Publisher's Synopsis
A frightened boy nurses a huge hand wrapped in bloody swabbing cloths while two butchers crawl about in the sawdust. 'It's no use. It must have gone in the mincer like I said,' said one, straightening up. 'He chopped off his finger and we can't find it,' he explained to the ambulance crew who were supporting the stricken boy to this feet. 'Mincer, mincer,' ran through the crowd like a flame. Inevitably, the finger ends up in a spaghetti bolognese - knocked up by John Wood for his uncle Cecil, who lives in semi-squalor with a goat and a goldfish. Racked with guilt for his cannibalism, John sees his life start to crumble. Out of work, he moves with his long suffering wife and kids into Cecil's menagerie. Everyone is depressed: poor, lovesick and lonely. And Christmas is coming.
