Arnold digs himself deeper.

I managed to get a whole ten pages of my new novel this week. Arnold, my sort of hero, is trying to go places I hadn't imagined. So I've decided to write two books simultaneously. First I'm going to write it as I planned, and at the same time, as it begins to slip off into odd tangents, as all my books do, I'm also going to write that and see which is better at the end.
  This is a small snippet from the planned version. I'm not making him intentionally obnoxious, it's just the way he is.

Arnold finally got home an hour later, moderately hopeful that his luck was turning. Even Doris seemed in a good mood, throwing her arms around his shoulders in a rare display of affection. That she also covered said shoulders in a thick coating of something white and smelly did nothing to dampen her mood.

  ‘I’ve been so worried about you,’ she said returning to whatever it was she was preparing. Arnold hated to look these days and usually begged off eating, complaining of toothache or stress. It was those damned evening classes. knitting one’s own yoghurt or growing denim seemed an unlikely pastime judging from the company she kept there, most of whom wore crew cuts, sported bulging biceps and facial piercings, and that was just the women. He harboured a suspicion that it was a meeting place for lesbian terrorists. Not that he ever mentioned such fears to Doris who seemed to enjoy herself there. But if it kept her happy then he was happy. Lord knew that he had not done much to make her smile recently.

   He was fine he told her, ducking as an exceptionally large sheet of pastry almost engulfed her head.

   ‘Well just you see it stays that way,’ she replied in mock severity, and seeing that her attention had left him he slithered from the kitchen and upstairs.