Jonathan Mouse's diary

Aug 01

1988, April 20th

Father sends a postcard from Russia: “Weather lovely.
Absolutely no sodomy happening here at all. Love to Boots.” Boots
is his new name for mother. School on Monday.1 Rutty and cricket. I can’t stop eating almonds.2

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1 Like many English, the Mouses hated their child and
sent him away to be punished at a private school. He duly had a
miserable time. In later life, Jonathan Mouse was a prominent
member of the Bring Back the Birch campaign.
2 A nut.

Jul 31

1988, April 8

Father has announced that his round-the-world trip will proceed through only those countries where sodomy is banned. The whole world’s going bottom crazy and it’ll soon be too late. He’s marked with clay buttocks1 the “cursed lands” on an atlas and flies from the Isle of Man to Jersey on Tuesday.2 ————————————————————————————————

1 Buttocks in clay were the specialty of Cornish artist Jethro Jasper (d. 1955). Jasper’s work became popular in the mid 80s, pieces selling for as much as £30. Cornwall is an area of the UK where the Corns live. For historical reasons it has its own army.

2 I can find no evidence that Roger Mouse made this trip.

Jul 14

July 14: From the Daily Telegraph

“This is the greatest discovery since the Hitler diaries,” said
Harvard historian Niall Ferguson on Wednesday. The unearthing of
several thousand journals and cassette tapes belonging to
Jonathan Mouse, dead, will certainly excite the popular diarist’s
many fans. According to a source in the excavation team,
the material, which covers Mouse’s teenage years, contains “more
of the same sort of stuff, really. I don’t read it myself.” The
cache was buried in sullen crevices. [AND SO IT CONTINUES]

Jul 09

June 14: From an obituary in the Daily Mail

The world of light entertainment was in mourning yesterday when
the news broke that Jonathan Mouse, a popular diarist, had had
his spinal column snapped by peasants at the age of just 52.
Friend Lesley Joseph spoke for several thousand when she said,
“This is the saddest day of my life and the blackest of any
century. Jonathan was a 26-year-old scented candle snuffed out by
the clumsy man-servant of fate.” Despite his low-pitched voice
and increasingly normal behaviour, Jonathan Mouse had in theory
been homosexual for some time. His greatest loves in later years,
however, were a raspberry patch, which he tended as if it was a
sick child, and brandy. Neighbours say that a recent theft from
the patch “tipped him over the edge” and caused him to utter the
words that annoyed the peasants in the Somerset village where
Mouse had a second home which he purchased for 2.5 million pounds
in 2007 at the age of just 33 at the height of the property boom.
Mouse’s life had not always been blessed with riches. In fact
[AND SO IT CONTINUES].

Jul 08

June 13: Not enough rope

9.00. ANNOUNCEMENT. This will be the last entry in my diary
because by 3.30 this afternoon I shall be dead. I said the wrong
words to the wrong man and he repeated the wrong words to
somebody quite important and one thing led to another and the
upshot is I’m to be hanged by the neck outside the Olde Sheep by
very cross villagers. The Home Secretary has rightly proved deaf
to the loathsome entreaties made on my behalf by several
B-and-three-quarter-list celebrities. So, that’s it, folks. Look
out for the video on YouTube. Tags: jonathan mouse death; the
only language they understand; edutainment; haha

Jul 05

June 12: Living cliché, part 4 of 1826

16.07. Trying to explain to an overzealous officer why I’ve been
kissing babies this afternoon.
16.18. He tells me that many politicians are functional nonces.
16.20. Quite often they are unable to restrain themselves from using tongues when presented with the kiddywinks.
16.21. He claims that the thought of Harriet Harman French
kissing a toddler “makes me sick to my fucking stomach”. I agree
and we part on good terms.

Jul 04

June 11: Tigger is all right really.

15.07. Some men stole my raspberries.
15.10. A passer-by told me “they went that way”, but on reflection I
think he may have been one of the men in disguise.
15.15. Should I report this crime? On the one hand, a grave
personal injury has inflicted suppurating psychological
wounds that may never heal and soft fruit is expensive. On the
other hand, I’d feel a bit silly.

Jul 03

June 10: Living cliché, part 2 of 1826

9.00. The social experiment continues.
9.01. Today I am “the man on the doorstep”.
10.21. I neither sit nor scrub nor insert dog excrement into the
letterbox. I am sorry to say that Cedric, my Pekingese, has had his
anus removed by an immigrant.
10.55. I make pleasant-enough small talk with the woman next
door.
11.27. I am ready with an opinion on the
“Eurozone crisis”, which I watched on the news last
night. My opinion is “enough is enough”; “let them starve”; and
“Hitler wept”.
21.02. Tomorrow I shall be “asking for a hand up not a handout”.

Jul 02

June 9: Living cliché, part 1 of 1826

9.00. Every day for the next five years, I shall voluntarily
enter in to the political cliché on the flappy lips du jour.
9.01. Today I: “respond to what’s happening
on the ground.”
9.21. Not much going on down there so far.
14.45. I think I’ve just seen a mouse.

Jul 01

June 8: A tale of everyday country folk

18.57. ‘“What’s tha looking so red about, George?”
“I sawed her all right.” Will woodman George confess to
voyeurism or murder? The Archers, next.’