Tom Cox's books include Villager, 1983, the Sunday Times top ten bestseller The Good, The Bad And The Furry, the Wainwright Prize-longlisted 21st-Century Yokel & Help The Witch, which won a Shirley Jackson Horror Writing award. He lives in Devon.
aerosmith
A man once asked "Is that ironic?" upon seeing me wearing an AEROSMITH t-shirt and I was very restrained and polite to him in response, but I probably shouldn’t have been, since “Is that ironic?” is one of the most offensive things you can ever say to
box of delights
One winter a legendary amount of snow fell and school was closed and the phone lines in the village came down but when we picked up the phone at our house there were sometimes strangers instantly there on the line. During the same epoch in British history adverts were broadcast
cats
My cat The Bear died yesterday morning. I’m pretty sure I know the exact moment he died because at about 2.40am I woke with a full body jolt that felt like a benevolently intended electric shock and my house felt very different to how it had ever felt
amazon
"Was informed that my package would arrive between 9.31 and 10.12 and that my drone would be Kevin. Package arrived at 10.43 and my drone was in fact Ian." "Drone dropped my new iPod in next-door-but-two's garden pond, then fucked off back
adam thorpe
SHIRT A lot of my wardrobe is what you might call double-old: it was purchased in the mid-to-late 1990s, when you could still inexpensively buy used clothes from the 1960s and 70s that were made to fit people of a relatively common body shape. This shirt is not the double-old
countryside
I come from North Nottinghamshire. It's not a widely known fact but people do, every so often. One way that you could probably tell that I’m from North Nottinghamshire pretty quickly if you met me is that my accent sounds like unfiled nails scratching on the walls
1970s
Nobody understands heartbreak like Linda Ronstadt did between 1969 and 1975. Nobody. Not even a novelist who has spent half a century exploring heartbreak through a series of epic, life-rupturing literary works, renowned for their dissection of the romantic condition. Ronstadt might have been singing lyrics written by other people
cornwall
My dad and I have slightly differing recollections of the time he caddied for me in an amateur golf tournament. His version of events is that I royally fucked up all on my own and, not having the maturity to take the blame, loaded it straight onto him, in eviscerating
countryside
The small lido where I swim during the summer months is unheated and, when I arrive, it is often empty. When I first used to get in I’d lower my torso into the water very gingerly and wince a bit, in a way that the Scouse side of my
bats
I sat on one of my wooden garden chairs a few weeks ago and it gave way beneath me, sending me crashing to the ground. I was somewhat rattled, but unhurt, and less rattled when I realised that the only major witnesses to my indignity were two seagulls and the
beaver
Photo of River Otter beaver by Ben Lee for Devon Wildlife Trust There was an escaped lynx on Dartmoor so I went up to Dartmoor, alone and unarmed, to try to find the escaped lynx. I took with me a map, an old book about ghosts, a bottle of water,
cats
I always enjoy going to car boot sales with my mum but, because I don’t have her amazing vision, my experience at them often ends up tarred by the brush of anticlimax. When I arrive at a boot sale, full of foolish hope, what I inevitably see is an