His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night & then as a mausoleum. During the night too hed somehow been on a cross-country run & then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad. Jix Dixon has a terrible job at a second-rate university. His life is full of things he could happily do without: the tedious & ridiculous Professor Welch a neurotic & unstable girlfriend Margaret burnt sheets medieval recorder music & over-enthusiastic students. If he can just deliver a lecture on Merrie England a moderately successful career surely awaits him. But without luck life is never simple...