Remembering Adrian Mole and Sue Townsend on their birthdays today

[OneBusyFinch]

oh these wonderful wonderful books, still make me laugh and I do re-read frequently!

Adrian would have been 58 today and the superb Sue Townsend would have been celebrating her 80th birthday.

I loved the TV series of this. The one where he got the plane stuck on his nose was hilarious.

Yes, great thread. I too thought Adrian or ( A. Drain Mole) was my age too (58), but never mind! I remember lots of funny bits from the books ; the hooting of swans outside his warehouse flat or the book without language ( Sparg from Kronk?!) and, of course, the Norwegian leather industry graph!

One more of my favourite quotes - and a particularly seasonal one!:

Poor Jesus, it must have been dead awful for him. I wouldn't have the guts to do it myself.

His words were old-fashioned. Lavatory. A meticulous toilette. Perambulations around the Outer Ring Road. Daisy sneers at him for calling her "contrapositional".

Brand names were mentioned all the time in the book, especially Marks and Spencer. Adrian didn't accidentally shoplift oranges, it was Outspan oranges.

"Her breasts were, as I recall, slightly larger than Jaffa oranges, but not quite as large as Marks and Spencer's grapefruits."

I came on to say exactly this.
My sister and I wrote a spoof version about a disastrous rail trip we took on a bank holiday and it was very influenced by Adrian's account of the British museum trip!

Adrian, I’m taking you to be abandoned 😆

These quotes are pure nostalgia!

I loved 'Barry Kent's pathetic entry' to the Youth Club Poetry Competition, beating Adrian's 'Hymn to the Modern Poor' which Pandora says is a work of genius.

Nice, red, tall, stiff,
In a vase,
On a table,
In a room,
In our house.

Rick Lemon says the poem has Japanese cultural influences. The closest Barry Kent will get to those is sitting on the pillar of a stolen Honda.

I say this to my 13 year old all the time when he’s driving me crazy.

I treated myself to the entire series for Mother's Day and devoured them all over the next couple of weeks. Absolutely wonderful.

Laugh out loud funny but with moments of real poignancy. There's a line in The Cappuccino Years which makes me cry (paraphrasing slightly):

" I wish sometimes I wasn't a parent, even when I am alone I carry Glenn and William with me, across my shoulders and inside my heart."

I loved the bit where Adrian's grandma gets all his money back from Barry Kent and Barry is ashamed to show his face in front of his gang!

"I wondered what Tony Blair would do and felt sure that tears would not be far away."

I really enjoyed the books, especially those which were really a vehicle to criticise Tony Blair.

First two are absolutely unbeatable…. That said, the one where he lives in Pandora’s box room while she’s seeing Cavendish is also fantastic. Grandma Mole dying makes me cry every time. Putting her Yorkshire pudding tin away 😢

Howling.
I've just bought the first 2 books on Kindle for a re-read. Absolutely hilarious.

This is such a lovely thread, thank you for starting it @OneBusyFinch I think I might spend my bank Hholiday re-reading the books.

I would also recommend the Queen and I.

When Adrian runs away from home, he writes another time logged report:
Remember sleeping bag. Try to pack in suitcase.
Get in another rage.
Kick suitcase across bedroom floor.
Crumblies shout from bedroom, demanding to know what noise is about.

Rang home, but the phone wasn’t snatched up immediately like it is in the films about runaway children. Another sign of their indifference.

When he returns home, he has a very severe depression lasting a week, and a psychologist is ordered, who listens with grave attention, and gives advice including: I’ve never heard of a sixteen year old having his own poetry programme on Radio Four. You must set yourself realistic targets.

We are doing exactly that; we are just starting a unit on comedy for our Y10s and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole is one of the unit's key texts.

@Angelil do the kids enjoy Adrian?

Thanks for this thread. Every year on the 2nd April I think of him.

There isn’t a month of my life since the early 80s that a phrase or quote from Adrian Mole didn’t come to mind. My favourite, the poem in the birthday card to his mother, when he bought a card for an 18 year old but cunningly turned it into 38 with the use of some lentils:

A-tremble on the edge of life
One day to be a mum and wife
But now it’s music, fun and laughter,
Why should you care what’s coming after?

Is funny, poignant and a warning!

I’ve got them all. The first book is falling apart, I should really buy a new copy but it wouldn’t feel the same.

I’m going to read them all again now, love this thread.

I also need to read them again. Although it was always just the first two, we had them in our toilet, all our family read them until they fell apart.
I'm going to get them on my kindle.
A forgotten joy.

Love Adrian Mole!
I recently bought a “Just My Luck’ mug. and every time I use it I hear myself saying it like Adrian 😂

They’ve been filming in Hartlepool last couple of weeks for a series or film of Adrian Mole.

its a remake of the secret diary of Adrian mole. Exciting!