Hilarious and touching, a novel that just goes to show that not all men in their 30s run screaming from the prospect of fatherhood Tim Wright's friends are abandoning him. He still feels young and irresponsible at the age of 34, but his most reliable drinking buddies have been retiring from action. They've produced no less than 20 of these whining menaces in the past two years, transforming his friends into sleepless zombies who are incapable of doing anything more than feeding and changing their demanding offspring. At least Tim's frustration is giving him some great material for his standup comedy career. Audiences love it when he talks about the deadly new threat to his way of life, Al Childa, whose members simply cannot be negotiated with and pack deadly chemical weapons in their nappies. And now that he's a bit of a celebrity, Tim finds that younger, single women are much more impressed by someone they've seen on TV. But he's discovering that it's impossible to make a real connection with someone who's only talking to you because you're on first-name basis someone famous. Then, as if life weren't already difficult enough, his friend Sally rents an apartment around the corner after her husband leaves her, a mere two years after Tim was cracking jokes at their wedding, and she expects her old buddy, with his conspicuous lack of a day job, to help mind her six-month-old baby, Fabian.