Sunday, September 10
At first light, I went to the emergency chemist and asked for Paracetemol. The chemist, a child of 10, asked me if I intended to kill myself. I assured her that I didn't, and she handed over the pills. I tried to buy petrol today, but the queues were too long and there was a fight on the forecourt. Why?
Monday, September 11
Mohammed at the BP garage refused to sell me more than £5-worth of lead-free this morning. We were at school together, and our relationship has deepened in friendship over my fuel-buying years, yet he refused to help me out. How am I going to get William to school? There is no convenient public transport, and the journey is almost a mile.
Wednesday, September 13
I rang my MP, Pandora Braithwaite, to complain about the fuel crisis. She reminded me that when we were school-children together we used to walk a mile-and-a-half to Neil Armstrong Comprehensive School. I reminded her that, "This is the year 2000, where paedophiles stalk the avenues and cul-de-sacs."
She said scornfully, "You've obviously forgotten that sweetshop keeper who used to pretend his trousers had fallen down when we innocently asked for a gobstopper." I asked her why she was in such a bad mood. She said, "On the contrary, I'm in an excellent mood. I'm relieved that I'm not mentioned in Andrew Rawnsley's book, Servants of the People. I was sure he was going to use that story about me and Mo and Gordon Brown in that hotel service lift at Bournemouth."
Thursday, September 14
Glenn has come home from school with a homework project about third world poverty. I took him to the library on the estate on a search for information. Unfortunately, it was closed due to "staff shortages". I rang my mother and she brought round some statistics she'd found on the internet. I was shocked to realise that me and my boys have been living in third world poverty for the past two years.
Glenn is relieved: he was planning to do his project on Bangladesh, but now, as he says, "All I have to do is go walkin' round the streets talkin' to people, Dad."
Bringing the Montego to Mohammed
Thursday, September 14, Arthur Askey Walk, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
So much for a lifelong friendship! Mohammed refused to sell me any petrol today, even though I had pushed the Montego to his garage to save what little fuel I had. I reminded him that I had stuck up for him in the playground at Neil Armstrong Comprehensive when Barry Kent went on a bullying rampage after eating too many Walker's crisps. "I don't remember you stickin' up for me, Moley," Mohammed said as he directed a midwife towards a pump.
I pointed out that I had advised Barry to go on a bullying-awareness course at the Off The Streets youth club. "That didn't stop me from gettin' my fingers bent back," he said sadly.
My mother drove up on the forecourt and joined the queue of essential users. "On what grounds are you an essential user?" I asked. "Have you joined one of the emergency services since I saw you last?"
"As a matter of fact, I have, in a way," she said. "I promised to take some of my unwanted vases to Laing ward at Ivan's mental hospital. They've got nothing to put the visitors' flowers in."
I wondered how she would convince Mohammed that her need of fuel was legitimate, and was infuriated when she was allowed to go to the front of the queue and was served by Mohammed himself!
I made another attempt to procure some petrol for myself. Citing the time I directed Mohammed in the Nativity play, Jesus Christ Almighty!, and gave him the starring role. "Yeah, yeah, and I'm still in trouble with some of the community elders 15 years later," he said. "I said I'd be in trouble if I played Jesus as a heroin addict."
"You had free will, Mohammed," I pointed out.
"No, I didn't," he said. "You was going through a bad time. Your parents were splittin' up, so I dun it to help you out."
As I pushed my car back home, I puzzled over how a man could hold a grudge for so long. A grudge so powerful that it influenced his judgment when it came to petrol distribution.
Saturday, September 16
Pandora is thinking of buying a house in the Suffolk countryside so she can escape from her constituents. It is called Oakley Park, in Hoxne village. I looked the property up on the net, and was alarmed to discover that it was the scene of a macabre double murder in 1777, when Sir Frederick Brownlow discovered his wife Felicity in bed with Fergus Bellington, a young groom.
When I say «bed», I am using the term loosely — the lovers were actually participating in a sexual act behind the clock over the arched entranceway. As midnight struck, Sir Frederick, tormented by jealousy, chopped them into bite-sized pieces with his sword. ("It was manayee times sharpen-ed beinge much blunted be ye bones.") The pieces were then fed to the pigs. I warned Pandora that there was a curse on the house, and that anybody with the initials FB came to a bad end if they so much as stepped foot into the courtyard.
"For God's sake," she said, "what are you drivelling on about? My initials are PLEB." She then went into a tirade saying that idiots were clogging up the internet with uninteresting and unnecessary information.
Sunday, September 17
Battle of Britain Day: Radio 4 was dominated this morning by a dreary church service commemorating this important historical occasion. Why does the C of E allow such very terrible music to be played in its name? And why do church officials speak in such unnatural voices like aliens?
Radio 4 should have played the soundtrack of that Douglas Bader Story. It would have given joy to many.
Buying panic
Monday, September 18, Arthur Askey Walk, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Life is dull after the excitement of the petrol crisis. I have been out and about doing a little panic buying of bottled water, granulated sugar, bread mix and tinned pilchards. But nothing can compare with last week's frenzy, when, for a few moments, I truly believed that civilisation was at an end and that we would be back to driving a pony and trap.
I have been called to the Job Centre on Friday to explain why I filled in a form recently stating that I am not available for work and that I would like to continue to claim benefits. I have spent all day today preparing my case. I have written a manifesto. Its main thrust is that society should support its artists. Its concluding paragraph states: "How tragic would be the loss to the nation if a great work of mine were to remain unwritten due to the banal necessity of clocking on as an assistant warehouseman, eg."