The will says that Girly, Joe Soap’s daughter, stays with her guardian, Squadron Leader ‘Not-the-Daddy’. Joe Soap is naturally interested in Girly’s future, so he gets to see her occasionally. doesn’t he?

Not so. And there’s the rub: Fatherhood denied, Daddy locked out, and the forces of Law and Order neatly arrayed to frustrate and defeat Joe with their hideous abuse of. Language.

Russell Tarrant’s second foray into the philosophy of language seizes on the ‘immorality of the non-believer’ - a Platonist idea subsumed into Christianity - to investigate his predicament and that of those consigned to torment by an unforgiving faith or a relentless system. How can Joe, as an outsider - an outrigger on the big canoe - hope to gain access to his daughter?

As he rails against the powers that be, it’s clear the author’s mind is an alembic bubbling with propositions for which there is no apt retort. Yet his condition, expressed in narrative, dialectic, graphics and poetry, has universal appeal, forming an admirable follow-on to his first work, Billy Nomates and Sally Selfish Fall in Love.