As Barcelona prepares for the Olympics, the city is turned over to make way for new roads, new stadia and the giant prawns of Mariscal. Pepe Carvalho?who remembers the good old days when a hammer was always to be found with a sickle?is forced to work for Olympic entrepreneurs whose only game plan is to make a fast buck. As Carvalho tries to come to terms with the new values of the present, his life - gastronomic, amatory and professional confronts the disillusion of middle age.