Russian born Dominic is one of the success stories of the eighties, when yuppies made fortunes on the stock market.

Ray Tebbutt is among the unlucky ones. He was involved in a bankruptcy in the mid-eighties.

Peter Petrik, a dissident Czech film director, lives in Prague, dreaming of making more films when times improve.

The lifelines of these people and others – comic and sad by turns in true Aldiss fashion – converge towards the finality of an IRA bomb epuisode in Great Yarmouth.