The Diary of a Nobody the first, "The Diary of a Somebody", is a direct reference to the Grossmith original. Reviewing this volume in "The Spectator", Benny Green points out several parallels with the original, in both character and event. Matthew's book, says Green, is amusing, but the Grossmiths' book is superior; it is "affecting as well as comical, in a way that the Matthew pastiche is not". In 1982 came the first appearance of Sue Townsend's teenage creation, Adrian Mole, whose passage into young manhood and early middle age is charted in a long series of diaries. The more middle-aged he becomes, says Morton,
Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years further with his prostate trouble. As Adrian's worries multiply, a phone call to his old flame Dr Pandora Braithwaite ignites memories of a shared passion and makes him wonder—is she the only one who can save him now? Daisy is now married to Adrian and is living with him in "The Piggeries", to her constant misery. She and Adrian grow further apart during the course of the book and she leaves him as a result, following an affair with a wealthy landowner Hugh Fairfax-Lycett. Gracie is Adrian and Daisy's young daughter. She enjoys dressing up in her favourite costumes in