The narrator, who defines a threesome as "the socialist utopia of sex", describes not only the sociology, psychology and ethics of their ménage à trois (for example by comparing it to the love triangle depicted in the film Cabaret) but also, in some detail, the technicalities and what he calls "sexual etiquette".

In Venice, Italy, Papa complains of a splitting headache, and shortly after their return to England he suffers a stroke—a good excuse for Nana to break up with both Moshe and Anjali, although her father is saddened by the thought of his daughter giving up her boyfriend on his account.

The ramblings of the narrator and Nana's interest in architecture lead to an impressive list of famous people being mentioned in the pages of Politics.

They include, in alphabetical order, Guillaume Apollinaire, Nikolai Bukharin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Antonio Gramsci, Václav Havel, Rem Koolhaas, Milan Kundera, Osip Mandelstam, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Issey Miyake, Józef Rotblat, Jonathan Sacks, Elsa Schiaparelli, Oscar Wilde, and Mao Zedong.

Accordingly, he has the protagonists say things like akshully, arkitetcha, fra bit, frages (= for ages), I dint say, I spose, internaschnal, keemo (= chemo (as in chemotherapy)), Le mgo, Not tonigh, refyoose, restron, snot (= it is not), and therpy.