Adrian Mole Adrian Mole Adrian Albert Mole is the fictional protagonist in a series of books by English author Sue Townsend. The character first appeared (as "Nigel") in a BBC Radio 4 play in 1982. The books are written in the form of a diary, with some additional content such as correspondence. The first two books appealed to many readers as a realistic and humorous treatment of the inner life of an adolescent boy. They also captured something of the zeitgeist of the UK during the Thatcher period. The series has many themes. The first books concentrate on Adrian's desires and ambitions
The Diary of a Nobody more than 15 million copies in 40 countries. In the 1990s the satirical magazine "Private Eye" lampooned John Major, British prime minister 1990–97, in "The Secret Diary of John Major aged 47", a hybrid of the Adrian Mole diaries with "The Diary of a Nobody", which made much fun of Major's lower-middle class origins. The social historian James Hammerton defines "Pooterism" as "the dependent weakness and inflated social pretension of white-collar workers, constructed in the workplace but expressed just as powerfully at home". Jon Wilde of "The Guardian" observes this characteristic in a number of British TV comedy creations of