Ruth Ellis lives with her ten-year old son Andy next to a night club. One night she meets David Blakely, and they start a love affair. However, for David with his upper-class background, it is impossible to uphold the relationship. He breaks up with her, something which makes Ellis, obsessed by him, very upset.
Dominick Hide, a time traveller from the year 2130, is studying the London transport system of 1980. Time travellers are supposed to be observers, and are strictly forbidden to land their flying saucers. One time traveller who broke this rule accidentally killed a dog, changing history and causing many future people to disappear. Inspired by his Great Aunt Mavis, Dominick decides to find his great great grandfather. He begins to land in 1980, where his strange clothes and speech make him seem an eccentric oddball. His quest brings him into contact with beautiful boutique owner Jane, and they fall in love. As Dominick's visits become more frequent and more prolonged, he increasingly risks his indiscretion being discovered by his boss, Caleb Line, and every moment he spends in the past increases the danger that he will catastrophically change the future
' He's wasted his life and yours, Olive, on this sort of idiocy. He could have been a headmaster by now, if he'd stuck to teaching.' Jack Dunn is determined to beat the system with pen and postage stamp.
Accident-prone Gil wants a steady job but is dismissed by every company that recruits him due to his unfortunate habit of ending up in sexually embarrassing situations. His girlfriend Annette says that she will marry him only if he can stay employed for at least a week. Hired by Mr Grimwood's cleaning company "Here To Service You", Gil is unwittingly drawn into a series of bawdy misadventures: sharing a bath with a married woman and getting caught by her husband; having a threesome with a hospital patient and a woman doctor, followed by a foursome with Annette, Grimwood and a woman psychologist; awkward encounters with a gay man and a lesbian; and getting caught by Annette playing strip poker with a group of women. Incredibly, Gil remains in his job and Annette marries him, but before the couple can have their wedding night Gil collapses on the bed and passes out from exhaustion.