40-year-old Eric Feeble is still upset over his divorce two years before. He lives in a middle-class London house and is always kept under extreme amounts of pressure and stress from all aspects of life, which is represented by a throbbing vein in his temple. His two children, Brian and Claire, plague him with fear and worry daily. Claire is a frail 6-year-old who is allergic to virtually everything, including wheat, ponies, and spices; 10-year-old Brian has learning problems and has been kept back three straight years in school, and has an oral fixation and pica. The family's au pair housekeeper, Maria, is an 18-year-old Portuguese woman with a serious drinking problem; despite Eric's frequent attempts to keep her under control and focused, she stays passed-out drunk for hours at a time. His former wife Liz left him for a Buddhist but phones him up incessantly, which merely adds to his stress level. The next-door neighbours, the wealthy, successful, snobbish Perfect family, provide him a constant and painful view of what his life could have been.