Dear Mr Patience,
My son, Glenn Bott, has abnormally thin legs, of which he is very self-conscious. In the circumstances, would you please make an exception to your PE-shorts-only rule and allow him to wear tracksuit trousers during cross-country runs.
Yours, A. A. Mole
Tuesday, March 7, Shrove Tuesday
Peggy Ludlow came round at tea-time to borrow flour, a lemon, eggs, milk, a frying pan and oil. I said, sarcastically, "Wouldn't it be simpler if I made your pancakes in my kitchen?" She agreed, and the whole Ludlow family trooped round and sat in my living room watching Jerry Springer while I tossed in the kitchen until my wrist was aching.
Vince Ludlow doesn't seem to do any work, though his family are always well rigged-out in designer clothes. Peggy continues to invade my thoughts. Today she was wearing a snakeskin sleeveless shift dress. It was the first time I'd seen her upper arms. She has several tattoos, the most recent being a depiction of Jeremy Paxman's head. When I said that I, too, was a fan of Newsnight, she said that she had asked for Jeremy Clarkson and was suing the tattooist.
Wednesday, March 8, Ash Wednesday
My mother invited me and the boys to a No Smoking Day party to celebrate her proposed new status as a non-smoker. We arrived slightly late, at 7.30. She answered the door looking irritable: "You've missed the ashtray-smashing ceremony." At 7.45, she smoked her last cigarette in the garden, surrounded by family and friends. Tears ran down her tobacco-ravaged face. Ivan then ceremoniously applied a nicotine patch to her upper-arm. When I strolled back into the house, it didn't seem the same without its perpetual pall of smoke. No reply yet from Patience regarding the tracksuit trousers.
Thursday, March 9
A telephone call from the school secretary to tell me that Roger Patience can now be reached only on the following e-mail address: patience.com@sailschool
Friday, March 10
I called on my mother unexpectedly this afternoon: she was smoking a cigarette and both wearing nicotine and chewing it. She begged me not to tell Ivan.
Saturday, March 11
I went to see Pandora at the ceremony to close down the community centre on this estate. She told me that her dinner guests were Ken Dodd and Frank Skinner — a grim night, then.
Tracksuit trouble continues
Sunday, March 12, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
The tracksuit row drags on. The headmaster is refusing to budge. I ordered Glenn to don his tracksuit before the cross-country run, and to return home if he was ordered by his PE teacher to take it off. Glenn was home by 11.15 with the following note.
Dear Mr Mole,
As I have stated ad nauseam, Glenn is not allowed to wear a tracksuit during cross-country runs. It was the wearing of shorts and vests in sub-zero temperatures that put the backbone into our young men and enabled our great country to win two world wars and several rowing medals at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
Yours, R Patience (Chief Executive), Neil Armstrong Community College
I rang Pandora at the Commons and was put through to a call centre where a recorded voice told me to press the star button if I was a constituent, or the hash button if I had a complaint about the NHS, street lighting or council house transfers.
I listened in fury as the voice took me through numbers one to eight before telling me to "press button nine if you wish to speak to a person directly". "At last," I said, "I get to speak to Pandora." But it wasn't she. It was Lorraine from the call centre, who, after acrimonious exchange, informed me that "my call was being recorded".
I rang my new stepmother (and Pandora's mother), Tania, and asked for Pandora's email address. "I'm cleaning out the koi carp pond, Adrian," she said. "Could you ring me back at a more convenient time?"
"So, you are putting your koi carp pets in front of your step-grandson's dilemma, are you?" I said angrily.
"As a matter of fact, I am," she snapped. "I agree with Patience. Shorts and vests did make this country great." It's true: advancing age does turn people right-wing. Tania used to be a leading radical in the political circles of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Tuesday, March 14
Now William is in trouble at school for opining that Posh Spice should be the next Queen of England. According to him, Mrs Claricoates, his teacher, made him sit in the Wendy-and-Kevin house alone during storytime. As a punishment, I know that's not exactly in the bamboo-under-the-fingernails league, but he was still upset when he got home and totally confused about the hereditary principle.
I kept Glenn at home today while I considered my next move in the tracksuit row: a letter to Jeremy Corbyn? Alert the Leicester Mercury? Or a petition?
Wednesday, March 15
Vince Ludlow has been arrested for failing to pay £140 arrears! Four policemen served a warrant on him at 7.30am. Apparently, he was fined £280 in October 1997. He stole the brass knob from the door of the magistrates court after celebrating his birthday at Snobs in town. Peggy was distraught as, from our respective doorsteps, we watched the police van turn the corner. She sobbed, "Vince gone, and not a bleedin' fag in the 'ouse."
Thursday, March 16
My father is worried about Longbridge. "It's bloody tragic. How'mi gonna get spares for the Rover?"
Saw Lizzie Broadway, my old schoolfriend, in the newsagents. She was buying cat food. I asked if she lived on the estate. "God, no," she said. "Do I look socially excluded?" before hurrying towards her BMW on the kerb, where a gang of local lads were measuring the hub caps with a tape measure.
Friday, March 17, St Patrick's Day
Pandora rang and ordered me to stop harassing her. In only three minutes she used the words «clear» or «clearly» 19 times. Is it now compulsory for politicians to use this word?
Piggmalion
Monday, March 20, 2000
Glenn's photograph is on the front of tonight's Ashby Bugle. The headline said, "Glen cross about country run." It was not a flattering portrait: the combination of his new Beckham haircut and the way he was scowling into the sun gave him the look of a youth at a fascist training camp. As I paid for my copy, a pensioner behind me looked at Glenn and said, "I wunt like to meet him down a dark alley."
I longed to tell the mustachioed lard-belly that Glenn was a good boy, but she picked an argument with the newsagent about non-delivery of her People's Friend, so I left without defending my son. When I got home, I read the article with growing disgust; it was littered with inaccuracies.
To the Editor, the Ashby Bugle
Dear Sir, It is not my habit to write to the papers, but I must on this occasion as you have written an ill-informed and inaccurate article about my son, Glenn, and his refusal to wear shorts during cross-country running at his school, Neil Armstrong Comprehensive.