Babs

Babs' life is anything but simple. Her marriage is on the rocks and her teenage daughter, is well, a teenager.

Babs is Lillie's best friend. Without Lillie she would be lost. They met when Lillie looked after her on her first day at school while the other girls were still deciding whether her nickname should be Baps or Boobera.

Babs and Lillie were also teenage mums together. Lillie because she knew instantly that Eddie was her man and wanted to be a young mother, Babs because she was drunk, horny and didn't like the feel of latex.

Babs fell in love with and married Richard Trench, Dickie to his numerous friends. Never have two people been more sexually compatible. And Babs loves sex. Unfortunately she's having doubts about Dickie. His epic laziness and addiction to the internet has left the couple hopelessly in debt. Babs has clawed her way towards an Open University Psychology qualification and a new life as a counsellor. She loves him, but now she has a parachute she may just use it.

She may be a child psychologist but Babs struggles as a mum are huge. Her teenage daughter, Gina, is her kryptonite. At all other times she is clever, sardonic and rather sophisticated, but confronted with her offspring she is petulant and utterly unreasonable... just like Gina.

Dickie

Dickie is married to Babs and loves her completely, but his innate laziness and impulsive ideas do less than impress. As a result his marriage is crumbling around him. Sex is the one thing he is really good at, and the one thing that keeps Babs coming back for more.

Dickie is not really a dad to Gina, more a laid back older brother with a carefree attitude to parenting.

Essentially, Dickie is a big, muscular lay-about. His easy charm is mostly employed to give him an easy life.

Dickie infuriates Babs because he has spent every penny he has ever earned on... stuff. Stuff with no use to anyone. Loveable Dickie has bankrupted the whole family in an entirely unlovable way.

His great (though sedentary) passion in life is the interwebulator (internet). But he's the world's least successful web designer. He has a stunning talent for clicking and dragging, married to an unerring ability to seek out what is least commercial and dedicate himself to it.

Dickie creates the sites that interest him with no thought given to those that might interest other people. And yet... there's always the chance that one of his ideas will turn out to be an accidental home run...

Clint

When Eddie tries to convince Clint that marriage is sexy Clint replies: "What's the point in being sexy if you're not allowed to shag anyone?"

Clint is sharp, good looking, driven and utterly unencumbered by conscience. He has a good job in advertising but plans to get an even better one.

Clint is stereotypically materialistic and a bit of a show-off. He is determined to have more of anything than anyone else - more success, more money and more sex. But he is very well equipped to get more; he's richer than any of his friends (though that's not saying much). And he's recently met Abbey, a small time model.

Clint's usual behaviour pattern is to pick up girls, sleep with them and never call them again. But Abbey is smarter than that. She refuses to sleep with Clint for a month, and makes him run around after her like a puppy dog.

For the first time in his life, Clint realises he's in love and that he may have to change his ways for good. However, when he meets a gorgeous Brazilian stripper, Fabiana, his willpower and self-control is well and truly put to the test...

Abbey

Abbey is gorgeous and a small time catalogue model with a crippling desire to please. She's smartish, funnyish and unrelentingly kind and thoughtful.

Modelling work starts to dry up in your late twenties, and while Abbey has still got it, she's no fool and at 29 knows it'll be time to move on very soon. Just at the moment she's looking for something new to interest her, Clint walks into her life.

Clint is the last person in the world Abbey would normally go for. Being a model she meets guys like him all the time. Guys who are looking for a quick shag and then disappear before the sun rises.

Abbey rejoices in sending Clint away with his tail between his legs. But, when Clint continues to pursue her, Abbey decides to set him a challenge; she wants to meet his friends so she can find out from them what he's really like...

Abbey makes Clint work hard for her love, and in doing so they both learn a lot about themselves and each other. Will Clint turn out to be her one true love?

Lillie

You've gotta love Lillie. Although she's not much bigger than a pint of milk, Lillie is brave, funny, and utterly without vanity. She's a totally unromantic and uncompromising partner to Eddie, but she loves him with a passion that would frighten a pride of lionesses. Just don't expect her to say "I love you" out loud.

Lillie is a brilliant if somewhat combative mum. She's 35, had her children early, and went back to work immediately. Both she and Eddie are shift workers, and it's been hard but they managed with a little child minding help from her mum. Being second generation Irish, she is allergic to injustice and to say that Lillie has a short fuse is to mistake her for someone who has any kind of fuse at all.

Lillie spent her twenties in dead-end jobs that let her pursue her passion for getting arrested: "Nobody believes in anything any more and even I don't have time since the kids, but when I was young I believed that things could be changed. I believed that you shouldn't stand by while bad things happened. I stood where you shouldn't stand. Chained myself to stuff you are not allowed to chain yourself too. I made noise about all the usual suspects: Smoking Dogs, unfair taxes, carelessly placed bombs. All the cliches..."

A few years ago she stumbled into a job at a shelter for abused women. At the shelter she fell in love for only the second time in her life; the shelter is everything to her, a seemingly endless opportunity to try and fix broken things.

Home life for Lillie and Eddie is a bit of a struggle. Although money is tight and they have two eccentric and sometimes difficult kids, they have a love so powerful nothing can touch them. Well, almost nothing.

Eddie

When you first meet Eddie what you see isn't what you get. On paper, Eddie is ordinary. He's an ordinary height, ordinary build, and has an ordinary face.

You might be surprised to find out that he's going out with the passionate, fiery Lillie. However, when you get to know him better you'll realise that it's Lillie who is lucky because Eddie is, in fact, extraordinary.

Eddie is silly, warm, thoughtful and wise in a 'left school at sixteen but sees the world with utter clarity' kind of way. Eddie is as loyal and fluffy as a Golden Retriever.

Eddie joined the Ambulance service because he wanted to be a union activist. But, when the whole idea of unions evaporated in the greedy nineties, he stayed on to fix people instead.

He pulls off a neat trick by being totally under Lillie's thumb while maintaining pride and quiet masculinity. He does what Lillie wants because he loves her absolutely and because he really does think she's always right.

If you're a father you'll find Eddie pretty hard to be around. He's the only man in the universe who would genuinely rather play with his boys than read the paper or watch football. As a result he finds it slightly harder to keep male friends than female ones. His only real male friends are Dickie and Clint. He hangs around with Dickie because Dickie's wife, Babs, is Lillie's old school friend and Clint is an extra bonus because he's Dickie's brother.

Eddie's life is unglamorous, "My job is to let drunk people be sick on my shoes", but it is also pretty perfect. And that's when the Gods pick on you, right?