This is the story of how international socialite and transatlantic columnist Taki spent some time in 1984 in one of Her Majesty's institutions on a charge of bringing cocaine into the country. Having spent a perfect summer in the pools and on the tennis courts of Long Island, Taki was then thrown into less-than-glorious Pentonville - where he found himself bedded down with a quite different kind of clientele from the rich New Yorkers he had left behind. In telling the story of his arrest, trial and prison experiences, Taki paints a portrait of his surroundings, his fellow inmates and of himself.