Northern girl Harriet lives and works on a London estate which is a battleground between the white working class plus the immigrants versus the newly arrived middle class focaccia-eaters. Unhappy and overweight, she hires a personal trainer who lures her into joining the martial arts class he runs. There she learns the regime of the completely phoney martial arts 'master' and embarks on a spiritual and literal journey which leads her to a hotel opposite the railway station at Crewe, the 'Weeping Women Hotel'. This is Alexei Sayle's best work to date -- good plot, great characters plus his trademark anarchic black humour.

'It is wonderfully entertaining and tells us a lot about what it's like to live in 21st century Britain.' - Jonathan Coe, Guardian. 'Darkly humorous...an eccentric, bleak and wonderfully self-assured novel.' - Daily Telegraph. 'Like a psychopathic ringmaster in a circus, Sayle ushers in his cast of characters...He makes them perform their surreal little dance, about vengeance, and guilt, and the casual brutality of life, and then, with a shrug, he feeds them to the lions.' - Independent

Alexei Sayle is a comedian, actor, presenter and writer. His television work as a writer and performer includes The Young Ones, Alexei Sayle's Stuff, and The All New Alexei Sayle Show. He has written regularly for the Observer, Independent, Time Out, Car Magazine and Esquire and he has appeared in numerous films, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to Gorky Park and Swing.