 At the opening of the book, Bowling has a day off work to go to London to collect a new set of false teeth.A news-poster about the contemporary King Zog of Albania sets off thoughts of a biblical character Og, King of Bashan that he recalls from Sunday church as a child.Along with 'some sound in the traffic or the smell of horse dung or something' these thoughts trigger Bowling's memory of his childhood as the son of an unambitious seed merchant in "Lower Binfield" near the River Thames.