She told me that she was cooking some quickly heated-through food today, so that she and my father could 'maximize their time in front of the funeral coverage'.

Father's depression seems to have lifted. He is ping to a Job Club on Monday. Apparently Tania has told him that he is a 'highly intelligent man'. She has promised to help him 'realize his potential' if he stops smoking. This shows how little she knows my father.

He will choose Rothman's over fame and fortune any day.

My mother accused me of 'heartless cynicism'. Since Ivan came to live here she has changed her vocabulary and she has now started to wear Pink Blush lipstick instead of her usual colour, Erotic Flame. The Beginner's Guide to the Internet is on her bedside table, next to Pa.s.s Your Driving Test.

Sat.u.r.day September 6th Oh! The card on the wreath on the coffin. 'Mummy'. Oh!

We ran out of man-sized tissues very early in the day. My mother saw her friends from Groby Theatre Workshop, Alan and Abbo, walking in the procession behind the coffin. They were representing the Ashby-de-la-Zouch branch of the Terrence Higgins Trust. She said it was the first time she'd seen them without a smile on their faces.

Sunday September 7th Another mini-lecture from Ivan at breakfast about the virtues of New Labour. I said that I personally thought Tony Blair's reading in the pulpit at Westminster Abbey was a bit on the theatrical side. I couldn't help thinking that those endless pauses had been timed by Alastair Campbell with a stopwatch.

Monday September 8th I overheard a gruesome conversation in the bathroom today. Ivan said, 'Oh, G.o.d, Pauline, you're so beautiful.'

My mother sn.i.g.g.e.red, then said, 'But look at my hideous cellulite, Ivy.'

'Pauline, baby,' he crooned, 'cellulite is just a thousand little dimples, and I love every one of those dimples.'

As I pa.s.sed by the open bathroom door I saw him bend and kiss a patch of cellulite on her left outside thigh. Perhaps he does truly love her. Only three days to go before I am a household name.

Tuesday September 9th Archie Tait rang from a phone box to wish me good luck--it was kind of him to remember. Why, though? I haven't given him a second thought.

Wednesday September 10th Zippo rang early this morning to say that they had shown Offally Good! to a focus group of Oxford undergraduates, and they had given it the thumbs up. 'They said it was great comedy,' Zippo said. After I had put the phone down I puzzled over this remark. There was a preview from A.A. Gill in The Times. He wrote Offally Good! is offally bad. A wooden presenter, Adrian Mole, stumbles and b.u.mbles through twenty minutes of Crossroads-quality TV. We watch with horrible fascination as he makes sheep's-head broth. (Which is not even offal, so the Tristans behind the programme are deceiving us from the start.) After twenty minutes Mole produces a pot of grey liquid, on the surface of which floats a layer of sc.u.m. Dev Singh, however, was brilliantly and genuinely funny. I sense that a star has been conceived, if not yet born.

Both sets of'parents' have invited me to watch the programme with them. How can I possibly choose between them? Both have had Cable TV installed specifically to watch Offally Good!.

A compromise was reached. I watched the first half at Wisteria Walk, then got in the car during the commercial break, drove like a maniac and watched the second half at The Lawns. Both households watched in silence. The New Dog seemed to enjoy it at first, but then lost interest and went to sit on its cushion.

I overheard my mother saying to Ivan, 'I don't know if I can face showing myself in public'

Thursday September 11th I stayed in bed all day with the duvet pulled over my head. n.o.body rang to congratulate me. My own family cannot look me in the eye. The next five Wednesdays are going to be torment for me.

Friday September 12th Zippo rang to say that the ratings for Offally Good! showed that Richard and Judy 'should not buy a retirement property yet'. He said that 55,000 people had switched over to Good Morning when I cleavered the sheep's head open, leaving 57,000 watching me.

I told Zippo about the proposed book deal with Stoat. He said, 'Pie Crust own 25 per cent of any exploitation.' When I protested, he said, 'Take a peek at your contract, Aid.' I did. He is right.

I was alarmed to see that I am due to deliver the ma.n.u.script to Stoat on October 15th. He is going for the Christmas market.

Monday September 15th An historic day. William embarked on the first step in an educational journey that will culminate in his attending either Oxford or Cambridge. He started at Kidsplay Ltd today, a private nursery school owned by Mrs Parvez, Liberal councillor and local entrepreneur.

I resent having to pay PS9 a day to Mrs Parvez. However I can't put up with the boy hanging on to my legs all day any longer. I have things to do, and places to go. (Though now I will have to do the things and go to places between the hours of 9.15 and 3.15.) There was an emotional scene when William left Wisteria Walk wearing his burgundy sweatshirt (emblazoned with Kidsplay Ltd's slogan, 'Play As U Learn'), Gap cords, baseball cap and Velcro-fastened trainers.

My mother broke down and sobbed. 'Everything is three sizes too big for him.'

I pointed out to her that he would grow into his uniform eventually. I also asked her to try and control herself. She was carrying on as though she were Antigone. I said, 'He's going to nursery school, not to be ritually sacrificed on a slab.'

My father and Tania were waving outside The Lawns as William and I drove by, like spectators at a royal wedding. I hope the boy doesn't expect such a send-off every morning.

As we drove to Kidsplay Ltd, William asked me where birds 'hang out' (an expression he has picked up from Rosie). I asked him to rephrase the question.

'Where do they go when they're tired?' he asked, staring out of the car window at the sky.

I said, 'They go to sleep in their nests, of course.'

Kidsplay Ltd is in a converted church. There's a stained-gla.s.s window on the back wall showing Jesus on the Cross. When William saw it he said, 'That's the man who's on Rosie's necklace.'

There was no time to explain about the symbolism of Rosie's fashion-item crucifix.

Mrs Parvez bustled up in her green sari and showed William to his peg in the cloakroom. Each had an animal symbol hanging from the peg as an aide-memoire. William's was an anteater. I asked Mrs Parvez if this could be subst.i.tuted for something more cuddly or lovable.

She said, coldly, 'I have three left, an elk, a Thompson's gazelle and a warthog.'

I settled for the anteater.

As I drove away I couldn't help but feel that I had started off on the wrong foot with Mrs Parvez.

When I picked him up, William said, 'You told me a lie, Dad. Mrs Parvez told me that birds don't sleep in their nests.'

I was furious with Mrs Parvez: she had undermined my parental authority. I said, 'So where the sodding h.e.l.l do they sleep?'

'On branches,' said William.

I gave a scornful laugh. 'Oh, branches,' I scoffed. 'All night? No, son,' I said. 'Mrs Parvez has misinformed you.' I saw him puzzling over the word misinformed. 'She lied,' I explained. I went on to press my point home. 'All birds sleep in their nests, all year round.'

Tuesday September 16th William came home this afternoon with the following note.

Kidsplay Ltd Castle Road Ashby-de-la-Zouch September 16, 1997 Dear Mr Mole, William has told me that you called me a liar, and questioned my a.s.sertion that birds do not habitually sleep in their nests. I refer you to page 29 of The Birds in Your Garden by Roy Wren, published by Glauberman & Arthur Ltd, 1979.

Yours sincerely, Mrs Parvez PS. If you wish William to go on a trip to Brown's Farm Park Ltd on Thursday, will you please send PS5.50 tomorrow morning.

Wednesday September 17th I rang the central reference library in Leicester. They had not heard of Mr Wren's opus. I tried to ring the RSPB but was put on hold, and made to listen to a chaffinch chaffing. It made a change from Vivaldi. A man with a gravelly voice eventually came on the line.

I asked him my nest question. 'One moment, this is Accounts. I'll put you through to Inquiries,' he said. The line went dead. Presently an owl began to hoot down the phone. Then an old woman said, 'Inquiries.'

I asked my nest question. She said, 'This is General Inquiries. I'll put you through to Bird Inquiries.' The line went dead again. Then a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. Then a robot said, 'Welcome to Bird Inquiries. Press One for identification. Press Two for migration. Press Three for feeding suggestions. Press Four for habitat. Press Five...'

I replaced the receiver with E.M. Forster's quotation from Howards End ringing in my ears: 'Only connect.'

I did not watch the second episode of Off ally Good! (Tripe). Archie Tait rang and left a message, saying, 'Well done.' The man is practically a stranger, why does he bother? I found the following note in William's anorak pocket this evening.

Dear Mr Mole, William has not yet brought the PS5.50 for the trip to Brown's Farm Park Ltd tomorrow. If you wish William to partake of this trip, will you please remedy the situation tomorrow morning. Failure to do so will result in William being left behind in the care of Mr Lewis, the caretaker, who is not qualified in resuscitation techniques.

Yours sincerely, Mrs Parvez Thursday September 18th Dear Mrs Parvez, I was most disturbed to be told by William that his packed lunch was stolen by a goat (Noreen) today, while he was at Brown's Farm Park Ltd. Apparently the beast ate not only the contents of the lunchbox, but the lunchbox itself. William said he was hungry and distressed, but he received no comfort (or replacement food!) from you. I have tried many times to contact Farmer Brown by telephone, but am told by voicemail that he is not at his desk(!).

It seems to me that Noreen is a menace and should be kept in isolation.

I hope you will give me your support in this matter.

Sincerely, A.A. Mole PS. According to the Internet, there are several species of birds that sleep in their nests. Some use feathers and down to make their nests more comfortable, rather like our human duvets and pillows.

Friday September 19th Kids play Nursery Ltd September 18th, 1997 Dear Mr Mole, I e-mailed he e-mailed me back with the following message.

'The CCT camera next to the goat pen shows a dark-skinned lad in a red sweatshirt and brown cord trousers throwing a Postman Pat plastic lunchbox over the three-foot-high chain-linked fence towards Noreen, the goat.'

Yours sincerely, Mrs Parvez Sat.u.r.day September 20th William said he did it because Noreen looked cold and hungry. He is such a soft-hearted kid. Though he is also, it has to be said, a convincing liar. I told him the story about 'Cry Wolf. I also told him that if he didn't behave in future, a man called Jack Straw would get him and put him in prison.

The boy was outside the house today. I banged on the window and asked him to stop picking the berries off the shrub that grows on the fence. He glowered and put his hands in his pockets.

At 8.30 a.m. I sat down at my desk to begin work on Offally Good!--The Book!. At 11.37 I rose to my feet having written nothing. Not one word.

Sunday September 21st Pandora has weathered the political storm and has been promoted to something called PPS to somebody I've never heard of in the Ministry of Agriculture.

She rang to tell her father this morning, as if we didn't already know! She is plastered all over the media. She told me on the phone that her mother and my father's 'living arrangement' has definitely turned into a fullblown s.e.xual affair. Apparently she rang Tania this morning, to find her mother still in bed. Pan said, 'I distinctly heard your father's voice whispering, 'I'll put the kettle on, Tan," and claimed she heard his smoker's cough as he opened the bedroom door. 'So, they're definitely playing at hide the sausage,' she said.

I asked her how she felt about our parental swap. She said, 'On the one hand I'm enchanted by the chronicity of the thing, but on the other I'm appalled and disgusted.'

It was a typical politician's reply.

Personally I am horrified by my father. He has obviously been lying about his s.e.xual potency. I hope my mother doesn't find out that he is s.e.xually active again. I asked Pandora if she had 'caught' OG!.

She said that Offally Good! was the talk of the Commons. She said the Federation of Master Butchers' own newspaper, MEAT, had given it a rave review. Sheep's heads have been 'selling like hot cakes'. Butcher's shops and supermarkets up and down the country have been inundated by students. There is a national shortage and emergency supplies are being flown in from New Zealand. The Society of the Deserving Poor has also praised the programme. I asked her how she knew all this, and she said, 'I surfed the Net, of course.' I was very touched. She obviously cares for me.

I asked her when she was coming up to Leicestershire. She said, 'Tonight, I'll be at The Lawns by three a.m. Please ask your mother and my father to attend.' I asked Pandora if someone from Relate should be in attendance. She said, 'Clearly not.'

Monday September 22nd It was a mistake to allow five bottles of wine into the summit meeting. At one point I thought I had stepped into a particularly acrimonious production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Pandora's conciliation skills were brushed aside while the fifty-somethings ranted and raved and came close to blows with each other. Horrible things were said. Ivan wants The Lawns to be sold and the proceeds split between them. Tania said, 'The Lawns is my life. I will never be parted from that garden.'

Ivan said, 'That's why our marriage died, Tania. You'd be out there gardening in the dark with a head torch while I was in bed, waiting for you.'

Tania screamed, 'There were slugs to kill!' with a dangerous edge of fanaticism to her voice, I thought. She then burst out with, 'How could you live with a woman whose garden is covered in bindweed, Ivan?'

Ivan strode down to the smoking half of the room (occupied by my mother, my father and Pandora) and took my mother into his arms. He turned to his wife and said, 'I love every nettle, every dandelion, every b.u.t.tercup in Pauline's garden.'

My father shuffled down to the non-smoking section and put his arms around Tania's shaking shoulders. 'Don't worry, Tan,' he said, 'I'm here now, I'll help murder those b.a.s.t.a.r.d slugs.' It was an outright declaration of love. My mother was stung into casting aspersions on my father's s.e.xual potency, at which point Pandora and I excused ourselves and went to sit outside on a bench under the apple trees. I trod on some rotten windfall apples and ruined my second-best Timberlands. Pandora said that she disapproved of my mother's boasting about Ivan's potency. I confessed to Pandora that I had been disgusted at her father's refusal to observe the two minutes' silence for Diana.

Zippo rang me on my mobile. He is back in London. He said the ratings for Off ally Good! were rising 'like fish in a bucket'. He said Dev's postbag was 'amazing'. I asked if I had any fan mail, he said, 'Yeah, we'll post it on to you when there's enough to fill an A4 envelope.'

Worked all night on OGTB yet had little to show for it. I simply couldn't get the pig's trotters recipe to sound exciting.

Thursday September 25th The lamb sweetbreads with black bean sauce episode went out yesterday morning. I watched alone: everyone else in my household was out on more important business, apparently. Am I a consummate television professional, or am I an embarra.s.sing amateur? I don't know. There isn't a single person I know whom I can rely on to give me good, impartial advice. I need an agent. I rang Brick Eagleburger's office. Boston's voicemail answered. I said, 'Adrian Mole from Offally Good!. Ring me back, will you?' I forced myself not to say please. a.s.sertiveness is the new manners.

Brick himself rang back fifteen minutes later. 'I lurve that show,' he boomed. 'I practically peed my pants when that sheep's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e fell out of the wok. Adrian, you--are--so--funnee!'

Once again I was baffled. Sweetbreads are not t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, are they?

When he stopped laughing, I explained that I was in desperate need of an agent. 'You got one!' said Brick.

I'm going to have lunch in London with him tomorrow, to plan my career, my publicity, my writing ambitions, my financial planning, my divorce, my tax. My life.

Friday September 26th Brick looks like a gangster who has read Proust. He towered above me and nearly stopped my circulation with his handshake. I'm almost sure he wears a black wig. He chews constantly on an unlit cigar. We went to the Ivy. A.A. Gill saw me walk in and raised a hand in greeting, as though we were equals! Has he forgotten that he has twice now given me execrable reviews?

I wasn't sure what was the correct response to Gill, so I confined myself to smiling ruefully at him and raising my eyebrows. When I went into the gents' later I encored these facial expressions in front of a washhbasin mirror. I looked like Coco the Clown, one person I have always loathed, Brick encouraged me to drink four White Ladies then to talk about myself for two and a half hours, He didn't look bored once--apart from when he was signing the bill. I agreed to give him 20 per cent of my income for life. Sat.u.r.day September 27th When I picked up the Guardian from the BP shop today, I was astonished to see Dev Singh's photograph at the top of the front page, alerting readers to an interview on page four of the G2 section. I sat in my car on the forecourt and read it. I was only mentioned once: 'Dev's dazzling wit and uproarious physical comedy is in glorious contrast to the dour televisual presence of Adrian Mole, a pedant from Middle England.'

When I got home I found an invitation from the Leicester Tortoise Society to open their Christmas Fayre on Sat.u.r.day November 1st. My first public engagement.

Sunday September 28th A bombsh.e.l.l! My mother has told me that she is no longer prepared to look after William when I go back to work! Ivan has asked her to travel the world with him. She said, 'Adrian, I've got to go, haven't I? I can't say no to the world, can I?' I suggested that they take the lad with them. It would broaden his mind. She said, 'You don't get it, do you, you selfish sod? I'm through with childcare.'

I said, 'What about Rosie?'

She said, 'Rosie's tall enough to reach the stove and the fridge and the ironing-board and, anyway, she's got her dad.'

Monday September 29th Ivan and my mother have taken over the kitchen table with their maps, guidebooks and brochures. They told me that they intend to cycle around the world. They are obviously suffering from folie a deux: neither of them has cycled further than the local shops before today.

I received a postcard today from Arthur Stoat. On one side was a photograph of a Norwegian peasant woman riding on a pig's back. On the other side was written, 'Please send me a.s.surance that you have started work on the book. Yours, A. Stoat. PS. New deadline, October 21st.'

11.30 a.m. Rosie came to see me in my bedroom tonight. She asked me to promise, on William's life, to keep the secret she was about to divulge. I promised. She is two months pregnant. I did all the traditional things--said, 'Oh, my G.o.d!' clapped a hand to my forehead, got up and paced the available s.p.a.ce between my bed and the window. 'How did it happen?' I asked.

The usual way. Like, I wasn't visited by an angel or nothing,' she sneered. She then attempted to justify her condition. 'We've only done it four times,' she said.

'Minus contraception, I presume?' I asked.

'You sound like Jack Straw,' she said, accusingly.

I ignored the insult and asked her if she was sure.

'Yeah, I'm sure, I told Dad I needed money for Nike trainers, which is sixty quid, but I got a cheaper pair and bought a pregnancy test with the difference.'

I felt a pang of jealousy that she was able to con my father out of sixty quid with such apparent ease. She has always been his favourite. The news of her pregnancy could plunge him back down into the pit of depression. I said, 'He'll go mad when he finds out.'

'He won't find out,' she said, irritably. 'He doesn't know what Nike trainers look like.'

I went to bed earlier than usual and lay in the dark thinking about Rosie and the little tadpole baby she had inside her. I like to think that I am a civilized man, but I wanted to run round to Aaron Michelwaite's house, drag him into the street and beat him up for what he'd done to my little sister. He's bigger than me, but I reckoned that an unexpected and well-timed blow to the back of his head with my hardback edition of War and Peace would knock him off his feet.

I was present in the delivery room when Rosie was born, on November nth, 1982. I hadn't planned to be there, I was only a lad, but I was trapped by ghastly circ.u.mstances and forced to watch and listen as my mother gave birth. The sights! The sounds! I tried to escape several times, but my mother wouldn't let go of my right hand (it still plays me up when the weather is cold). She kept shouting, 'Don't leave me, Adrian'

--she was estranged from my father at the time. In fact, there was gossip about Rosie's paternity, led by Edna May Mole, my grandma. She died still convinced that Rosie's dad was not George Albert Mole, the name on her birth certificate, but Mr Lucas, the man who lured my mother away to Sheffield.

As far as I know Rosie is completely unaware of the question mark surrounding her conception and birth. I saw her seconds after she left my mother's body, before she took her first breath. She was half bald and angry-looking and resembled my father. She looked nothing like Lucas, but of course she had no teeth then. It was me who held her for the first time, after she'd had the slime removed, and me who taught her to click Lego bricks together. She used to follow me around like a small shadow, until she turned twelve, then something horrible happened to her and she transmogrified into a demon.

I know I promised to keep her secret, but I can feel it growing like an abscess inside me. It is longing to burst out. Even Aaron Michelwaite is unaware that he has fathered a foetus.

I asked her tonight if she wants a baby. She said, 'I might.' This surprised me. She had never shown the slightest sign of maternalism. Her dolls were treated disgracefully. She chopped their hair and eyelashes off, scribbled on their faces with biro, and performed horrible experiments on them with the contents of my father's toolbox. She was like a torturer's apprentice. I felt it my duty to warn her that New Labour strongly disapproved of single parents, and that should she choose to tramp that particular road in life, she would find it 'stony and full of potholes'. I said, 'Tony Blair will make you go out to work, Rosie. Any dream you have of breastfeeding your baby in front of The Big Breakfast will stay just that, a dream.'

She said, 'I can't stand Denise Van Outen, and there's no way I'd breastfeed.'

I felt my temples begin to throb. I urged her to talk to a professional with a diploma about her dilemma, but she refused.

We sat in silence: I looked around her room and noted that she had turned all her Barbie dolls to face the wall.