Giles Wareing has started telling people he is forty, even though he is actually thirty-nine years and eleven months. It is supposed to help him conquer the fear, but in fact he has only given the fear a four-week head start. Giles works freelance for a national newspaper, writing amusing articles about the VHS-Betamax 'format wars' of the late 1970s; the origins of the word 'derring-do'; the history of the 1804 silver dollar. He lives in West London with his wife, Caroline, and their two boys. Caroline and Giles' communication these days is mostly limited to statements of (unwelcome) fact: 'The shed leaks.' 'The microwave is broken.' So far, so mid-life crisis. Until, one day, feeling particularly fortyish, he happens to type 'Giles Wareing plus unfunny' into a search engine. And that is when he discovers the thread. The thread is called 'The Giles Wareing Haters' Club', and is entirely devoted to holding everything he has ever written up to excoriating criticism and ridicule - a place that has hitherto existed only in Giles's most speculative nightmares. As Giles becomes obsessed with tracking down the thread's participants in order to ...well, set them straight on a few things.