Rather than a diary, Tom doodles frenetically in his workbook, creating unflattering portraits of his unfortunate teachers (Mrs Worthington's moustache is singled out for particular attention) and writing songs to pillory his long-suffering teenage sister with his incipient band, the Dogzombies.
That is an unfortunate lapse in a shallow, cynical portrait of an insatiably ambitious politician who has no compunctions about acting like a spoiled, petulant pop star.
In 1991 she returned with the two-part television western Son of the Morning Star, but this nuanced portrait of Custer suffered unfortunate and unfair comparisons to Dances with Wolves, which had been released three months previously.
That brings us back to Bush's self-portraits, which have the unfortunate appearance of having been painted by numbers.
The good news for the Charles Dickens museum in London is that it does own an original portrait of the writer's unfortunate wife, Catherine, by an important Victorian artist.
He said she could convey many moods, including "the sweetness of an 18-century pastel, the allure of a Sargent portrait, of the poignancy of some unfortunate woman who sat for Modigliani".
Further social events also turn sour: a lunch party with Mr Finsworth, the father of an old friend, is marred by some unfortunate comments by Pooter on the Finsworth family portraits.
When an episode called "Portrait of a Murderer" ended, it created an unfortunate juxtaposition: after the killer was executed, the show cut to an ad with the slogan "Nothing but gas does so many jobs so well".
Take "Tasered," for instance, a sensitive portrait of a homeless stroke victim who had an unfortunate encounter with some nervous police officers.
In Tony Palmer's documentary, A Family Portrait (Channel 4, 1991), she came across as bossy and querulous, an unfortunate impression that friends were quick to challenge.
