A darkly comic, take-no-prisoners satire, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes skewers British social and academic hypocrisy to the very core. Gerald Middleton, a distinguished, retired historian is coming to terms with his life's folly. As a student, Middleton witnessed the unearthing of the Melpham idol, a pagan fertility figure that electrified modern medieval scholarship by turning up in the grave of a 7th-century bishop. He also began an affair with Dollie - the fiancée of his best friend, the man who had privately confessed to planting the idol as a hoax. While trying to reveal the truth, Middleton wrestles with his monstrously overbearing wife and their three emotionally dysfunctional children.