Marigold and I quarrelled last night as to which of us has the most monstrous mother and only stopped when Marigold screamed, 'You couldn't find my clitoris if you were led there by Sir Ranulph Fiennes!' After she'd slammed out I consulted The Joy of Sex and discovered that I'd probably been paying too much attention to relatively unimportant bits of her genitalia whilst ignoring the clitoris. Yet it had been staring me in the face for the last eighteen months...

Adrian Mole is thirty-four and three quarters and worried. About the 'pathetic slide towards gum disease, wheelchair ramps and death'; about whether or not he can get a refund on his holiday to Cyprus; about his engagement to flaky New Ager Marigold Flowers; and about his failure to find a celebrity speaker for his writing group's Christmas dinner.