'Of course,' he said.

'But it didn't make me laugh,' I said.

Zippo sighed. 'Laughter is kind of not where it's at with Pie Crust Productions. Our target audience are students who have failed to do any revision or any essays, and expect to fail their exams. It's a show for losers.'

I was dumbfounded and asked how many viewers watched the Pie Crust shows. 'Seven hundred and fifty-three thousand people tuned in to Tomatoes: Fresh or Tinned?,' said Zippo. 'We're getting a lot of interest from the advertisers.'

'Which products do failed students buy?' I asked.

'Catfood mainly,' he said, 'followed by Cadbury's Creme Eggs, Strongbow Cider and Pot Noodles.'

'So how much does Alfie Caine get paid per show?' I asked.

'Alfie's got an agent, so that b.u.mps it up a bit,' he said.

'So how much does he get?' I pressed.

'I couldn't possibly divulge that, it would be terribly unprofessional of me, but let's say it's in the region of the price of a package holiday to Tenerife.'

'High or low season?' I asked.

'Oh, high,' he said. 'We're talking August here.'

'A one- or two-week holiday?' I asked.

'Two,' he said, 'half-board, balcony with a sea view.'

I didn't like the way he was a.s.suming I would know the price of a package holiday to Tenerife in August, but I let it pa.s.s. 'And this Tenerife package, that's per show, is it?' I checked.

'Of course it's per show,' he said.

I said I would ring him back in half an hour. I rang Thomas Cook on Regent Street, then rang Zippo back and said I would do it.

4 a.m.

Can't sleep, can't cook.

5 a.m.

Read the Leicester Mercury, which my mother posts to me because it isn't available in London.

I was shocked to see that my old school, Neil Armstrong Comprehensive, has been deemed one of the 297 failing schools. A hit squad is due to stage a coup within days. In my time, when it was ruled by the headmaster 'Pop-Eye' Scruton, it had a good reputation. Its football team did well, and it regularly won the Midlands Inter-County Schools Chess Club Trophy. It also had a renowned school magazine, The Voice of Youth, edited by me. Then Roger Patience took over as headmaster. I expect he's sorry now that he asked the pupils to call him Roger, and told them to throw away their school uniforms.

Tuesday May 13th I wrote a letter to Delia Smith.

Dear Ms Smith, Forgive me for addressing you as 'Ms' if you are in fact a married woman. I am writing to you in the strictest confidence. I am absolutely certain that you will respect my wishes in this matter as I have read somewhere that you are a Christian woman. I, too, live by the tenets of the Christian philosophy. Though I have not been blessed, as you have, in that G.o.d has not visited me yet and a.s.sured me that He, or indeed She, exists. However, this letter is not about our respective positions on whether G.o.d exists or not. It is about cooking.

Perhaps you have heard of me. I am currently the Head Chef of Hoi Polloi.

My problem, Ms Smith, is that my position at Hoi Polloi does not require that I have any culinary skills. I simply defrost, boil, fry or warm up pre-cooked food. I literally cannot, satisfactorily, boil an egg.

I have searched the bookshops in vain for an absolutely basic cookery book. But in vain. Please help me. I have been asked to go on Cable TV's Millennium Channel to demonstrate my art, but there is no art. Please save me from utter humiliation.

I remain, Madam, your most humble and obedient servant.

A.A. Mole Wednesday May 14th I rang Pandora at the House of Commons this morning. A polite man on the switchboard said, 'Ah, Dr Braithwaite, the member for Ashby-de-la-Zouch. She hasn't been allocated an office yet, sir, but if you'd like to leave a message, I'll make sure her secretary gets back to you.'

I asked for the name of her 'secretary' and was mildly amused to be told that it was Edna Kent--the same name as Barry Kent's mother! A strange coincidence.

I have been reading Bridget Jones's diary in the Independent. The woman is obsessed with herself! She writes as though she were the only person in the world to have problems. I'm sure that it is quite brave to share your sad life with perfect strangers, even if they are Independent readers, and therefore composed largely of caring professionals.

I drafted a letter to Ms Jones.

Dear Bridget Jones, I have been reading your entries in the Independent, and we also have another tenuous connection. I am Peter Savage's Head Chef at Hoi Polloi. I will cut to the chase: I have kept a diary since I was 13 or thereabouts, and believe it may be of interest to the general reader, and also to Sociologists and future Historians.

How did you get your Diaries published?

I would be grateful if you would write back to me--or alternatively ring me at the Hoi Polloi and we can arrange to meet somewhere over a coffee (or a gla.s.s of white wine).

Yours, A.A. Mole PS. I am a non-smoker.

I've decided to record my own personal daily fluctuations.

Opal Fruits--2 pkts Alcohol--nil Cigarettes--nil Weight--10 stone, 8 pounds Bowels--sluggish Potential bald spot--stable Pains--throbbing in big toe (left foot) Spots--one, on chin p.e.n.i.s function--3/10 Drugs--Prozac, Nurofen Thursday May 15th Zippo lunched on braised brains at Hoi Polloi today. He wants me to make a 'pilot' on this coming Sunday afternoon. The working t.i.tle is to be Offally Good!. He thinks that offal is the coming thing in food fashion. 'Offal is the new black,' he said.

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I nodded politely. I haven't told anybody (apart from Delia Smith) about the making of the pilot.

I promised to go to Leicester this Sunday to see William, but I'll have to find an excuse. My mother must not find out. I could not bear her disappointment if Pie Crust Productions decide not to go ahead with a series. Also, she will only tell Tout Le Monde of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Listened to a discussion about the Queen's Speech in the kitchen. Malcolm was happy about the proposed Minimum Wage Bill, though Savage said if it becomes law he will sack us all and employ illegal immigrants from Somalia.

Friday May 16th Opal Fruits--3 pkts Alcohol--six double vodkas, 2 tonics Cigarettes--nil Drugs--4 Nurofen, 1 Jazz f.a.g (shared with Malcolm) Bowels--no movement Weight--10 stone 7 pounds Thinning patch--stable Spots--1 on chin (growing) p.e.n.i.s function--listless Edna Kent rang me at lunchtime today. Savage is still answering the telephone, though his jaw is wired together (no wonder bookings are down), so there was an initial confusion about who she was, and to whom she wanted to speak. It took a couple of minutes before I could fully take in the astonishing fact that Edna Kent, council tenant, widow of a milkman, eleven-plus failure, secondary-school drop-out, aged fifty-five, is indeed working in the House of Commons as the secretary of the cleverest woman in Britain.

I asked how she had made the dramatic change from lavatory cleaner to her present prestigious position. She laughed. 'Education, education, education,' she said, sounding like Malcolm. 'I used to clean lavvies at the university, and to be quite honest with you, Aidy, I've never heard such bleddy rubbish what them professors and lecturers talked in there. So I enrolled on one of them Access courses.' (I longed to interrupt her and say, 'Not them Access courses, Edna, it's those Access courses,' but, of course, I couldn't, I couldn't. I was talking to a graduate for Christ's sake. A double graduate.) 'My first degree's in Family Law,' she said. She had a head start on this one: the amount of times her children have been up before the courts. 'And my second is in Business Studies. Our Barry reckoned I ought to be up to date with the new technology, e-mail, and the web and suchlike.'

I could hardly speak. I felt a paroxysm of jealous rage. I managed to croak out, 'Well, congratulations, Mrs Kent. I had no idea you'd changed careers.'

'I kept it quiet,' she said. 'You know how jealous folk get round our way if you try to better yourself. Our Barry found that out when he had all that success.

'Well-deserved success,' I said, hypocritically. I think Barry Kent is a talentless fraud who has forged a career out of pandering to his fellow yobs. It kills me. Kills me to know that his Dork's Diary has been described as a modern cla.s.sic, and that eight years on it is still to be found in a prominent position in most good bookshops. Whenever I see its gaudy cover (a cat wearing a football shirt and football boots), I take great delight in hiding all copies behind the books of Charles d.i.c.kens, who is at least a competent writer of the English language.

Mrs Kent said, 'Anyroad up, Aidy, what was it you wanted? Only I've got a lot to do. Pan's working on her maiden speech and I'm trying to get to grips with me new laptop.'

Through gritted teeth I said, 'It's a personal matter, Mrs Kent. Ask her to phone me on my mobile, will you?'

I gave her the number and she said, 'You must come and see us at the House, Aidy. We can have tea on the terrace.'

After I'd put the phone down I thought of the last time I'd had tea with Mrs Kent. We'd been surrounded by the unruly Kent children, the teapot was cracked, the kitchen stank because of an overflowing cat-litter tray, and Mrs Kent was dressed in a wraparound pinafore, her lank hair tied back in an elastic band. At no time did she ever display the intelligence needed to study for two degrees. Whereas I, with my knowledge of world literature and extensive vocabulary, struggled mightily to get two A levels (each on the third attempt). Why? Why? Why?

Sat.u.r.day May 17th I rang my mother this morning and told her the lie that I had gone down with gastroenteritis, was dehydrated, never off the toilet, etc. While on the phone I asked her why she hadn't told me about Edna Kent's educational achievements. She went very quiet for a long time, and then said, 'Because I didn't know.'

Sunday May 18th Pentecost A truly terrible day. I arrived at the Brent Cross shopping-centre car park, to find that my car had been towed away five days ago and was in a police compound. A PS25 cab ride took me to somewhere in Archway, whereupon I found that I was required to stump up PS239. I did not have enough cash on me, and I had left my credit cards in my second-best jacket. I took another cab ride back to Dean Street (PS8.50), where I found my mother, father and William ensconced in my flat/storeroom. Savage had let them in, having managed to convey, through wired jaws, that I had lied to them about the gastroenteritis.

I found my Access card and persuaded my father to drive me to Purley, whereupon I managed to retrieve my car. Though it probably took a year off my life, so enraged was I. In fact, I could feel a stroke coming on as I signed the receipt and the credit slip. It didn't help when William decided to have one of his Vesuvius-like tantrums because I wouldn't stop the car and buy him a kid's meal at McDonald's. My mother insisted on coming to Pie Crust's production offices in Sh.o.r.editch, saying, 'This is something I have to see.' Her face fell when she saw that she would have to climb up six flights of fire escape.

Zippo and the others in the production team were very laid back about the fact that I had brought my family along, but I could tell that they were 'terribly amused'.

Zippo kissed my mother's hand, and complimented her on the shirt she was wearing. 'Is it Vivienne Westwood?' he murmured.

'No,' she murmured back. 'It's Bhs.'

'You clever thing,' he crooned.

He charmed my father by telling him an obscene joke about Prince Edward, and won William over by telling him that he drove a Ferrari in town, and a Cadillac pick-up truck in the country.

Because we were late there was no proper rehearsal time. After I'd changed into my chef's whites, a plump, middle-aged production a.s.sistant called Cath showed me quickly around the sink and stove. She opened the fridge and nodded towards a tray of a.s.sorted offal and several bowls of chopped-up vegetables. She pointed to the stock cubes, tapped on the saucepans, indicated the knife rack and pushed a jug full of wooden spoons towards me, all without speaking a word.

'Cath, who's the salt of the earth, will be helping out in the background,' said Zippo. 'Don't speak to her in front of the camera, whatever you do.'

'Is she a deaf mute?' I inquired.

'No,' said Zippo. 'We have to pay her Equity rates if she speaks.'

Somebody powdered my face and dabbed something on my lips. My mother spat on her forefinger and smoothed my eyebrows flat. The lights came on. Somebody else clipped a tiny microphone to my jacket.

Zippo shouted, 'OK, let's do it, people.' He pointed what he called a Steadicam towards me, the autocue started to roll, then his mobile went and he answered it, saying, 'Harvey, you old b.u.g.g.e.r! Yeah, it's called Young Love. We've got Goldie and Burt on board. It's 80 per cent financed. You will! You will! That's magnifique! Listen, Harvey, I'm in the middle of something tres, tres ordinaire, but can I call you back? Where are you? New York. Great! Great! Great! Great! Absolutely!'

My mother listened to this conversation with her lips parted and her tired eyes shining.

Zippo shouted to his PA, Belinda, 'We've got the green light for Young Love.' He turned back to me and said, 'Sorry about that, Adrian, but it's my first feature. OK, let's go through this as quickly as possible. Eh?'

It's not easy to read from an autocue while chopping offal at the same time, but here's what I said: 'Hi there, offal lovers or lovers of offal. It has to be said that offal has had a bad press. Jack the Ripper did this delicacy immeasurable harm and offal's image has never quite recovered. However, I hope to persuade you, our friends and viewers at home, that offal is the new black. So, if you've fed the cat, chomped on your Creme Egg and poured boiling water on to your Pot Noodles, all that remains is for you to grab a can of cider from the fridge. Push that essay to one side--you know you're never going to finish it. So, settle down and watch. I'm going to teach you how to make that pathetic student grant stretch. You can feed yourself really well for the price of a sheep's head and a few vegetables.'

William screamed when I produced a sheep's head from underneath the worktop, and he had to be taken out by my father when I cleavered the sheep's head in half. Unfortunately, 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' is his favourite nursery rhyme.

I looked into the camera lens and imagined 700,000 students watching. Some of them were bound to be studying French or French literature, so I threw in a few bons mots. As I scooped out the brains from the sheep's head I said, 'These are brains. Eating them won't necessarily make you clever, but who wants to be clever? As Flaubert said, 'If you want to be happy, it is necessary not to be too intelligent." I put the pieces of sheep's head in a stockpot full of water, with two lamb Oxo cubes and a sprinkling of dried rosemary. As it came to the boil, I lifted the sc.u.m off the top and said, 'This is sc.u.m. You'll be familiar with it if you frequent student-union bars.'

Zippo shouted, 'OK, that's it, it's a wrap.' There was applause, led by my mother. 'You're a natural, Aid,' he said. 'You pitched it perfectly. Liked the Flaubert, nice touch.' I didn't tell him that I'd been inspired by the Sylvia Plath rhyming slang.

Zippo had to rush off to Heathrow. He was going to LA to try and persuade Kim Basinger to make a trailer for his shows. For saying, 'Yum, if it's Pie Crust, it's gotta be good!' he's offering PS50,000. Belinda (small, white face, red, red, full lips, t.i.tian ringlets, DKNY sportswear and trainers) said that they'd be in touch to 'finalize a deal'.

As my mother and I trooped down the fire escape, she said, 'They'll st.i.tch you up good and proper unless you get somebody who knows what's what.'

When we got to the car, she repeated this witch's warning in front of my father. He concurred with her, saying, 'Yeah, they're all sharks, these public-school boys,' and then he offered himself as my manager! A man whose only jobs have been in potato wholesale, storage-heater sales, spice-rack construction and ca.n.a.l-bank renovation. I politely turned down his offer. The atmosphere in the car was tense. Even William kept his mouth shut for once.

When we got back to the flat my mother took me aside and hissed, 'Thank you very much for destroying your father's confidence. It took a full hour to persuade him to get out of bed and drive me down here because of your severe gastroenteritis, which was so bad yesterday morning that you said you might have to go into hospital, on a drip.'

William gave me a get-well card that he'd made out of painted eggsh.e.l.ls. I wish now that I had not told such a black lie: a grey one would have done perfectly well, and ensured that they'd all have stayed in Leicester. They left at 7 a.m.

My mother said she had to get back in time to walk the dog. She tried to kiss me, but I turned my cheek away from her adulterous lips.

Monday May 19th Pandora finally phoned me back at eight-thirty this morning. She said she'd already been to the gym and was now at her temporary desk in her temporary rooms in the Commons. I told her my suspicions about her father and my mother. She said, 'I know. They're in love--pathetic, isn't it?'

I asked her how she knew for sure, and she told me that she'd found a fax from my mother addressed to her father. It was a verse of a John Betjeman poem. I was amazed on two counts: (a) I didn't know that my mother had access to and knew how to use a fax machine.

(b) I didn't know that my mother liked the poetry of Sir John Betjeman, though I suppose he is still England's favourite modern poet. Just in front of Barry Kent (whom I wish were dead), Pam Ayres and Ted Hughes.

I asked her to fax the verse to me. She said she'd get Edna to do it. I asked her if our parents' affair could damage her politically. She said, 'I'm already under attack for wearing Chanel on election night. Some dreary little Labour Party Millbank apparatchik clad in a burgundy trouser suit from Principles said I must be seen to support the British fashion industry.'

I said, 'You're the Princess Di of the Commons, Pandora. You should set an example as she does.'

I heard the click of her lighter.

'Listen,' she said tersely, 'Princess Di may have been forced into wearing Catherine-b.l.o.o.d.y-Walker, but her handbags are still Hermes.'

I had no idea what she was talking about (I feel increasingly as though people are speaking in a sort of code, one to which I have been denied the key). I asked her what we ought to do about our parents. She laughed and said, 'We could encourage the other two, my mother and your father, to fall in love. They've both had mental health problems.'

'And they both dress badly.' I laughed. I asked Pandora if I could visit her in the House of Commons.

She said, I'm busy writing my maiden speech.'

I asked her what she proposed speaking about.

She said, 'You wouldn't be interested, Adrian.'

I said, 'Try me.'

She said, 'The recapitalization of defunct manufacturing industries.'

She was right. I wasn't interested.

Wednesday May 21st Kim Savage turned up at the restaurant just as lunch was about to be served to a full dining room. She overturned the bubble-and-squeak trolley and threw several bottles of HP sauce at the bar (only narrowly missing Nigel Dempster's head). The police were called, but she'd gone by the time they arrived, shrieking, 'That's what I think to your f--injunction!'

Savage went around the tables growling, 'See what you get when you marry into the lower cla.s.ses.' He seemed uncaring of the fact that several members of the government and a high-ranking union official were in the room.

Thursday May 22nd Hoi Polloi was thronging with reporters from the tabloids and one from the Peterborough column in the Telegraph today. They were hoping, no doubt, for a report of yesterday's Kim Savage attack, which made most of the gossip columns in this morning's papers: SAVAGE ATTACK.

Kim Savage, estranged fourth wife of Peter Savage (restaurateur and second son of the Earl of Boswell), astonished lunchers in Savage's fashionable Soho eatery, Hoi Polloi, yesterday, when she ran somewhat amok in the dining room, breaking a court injunction to stay away from the upmarket caff. Mrs Savage shouted at her cowering husband, 'And I know all about you and Ivana Trump, you dirty little s--.'

Mrs Savage, formerly society florist Kim Didcott, left the restaurant sobbing, comforted by a member of staff who commented, 'As Tolstoy said, each family is unhappy in its own way.'

Savage lined us all up tonight and demanded to know the name of the member of staff who comforted 'that mad b.i.t.c.h'.

n.o.body said a word, but everyone in the kitchen knows that I am a quarter of the way through War and Peace.

No word from Belinda of Pie Crust No reply from Ms Smith Alcohol--nil Cigarettes--nil Opal Fruits--4 pkts Drugs--1 paracetamol Bowels--large release of gas Thin patch--no change p.e.n.i.s activity--5/10 Friday May 23rd Another snippet from the Daily Mail gossip column.

Yesterday's erudite spokesman on the sad business of the Savage marriage break-up has been revealed as Adrian t.u.r.d' Mole, Head Chef at Hoi Polloi. An insider said, 'He's been seen reading the Russian cla.s.sics in lulls between courses.'

However, a little bird chirrups in my ear that Adrian may not be working at Hoi Polloi for much longer. He has been approached by Zippo Montefiori's company, Pie Crust Productions, and is set to join the ever-growing ranks of TV cooks.