This book looks at late 1970s Britain, before, during, and immediately after the Winter of Discontent, to situate the activism of Throbbing Gristle in this time. It explores how the band worked in and against the time, and how they worked in and against punk, as punk worked in and against the time and place. Punk acts as a mediating factor and nuisance value in the band's story, as Throbbing Gristle emerged with punk in late 1976, grappled with it through 1977, and then went on to create and eventually criticize a number of post-punk scenes that had flourished around 1979.