Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson investigate after an heir claims his estate is plagued by a ghostly dog.

In May 1940 eighteen-year old Geoffrey Wellum joins the 92 squadron of the Royal Air Force and is taken to the pub,where pilots who have seen action sign their names on a blackboard. Next day,with no flying experience,he is expected to pilot a Spitfire;he is nervous but exhilarated. Soon he is seeing action against the Luftwaffe,his sense of duty dispelling fear,and,having taken part in the Battle of Britain,is awarded a medal,though he never signs the blackboard. By 1941 he has flown fifty missions and feels invincible,though he sees friends die and in 1942 the stress causes him to have a breakdown. However he survives the war and,in the present,talks direct to camera,voicing his feelings about his service experiences.

Two actors, as their make up is applied, talk about the size of their parts. Then into the film: Laurence Sterne's unfilmable novel, Tristram Shandy, a fictive autobiography wherein the narrator, interrupted constantly, takes the entire story to be born. The film tracks between "Shandy" and behind the scenes. Size matters: parts, egos, shoes, noses. The lead's girlfriend, with their infant son, is up from London for the night, wanting sex; interruptions are constant. Scenes are shot, re-shot, and discarded. The purpose of the project is elusive. Fathers and sons; men and women; cocks and bulls. Life is amorphous, too full and too rich to be captured in one narrative.