When we last met our hero in Unreliable Memoirs, he had set sail from Sydney Harbour bound for London, fame, and fortune. Idealistic and uncompromising, if short on cash, he planned to engage himself in a low-paying menial job by day and to compose poetical masterpieces by night. Having promised himself he would never succumb to such stop-gap occupations as publishing or advertising, he was happily unsuccessful in landing either jobat least initially. Positions with London Transport and as a wine expert were likewise denied him. Scarcely daunted, he moved into a bed and breakfast in a Swiss Cottage where he practised the Twist, anticipated the poetical masterpieces, and worried about his wardrobe.Already movie mad, he goes opera mad and persist in his efforts to drive young woman mad. No on else could have captured the absurdities and sublimities of the erly Sixties of the rigourus of being an alien in the motherland itch such aplomb.

'Make no mistake, Clive James is an artist... I have my own memories and adventures of youth and erly manhood, but Clive has done it so well he has done it for us all'