Moon’s First Quarter
My mother has given my father an ultimatum: either he finds a job, or starts doing housework, or leaves. He is looking for a job.
Candlemas (Scottish Quarter-Day)
Grandma Mole came to tell me that the end of the world was announced at her Spiritualist church last week. She said it should have all ended yesterday.
She would have come round sooner only she was washing her curtains.
My father has had his credit cards taken off him! Barclays, Nat West and American Express have got fed up with his reckless spending. Time is running out for us. He has only got a few quid’s redundancy money left in his sock drawer.
My mother is looking for a job.
I have got a sense of deja vu.
Went round to see Bert and Queenie. Their bungalow is so full of knick-knacks that there is hardly room for a person to move. Sabre knocks at least ten things over every time he wags his tail. They both seem happy enough, though their sex life can’t be up to much.
I’ve got to write an essay on the causes of the Second World War. What a waste of time! Everyone knows the causes. You can’t go anywhere without seeing Hitler’s photo.
Finished essay; copied it out of Pear’s Encyclopedia.
My mother has gone to a women’s workshop on self-defence. So if my father moans at her for burning the toast she will be able to karate-chop him in the windpipe.
Septuagesima
Bored stiff all day. My parents never do anything on Sundays but read the Sunday papers. Other families go out to safari parks, etc. But we never do.
When I am a parent I will fill my children with stimulation at weekends.
Full Moon
My mother has found a job. She collects money from Space Invader machines. She started today in response to an urgent phone call from the job agency that she is registered with.
She said that the fullest machines are those in unre-spectable cafes and university common rooms.
I think my mother is betraying her principles. She is pandering to an obsession of weak minds.
My mother has given up her job. She said she is sexually harassed during her work and she is also allergic to ten-pence pieces.
My father is going to start his own business making spice-racks. He has spent the last of his redundancy money on buying pine and glue. Our spare bedroom has been turned into a workshop. Sawdust is all over the house.
I am very proud of my father. He is now a company director, and I am a company director’s son!
Delivered Mrs Singh’s massive spice-rack after school. It took two of us to carry it round and install it on her kitchen wall. We had a cup of sickly Indian tea and Mrs Singh paid my father and then started to fill up her shelves with exotic Indian spices. They looked a lot more interesting than my mother’s boring parsley and thyme.
My father bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate his first sale! He has got no respect for capital investment.
Pandora has gone to London with her father to hear Tony Benn speak. Pandora’s mother has gone to a SDP rally in Loughborough. It is a sad day when families are split by politics.
I’m not sure how I will vote. Sometimes I think Mrs Thatcher is a nice kind sort of woman. Then the next day I see her on television and she frightens me rigid. She has got eyes like a psychotic killer, but a voice like a gentle person. It is a bit confusing.
Pandora has got a crush on Tony Benn, just like the one she had on Adam Ant. She says that older men are exciting.
I am trying to grow my moustache. Valentine’s Day tomorrow. A big card came today, it had a Sheffield postmark.
Sexagesima. St Valentine’s Day
At last I have had a valentine from somebody who is not a blood relation! Pandora’s card was charming, she had written a simple message of love:
Adrian, it is you alone.
I gave Pandora a false Victorian card, inside I wrote:
It doesn’t scan very well, but I was in a hurry. Pandora didn’t get the literary reference to Roy Rogers, so I have lent her my father’s old Roy Rogers annuals.
My father threw the Sheffield card in the waste-bin. My mother took it out when my father had gone to the pub. Inside it said:
Pauline, I am in anguish.
My mother smiled and ripped it up.
Washington’s Birthday, USA. Moon’s Last Quarter
Came home from school to hear my mother talking to creep Lucas on the phone. She was using a yukky voice and saying things like: ‘Don’t ask me to do it, Bimbo’, and ‘It’s all over between us now, darling. We must try to forget’.
I can’t stand much more emotional stress. I am up to my ears in it already what with studying hard and vying with Tony Benn for Pandora’s attention.
Pandora’s mother came round last night to complain about her spice-rack. It fell off the wall and spilt rosemary and tumeric all over her cork tiles. My mother apologized on behalf of my father who was hiding in the coal shed.
I am seriously thinking of giving everything up and running away to be a tramp. I would quite enjoy the life, providing I could have a daily bath.
Miss Elf told us about her boyfriend today. He is called Winston Johnson. He is a Master of Arts and can’t get a job! So what chance do I stand?
Miss Elf said that school-leavers are despairing all over the country. She said that Mr Scruton should be ashamed to have a portrait of Mrs Thatcher over his desk.
I think I am turning radical.
This morning the whole school was ordered to go to the assembly hall. Mr Scruton got up on the stage and acted like the films of Hitler. He said in all his long years of teaching he had never come across an act ofsuch serious vandalism. Everybody went dead quiet and wondered what had happened. Scruton said that somebody had entered his office and drawn a moustache on Margaret Thatcher and written ‘Three million unemployed’ in her cleavage.
He said that defiling the greatest leader this country has ever known was a crime against humanity. It was tantamount to treason and that when the culprit was found they would be immediately expelled. Scru-ton’s eyes bulged out so far that a few of the first-years started to cry. Miss Elf led them outside to safety.
The whole school has got to have handwriting tests.
Miss Elf has resigned. I will miss her, she was responsible for my political development. I am a committed radical. I am against nearly everything.