"Perhaps when I am famous and my diary is discovered people will understand the torment of being a 13¾ -year-old undiscovered intellectual," writes Adrian Mole on Sunday 25 January, third after Epiphany.

From the confines of his parents' semi in a Leicester cul-de-sac, Adrian records his artistic crises and his battles with depression, the slow growth of his "thing" and the funny feelings he gets when he thinks about the wobbling chest of the love of his life, Pandora. In the 30 years since the book was first published, millions have discovered  and recognised  the torment felt by Townsend's great comic creation.

Just as a pimple always feels much larger on one's own face, so the adolescent trials of Adrian seem like near-death experiences, only to be squeezed into insignificance by Townsend's heartbreaking deflation. Hell bent on self-improvement, the hapless Adrian anchors each episode of his life to a great work of literature. When his parents separate, he reads Madame Bovary; when the electricity is cut off, he squints at Hard Times by candlelight. With admirable honesty, Adrian tells it like it is: "Nothing in my life is simple or straightforward any more. I feel like a character in a Russian novel half the time."

Despite his existential angst, occasional rays of sunshine do pierce through Adrian's black bedroom walls (painting over the Noddy wallpaper proves a real nightmare). For one, there is the love he feels for the treacle-haired Pandora, the posh girl with a pony who stimulates his radical side by forming the Red Sock Committee in his honour. And, of course, there's his poetry. Although never accepted by the BBC, his verse on dripping taps is nonetheless not entirely written off. So he buys some purple paper and sends more. And that's the enduring charm of Adrian, surely a national treasure by now: he's nothing if not a trier.