How do you overcome a mundane upbringing in boring Bournemouth and find fame and fortune? Paul Darling's answer is to weave a web of fantasies and lies around himself - but the only result is a dead end job on the local newspaper, until a chance meeting with an old friend offers him an escape. He moves to London where he rises rapidly up life's rollercoaster - gaining influential friends, an aristocratic girlfriend, a burgeoning career among the movers and shakers - And then the rollercoaster plunges downhill.