Mary lands a job with a lecherous boss, and Rab, fearing she may dump him, turns to his pal Jamesie Cotter for advice on improving his love life.

Mary has a new job, but her boss seems a bit too friendly, which makes Rab think that she's having an affair.

A strange new affliction is visited on the Nesbitt household. Rab's younger son Burney has been diagnosed as gifted and begins attending weekend classes for advanced tuition. But as his talent blossoms, so do the thorns of jealousy and resentment, as Rab and elder son Gash are left hungry in the emotional wasteland.

With Ella's biological clock ticking loudly and husband Jamesie less potent than a seedless orange, parenthood seems a pretty unlikely prospect. Fortunately, Rab offers to supply the wherewithal needed for such a delicate operation.

The beer-swilling Scottish sage decides to behave respectably on his release from jail. But with Burney adopting fascist tendencies, Gash on drugs, Mary at her wits end, and a new Tory local councillor to boot, will Rab's fresh outlook escape the tarnish of a world spinning out of control?

Rab is thrown into a grimy police cell for being drunk and disorderly and is shocked to find a guard pointing aballoon at him.