by Sue Townsend
What does RSPCA stand for?
Who’s Malcolm Muggeridge?
For chrissake, what are PE shorts?
Is the Morning Star a commie newspaper?
Where’s Skegness? … What’s Skegness rock?
‘V’ signs? … Like Churchill the war leader?
Toad in the Hole, is it food or what?
Woodbines? … Bert Baxter smokes flowers?
Family Allowance … is this a charity handout?
Kevin Keegan … who is he?
Barclaycard … what is it?
Yorkshire Puddings … what are they?
Broadcasting House?
How much in dollars is 25 pence?
Is a Mars Bar candy?
Is Sainsbury’s a hypermarket?
What’s the PDSA, some kinda animal hospital?
GCEs, what are they?
Think I can guess what Big and Bouncy magazine is like … but gimme some details, kid?
Bovril – sounds disgusting! … Is it?
Evergreens? … Explain please.
Social Services?
Spotted Dick… jeezus! … This some sexual disease?
Is a ‘detention centre’ jail?
You bought your mother ‘Black Magic’ – what is she, a witch or something?
Where’s Sheffield?
What’s Habitat?
Radio Four, is it some local station?
‘O’ level what?
What is a copper’s nark?
Noddy? That the goon in the little car?
Dole … ‘Social Security’ … is this like our Welfare?
Sir Edmund Hillary … he a relation of yours?
Alma Cogan … she a singer?
Lucozade … did you get drunk?
What’s a conker?
The dog is AWOL … what is or was AWOL?
Who is or was Noel Coward?
What is BUPA?
What are ‘wellingtons’?
Who is Tony Benn?
Petrol … you mean gas?
Is The Archers a radio serial about Robin Hood?
Is the Co-op a commie-run store?
Is VAT a kinda tax?
Eating a chapati? … Isn’t chapati French for hat?
Rouge? … Don’t you mean blusher?
Is an Alsatian a German Shepherd?
What’s a Rasta?
Send info back soonest,
Yours eagerly, your old buddy
Hamish
PS. Mum’s in the Betty Ford Clinic. She’s doin’ OK, they’ve cured everything but the kleptomania.
Leicester
February 1st 1985
Dear Hamish,
Thanks for your long letter but please try to put postage stamps on the envelope next time you write. You are rich and I am poor; I cannot afford to subsidize your scribblings. You owe me twenty-six pence. Please send it immediately.
I am not so desperate about my complexion that I have to resort to covering my face with purée of frog. In fact, Hamish, I was repelled and disgusted by your advice, and anyway my mother hasn’t got a blender. She has stopped cooking entirely. My father and I forage for ourselves as best we can. I’m pleased that you enjoyed reading my diary even though many of the references were unfamiliar to you. I am enclosing a glossary for your edification.
RSPCA stands for: the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Malcolm Muggeridge: is an old intellectual who is always on TV. A bit like Gore Vidal, only more wrinkles.
PE shorts: running shorts as worn in Physical Education.
Yes, the Morning Star is a communist newspaper.
Skegness is a proletarian sea-side resort. Skegness rock is tubular candy.
‘V’ sign: it means … get stuffed!
Toad in the hole: a batter pudding containing sausages.
Woodbines: small, lethally strong cigarettes.
Family Allowance: a small government payment made to parents of all children.
Kevin Keegan: a genius footballer now retired.
Barclaycard: plastic credit card.
Yorkshire Puddings: batter puddings minus sausages.
Broadcasting House: headquarters of the BBC.
Work it out for yourself.
Mars Bars: yes, it’s candy, and very satisfying it is too.
Sainsbury’s: is where teachers, vicars and suchlike do their food shopping.
PDSA: People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals. A place where poor people take their ill animals.
GCEs are exams.
Big and Bouncy: a copy is on its way to you. Hide it from your mum.
Bovril: is a nourishing meat extract drink.
Evergreens: a club for wrinklies over 65 years.
Social Services: government agency to help the unfortunate, the unlucky, and the poor.
Spotted Dick: is a suet pudding containing sultanas. I find your sexual innuendoes about my favourite pudding offensive in the extreme.
Detention Centre: jail for teenagers.
Black Magic: dark chocolates.
Sheffield: refer to map.
Habitat: store selling cheap, fashionable furniture.
Radio Four: BBC-run channel, bringing culture, news and art to Britain’s listening masses.
‘O’ level: see GCEs.
Copper’s nark: rat fink who gives the police information about criminal activity.
Noddy: fictional figure from childhood. I hate his guts.
Dole: Social Security: yes, it’s Welfare.
Sir Edmund Hillary: first bloke to climb Everest.
Alma Cogan: singer, now alas dead.
Lucozade: non-alcoholic drink. Invalids guzzle it.
Conker: round shiny brown nut. The fruit of the horse chestnut. British children thread string through them, and then engage in combat by smashing one conker against another. The kid whose conker gets smashed loses.
AWOL: British Army expression. It means absent without leave.
Noel Coward: wit, singer, playwright, actor, songwriter. Ask your mother, she probably knew him.
BUPA: private medicine, a bit like the Blue Cross.
Wellingtons: rubber boots. The Queen wears them.
Tony Benn: an ex-aristocrat, now a fervent Socialist politician.
Petrol: OK … OK … gas.
The Archers: a radio serial about English country-folk.
The Co-op: a grocery chain run on Socialist principles.
VAT: a tax. The scourge of small businesses.
Chapati: not a French hat. It’s a flat Indian bread!
Rouge: you can call it blusher if you like. I call it rouge.
Alsatian: yes, also called German Shepherd, terrifying whatever they’re called.
Rasta: a member of the Rastafarian religion. Members are usually black. Wear their hair in dreadlocks (plaits) and smoke illegal substances. They have complicated handshakes.
Look Hamish, I’m at the end of my patience now. If there is anything else you cannot understand please refer to the reference books. Ask your mother or any passing Anglophile. And please! … please! … send my diaries back. I would hate them to fall into unfriendly, possibly commercial hands. I am afraid of blackmail; as you know my diaries are full of sex and scandal. Please for the sake of our continuing friendship … send my diaries back!
I remain, Hamish,
Your trusting, humble and obedient servant and friend,
A. Mole
A Letter to the BBC
Leicester
February 14th
Dear Mr Tydeman,
I am sending you, as requested, my latest poem. Please write back by return of post if you wish to broadcast the said poem. Our telephone has been disconnected (again).
I remain, Sir, your most humble and obedient servant,
A. Mole
Throbbing
Pandora,
I am but young
I am but small
(with cratered skin)
Yet! Hear my call.
/> Oh, rapturous girl
With skin sublime
Whose favourite programme’s ‘Question Time’
Look over here
To where I stand
A throbbing
Like a swollen gland.
A. Mole
Adrian Mole on ‘Pirate Radio Four’
Art, Culture and Politics
August 1985
I would like to thank the BBC for inviting me to talk to you on Radio Four. It’s about time they had a bit of culture on in the morning. Before I begin properly I’d just like to take this opportunity to reassure my parents that I got here safely.
Hello, Mum. Hello, Dad. The train was OK. Second Class was full so I went into First Class and sat down and pretended to be a lunatic. Fortunately the ticket inspector has got a lunatic in his family so he was quite sympathetic and took me to sit on a stool in the guard’s van. As you know I am normally an introvert, so pretending to be a lunatic extrovert for an hour and twenty minutes wore me out, and I was glad when the train steamed into the cavernous monolith that is St Pancras station. Well to be quite honest the train didn’t steam in because as you, Dad, will know, steam has been phased out and is now but an erotic memory in a train spotter’s head.
Anyway I got a taxi like you told me, a black one with a high roof. I got in and said, ‘Take me to the BBC.’ The driver said, ‘Which BBC?’ in a surly sort of tone. I nearly said, ‘I don’t like your tone my man’, but I bit my tongue back and explained: ‘I’m speaking on Radio Four this morning.’ He said, ‘Good job you ain’t goin’ on the telly wiv your face.’ He must have been referring to the bits of green toilet paper sticking to my shaving cuts. I didn’t know what to say to his cruel remark, so I kept quiet and watched the money clock like you told me to do. You won’t believe it, Mum, but it cost me two pounds forty-five pence! … I know … incredible isn’t it? Two pounds forty-five pence! I gave him two pound notes and a fifty pence piece and told him to keep the change. I can’t repeat what he said because this is Radio Four and not Radio Three but he flung his five pence tip into the gutter and drove off shouting horrible things. I grovelled in the gutter for ages, but you’ll be pleased to hear that I found the five pence.
A bloke in a general’s uniform barred my way to the hallowed portals of Broadcasting House. He said, ‘And whom might you be, sunshine?’ I said quite coldly (because once again I didn’t care for his tone), ‘I am Adrian Mole, the Diarist and Juvenile Philosopher.’ He turned to another general … in fact, thinking about it, it could have been the Director General because this second general looked sort of noble yet careworn. Anyway, the first general shouted, ‘Look on the list under Mole will you …?’ The second general replied (in cultivated tones, so it must have been the Director General), ‘Yes I’ve got a Mole on the list… Studio B 198.’ Before I knew it, a wizened-up old guide appeared at my elbow and showed me into a palatial lift. Then, once out of the lift – which was twice as big as my bedroom by the way – he took me down tortured, turning corridors. It was like George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in that book called 1984. No wonder DJs are always late turning up for work.
Eventually, exhausted and panting, we arrived outside the door of studio B 198. I was a bit worried about the old guide. To tell you the truth I thought he’d force me to give him mouth to mouth, such was his feeble condition. I really think that the BBC ought to provide oxygen on each floor for their older employees; and a trained nurse wouldn’t be a bad idea either. It would save them money in the long run; they wouldn’t have to keep replacing staff all the time and collecting for wreaths and things. Anyway, just thought I’d tell you that I got here all right. Oh, you know the BBC bloke I’ve been writing to, that producer John Tydeman. Well he’s dead scruffy. He looks like he writes. You know, with a beard and heavy horn-rimmed glasses. Need I say more? I’d better stop talking to you now Mum and Dad, because he’s making crude signs at me through the glass – so much for the standard of education at the BBC!
Oh, before I forget, did you send that excuse to Pop-Eye Scruton telling him that I’ve gone down with an ‘as yet unnamed’ virus? If not, can you take one to school immediately after my broadcast? … Thanks, only, as you know, he refused me permission to come here today. How mean can you get? Fancy denying one of the foremost intellectuals in school the opportunity to talk about art and culture on the BBC. You’ll be sure to mark the envelope ‘for the attention of the Headmaster’ won’t you Dad? Don’t forget and put ‘Pop-Eye Scruton’ on, like you did last time.
Well I’d better start properly now … I’ve got my notes somewhere … (pause… rustling …) Oh dear … I’ve left them in the taxi. Oh well, it’s quite lucky that I’m good at doing ‘ad hoc’ spontaneous talking isn’t it? … So, Art and Culture. Are they important?
Well, I think Art and Culture are important. Dead important. Without Art and Culture we would descend to the level of animals who aimlessly fill their time by hanging around dustbins and getting into fights. The people who don’t allow Art and Culture into their lives can always be spotted. They are pale from watching too much television, and also their conversation lacks a certain je ne sais quoi; unless they are French of course. Cultureless people talk about the price of turnips and why bread always falls on the buttered side, and other such inane things. You never hear them mention Van Gogh or Rembrandt or Bacon (by Bacon, I’m talking about Francis Bacon the infamous artist, I don’t mean streaky bacon or Danish bacon … the sort you eat). No, such names mean nothing to cultureless people, they will never pilgrimage to the Louvre Museum to see Michaelangelo’s Mona Lisa. Nor will they thrill to a Brahms Opera. They will fill their empty days with frivolous frivolity, and eventually die never having tasted the sweet ambrosia of culture.
I therefore feel it incumbent upon me to promote artisticness wherever I tread. If I meet a low-browed person I force them into a philosophical conversation. I ask them, ‘Why are we here?’ Often their answers are facetious. For instance last week I asked a humble market trader that very question. He answered, ‘I dunno why you’re ’ere mate but I’m ’ere to flog carrots.’
Such people are to be pitied. We of superior intellect must not judge them too harshly, but gently nudge them into the direction of the theatre rather than the betting shop. The art gallery instead of the bingo hall. The local madrigal society as opposed to the discotheque. I know that there are cynics who say ‘England is governed by philistines, so what do you expect?’ but to those cynics I say yes, we may be governed by philistines at the moment but I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about a political party that I’ve started up. It is called the Mole Movement. As yet we are small, but one day our influence will be felt throughout our land. Who knows, one day our party could be the party of government. I could end up as Prime Minister. Is it so inconceivable? Not in my opinion. Mrs Thatcher was once a humble housewife and mother. So, if she can do it, why can’t I?
The Mole Movement was formed on Boxing Day 1985. You know what it’s like on Boxing Day. You’ve opened the presents, you’ve eaten all the white meat on the turkey, your half-witted relations are bickering about Aunt Ethel’s will, and why Norman didn’t deserve to get the scabby old clock: a general feeling of ennui (ennui is French for bored out of your skull by the way). Yes, ennui hangs around the house like stale fag smoke. Anyway it was Boxing Day and my girlfriend, Pandora Braithwaite, had come round so that we could exchange belated Christmas greetings. Her family took her to stay in a hotel for Christmas because Mrs Braithwaite said that if she had to stare up the rear of another turkey she would go berserk.
Anyway, we exchanged presents; I gave her a fish ash tray I made in pottery at school, and she gave me a Marks & Spencer’s voucher so that I could replace my old underpants. The elastic’s gone … yes … so we thanked each other and kissed for about five minutes. I didn’t want us to get carried away and end up as single parents … not in our ‘A’ level year. It wouldn’t be fair to the kid with us both study
ing … er … what did I start to …? Yes. Well, after the kissing stopped I started to talk about my aspirations, and Pandora smoked one of her stinking French fags and listened to me with grave attention. I spoke passionately about beauty and elegance, and bringing back the old branch lines on the railways. I thundered against tower blocks and leisure centres, and ended by saying, ‘Pandora, my love, will you join me in my Life’s Work?’ Pandora moved languidly on my bed and said, ‘You haven’t said what your life’s work is yet, chéri.’
I stood over her and said, ‘Pandora, my life’s work is the pursuit of beauty over ugliness, of truth over deceit, and of justice over rich people hogging all the money.’ Pandora ran to the bathroom and was violently sick, such was the dramatic effect my speech had on her. To tell the truth I was a bit misty-eyed myself, and while she was throwing up I studied my face in the wardrobe mirror and definitely saw a change for the better. For where once was adolescent uncertainty was now mature complacency.
Pandora emerged from the bathroom and said, ‘My God, darling, I don’t know what’s going to happen to you.’ I pulled her into my arms and reassured her about my future. I said, ‘The way ahead may be stony but I will walk it barefoot if necessary.’ Our oblique conversation was interrupted by my mother making mundane enquiries about how many spoons of sugar Pandora took in her cocoa. After my mother had stamped off down the stairs I turned in despair and cried, ‘Oh save me from the petite bourgeoisie with their inane enquiries about beverages.’ We tried to continue the conversation but it was again interrupted when my father went into the bathroom and started making disgusting grunting noises. He is so uncouth! … He can’t wash his face without sounding like two warthogs mating in a watering hole. How I managed to spring from his loins I’ll never know. In fact sometimes I think that it wasn’t his loins I sprang from; my mother was once very friendly with a poet. Not a full-time poet: he was a maggot farmer during the day, but at night, after the maggots had been shut up in their sheds, he would pull a pad of Basildon Bond towards him and write poems. Quite good poems as well; one of them got into the local paper. My mother cut it out and kept it… surely the action of a woman in love. When my mother came in with the cocoa I quizzed her about her relationship with the maggot poet. ‘Oh Ernie Crabtree?’ she said, pretending innocence. ‘Yes,’ I said, then went on with heavy emphasis: ‘I am like him in many ways aren’t I …? The poetry for instance.’ My mother said, ‘You’re nothing like him. He was witty and clever and unconventional and he made me laugh. Also he was six foot tall and devastatingly handsome.’