A quiet afternoon in the Garnett household is the result of Mike and Alf both reading their own new books, and Else and Rita boredly sitting by, wondering what their respective husbands are reading. It transpires that Alf is reading "Cleaning up TV", the book written by the TV morality, anti-swearing, anti-blasphemy, anti-violence campaigner Mary Whitehouse. After ridicule levelled at him from both Mike and Rita ("She's concerned, for the bleedin' moral fibre of the nation!"), whose moral standards are at almost polar opposites from those of Mrs Whitehouse and Mr Garnett, Alf suffers a bout of diarrhoea, which he has been suffering from all day.