In Jimmy this, Jimmy that, the first person narrator remains unnamed, always trying to blend into the background, staying clear of trouble. He navigates his way through adult life with the same uncertainty which characterised his teenage years. The years that were dominated by Jimmy Stokes. With marriage and parenthood threatening to obscure his identity, it is natural, perhaps, that memories of his youth are triggered by the insignificant: graffiti on a bus stop. Our narrator, however much he would wish to deny it, is defined by his past. It is the 1990s, when things were very different. The majority of teenagers weren''t technologically induced hermits. The narrator and his friends, Noggin (decent at heart and deceptively clever), Specks (a victim, but of considerable thieving talent) - and Jimmy Stokes, of course, weave their way through the disaffected streets of Edinburgh, leaving behind them a trail of barbarity. The world might have significantly changed, but one principle will always stay the same: when the gauntlet is thrown down, do you have the bottle? Do I