Graham Young is a teenage misfit living in suburban London in the 1960s. He hates his stepmother but loves chemistry, and the two impulses unite in a wicked plot to slowly poison her. After she dies, he's found guilty and sent to a psychiatric hospital, where an idealistic doctor thinks he can be cured.

Welsh investigative journalists set out to cover the Troubles in Northern Ireland only to unearth censorship and corruption back home.

When Mikey's parents discover he has failed his accountancy exams for the third time, they are concerned. When he falls in love with a girl from the Salvation Army, they are horrified. Fleeing from the disapproval of his parents and the Jewish community Mikey finds help from a sage with a six-foot beard.

Katie can read minds. Being desirable, the male minds she reads are all thinking of one thing. She always responds by hitting them and storming off without explanation. Daniel is an expert in body language and interprets this as a sign she wants to be pursued. Since Daniel spends most of his time, when not terrorizing his students, pursuing women, Katie gets ever more exasperated that he is treating her exactly as he treats every presentable female from the motorcycle cop to the squeegee girl. She cannot read minds when her eyes are covered, or when minds are thinking in a foreign language, so she misinterprets Sandip's desire for hunger. She also holds Daniel responsible for his subconscious desire for his friend's wife (Caroline).