The Dewsbury Desperadoes are on their way to Pontefract for a gig at the Allied Butchers & Architects Club.  The girl with the chestnut eyes is on her way to somewhere.  And Raymond is heading for Gulag Grimsby.
Raymond Marks is a normal boy, from a normal family, in a normal northern town.  His dad left home after falling in love with a five-string banjo;  his fun-hating grandma believes she should have married Jean-Paul Sartre.  Felonious Uncle Jason and appalling Aunty Paula are lusting after the satellite dish;  frogs are flattened on Failsworth Boulevard;  and sickening Sonia's being sick in the majestic cathedral of words.  
Raymond Marks is a normal boy.  Until, on the banks of the Rochdale Canal, the flytrapping craze begins and, for Raymond and his Mam, nothing is ever quite so normal again.