Student teacher Robin Aldous Webb prepares for his second year at Walbrook College of Education. Question: What connects Ludwig van Beethoven, Winston Churchill, Wayne Dobson (a tyke), Miss Frieda Figg (deceased).and an Emperor Penguin? Not to mention the mysterious Zinaida Barnes. Webb will learn the answer only after friends, rivals, lovers and the odd ghost have trampled through his life, embroiling him in scrapes, misunderstandings, challenges and emotional disasters. When the dust settles, how many ignominious failures will our hapless hero have to hang in his skeleton-packed closet? And, to paraphrase Karl Marx, will, he understand that a year can feel more like a lifetime?.