttering to himself as I write this diary entry. The tension in the house is unbelievable. I have promised to take him to Wells-Next-The-Sea if he attains anything over a D. He has fallen in love with a girl called Courtney, who works in French's fish and chip shop on the West Quay. The lad is certainly a quick mover. We were only in Wells for an hour-and-a-half. Apparently they bonded when Glenn knocked a tub of curry sauce off the counter.
She called him a stupid wanker and that was it. They swapped e-mail addresses and have been in constant contact since. I am a little hurt that Glenn told me none of this and that I had to hear his news from my mother. Why doesn't the boy trust me with the secrets of his heart. I am his father, after all. Even David Archer has started to confide in Phil, since Ruth's chemotherapy treatment commenced.
Incidentally, I hope Mel has been kicked out of Big Brother by the time you read this. Her motives are so transparent: she obviously intends to set up a chain of massage parlours across the nation. Mark my words, Mel's Massage Parlours will soon be appearing on every high street.