I'm pretty keen on reading, me. It's right up with some one of my favourite things to do, which at the moment also includes: Telling the dog I love her, telling the dog she is annoying, pretending to tidy my room, thinking I really should take down the posters on my wall that I have had up since I was a teenager, thinking I really should probably move out again, singing very badly and loudly (this morning it was Teenage Dirtbag) and of course, painting by numbers.
I have always been keen on reading. I was quite strange when I was a nipper, this isn't a "by all accounts" sort of statement, I really was an oddo and I have very distinct memories of hiding under desks, away from classmates, reading. This may have been partly because I was incredibly shy but also partly because I was odd. Which is fine, who wasn't odd when they were a kid? I spend most of my time being odd as an adult and it's working out pretty great.
Anyway, I had some vague aspirations to dedicate some of this blog to writing about books I have read and films I have seen, which I will probably attempt to do at some point, although I'm currently reading Middlemarch so it will be a few years before I do a "recently read review". That was my intention, and will be shall we say, my long term intention, but today I just want to write about Adrian Mole.
I love Adrian Mole. I love his dysfunctional parents, his thin-lipped grandmother, the dog and the many other characters that drift through his world (special shout outs to Bert, Queenie, John Tydema of the BBC, Miss Elf, Rat Fink Lucas and Nigel). I was reading Adrian Mole before I was capable of spelling my own surname properly. I have actual evidence of this.
The thing about reading Adrian (or should I say Adrain) Mole is that even on reading it for the thousandth time, I will still find something which I hadn't picked up on before. There are so many subtleties, cultural references and comments hidden in Adrian's ignorance which never struck me. For example, before I was old enough to realise that War and Peace is an epic thousand page tome, I hadn't realised the joke behind Adrian claiming to start it on May 16th and then claiming to have finished it on May 18th with the remark that it was "quite good".
I'd say that Adrian Mole is my ultimate comfort read. I should probably add the disclaimer that whilst I have read the complete series, my preference is upon the early years. Whilst he is perpetually unwittingly the butt of jokes, both for the reader and almost everyone he has any interaction with, he is easily forgiven. When he gets older though it's harder to comprehend his behaviour and there is a distinctly darker rift throughout. In many ways he is a tragic figure, but then simultaneously he can be deeply unsympathetic. I know it's a cop out but the early years leave no bitter taste behind, they just make me happy. The school trip to the British Museum is practically the definition of my happy place, as well as the ill advised camping trip which he went on and ended up having to survive off cheese because his eggs broke, his biscuits got crushed, his bread got wet and he didn't bring a tin opener. I've been there. Cheese is life.
Oh and also the parental (well, by parental I mean mother and her lover, Rat Fink Lucas) climbing trip which is so good it deserves a proper shout out:
"It is Mrs Ball's birthday so they all came back to our log cabin to celebrate. I complained about the noise at 1.am, 2.am, 3.am and 4.am. At 5.am they decided to climb the mountain! I pointed out to them that they were blind drunk, too old, unqualified, unfit and lacking in any survival techniques, had no first-aid kit, weren't wearing stout boots and had no compass, map or sustaining hot drinks.
My protests fell on deaf ears. They all climbed the mountain, came down and were cooking eggs and bacon by 11:30am. As I write, Mr and Mrs Ball are canoeing on the loch. They must be on drugs."
Adrian Mole everybody, the love of my life.
