Stanley Williams: single, in his thirties and grieving the death of his Jamaican father, Clasford, wonders if there's more to life than his nine-to-five banking job in a sky-high glass menagerie, with weekends off for good behaviour, if he's lucky.

One Friday night he's dragged by his mates to Mingles Discotheque, Piccadilly Circus.

Enter Jessie O'Donnell: older, barmaid, former singer-cum-comedienne, and desperate to get into her rusty old Lada Niva and hit the freeway across Europe. When Jessie meets the strait-laced Stanley she gives him such a proverbial kick up the backside, he finds himself suddenly flying off his perch with no safety net to catch him.

Thus begins an odyssey for Stanley which turns into a transformational road movie co-starring Jessie as unorthodox love interest, and with cameo appearances by colourful characters from the dusty archives of European history. Featured artists include Shakespeare's 'Dark Lady of the Sonnets', Pushkin and his Ethiopian great-grandfather, the mixed-race Alessandro de' Medici of Florence, the Chevalier de St. Georges and other forgotten...fleeting...floating...luminaries...