Hey Patrons!

We've been gone a long time, but tomorrow the "We Hate Uncle Lewis Club" returns to the basement of My Very Curious Curio Shop for another Super Secret Meeting!

Topic: "Wedding in Black" (Season 2 Ep 21).

#horrorpodcast #fridaythe13ththeseries #80shorror #canadianhorror #nostalgia

If you subscribe to my writing, ever have done, ever have any vague intention of doing so, I'd appreciate if you took a quick read of this..

Roscoe, leaning a bit too nonchalantly on a fence, in summer

A sure sign that my cat has been up to no good is when she sees me and immediately tries too hard to act casual.

A scarecrow who has got drunk on extra strength lager and, rather embarrassingly, is now reliving his glory days in the Royal Air Force.

THREAD. A collection of photographs of the best scarecrows I have met on walks.

You will find the captions to each photo in the alt text.

A photo I took of my friend Rosie walking along the beach at Covehithe, Suffolk

Finally nailed the promotional photo for my East Anglian remake of Don't Look Now, which tells the same story, but using all the locations from Whistle And I'll Come To You.

Cat: “I cannot convey to you just how much I genuinely despise this food.”
Me: “Here, have this instead.”
Cat: “OMG I LOVE IT.”
Me: “It’s exactly the same bowl of food. I just took it away for six seconds then put it back in the same place.”
Cat: “I am fire and the wind. Do not attempt to know me.”

A sheep becomes upset, having just got ready to take its all-time best photo of itself, only for me to come along in a flowery shirt and ruin it.

This sheep tried its very best to take a good selfie until I came along and ruined everything by photobombing it.

A photo of terrifying toothy pumpkin-headed folk horror children from the distant past.

A spooky story I wrote (which I promise isn't nearly as terrifying as this photo): www.tom-cox.com/lillian/

I'm not much for writing advice, but I'll say this: If you write, the internet - its breakneck pace & cracked attention spans - will create a parallel surface narrative of your work. The ability to ignore it & realise it's got fuck all to do with you, or anything you've actually written, is useful.

Interdimensional portals found on walks this week.

Some Ghosts I Have Known Who Have Turned Out To Be Massive Dickheads This post is free for everyone to read but on the off chance you'd like to support my writing you can do so here, at a price of your choice from £20 per year (you can also make a one-off donation here...

After hearing stories of the ghost in Somerset's Quantock Hills who tells passing walkers to fuck off, I decided to write about some of the other ghosts I've come across who have turned out to be massive dickheads: www.tom-cox.com/some-ghosts-...

This is happening again and again from Substack users & is costing me a fortune. I've explained endless times how simple it is to cancel a subscription to my site.

I've gone, over the last few months from, "Substack isn't for me" to "Substack is fucking evil & people need to know about this shit".

A photo I took of a freshly washed bee, who is feeling particularly proud of his fur

Bafflingly there are still people out there in the world who think being passionate about nature is “kind of weird”. or “a niche interest”. These people have it all wrong. Nature isn’t some quirky sideline to the main business. It IS the main business.

Wait until he hears about our health care

They don't care that they're hypocrites. They'll lie to your face smiling while they slide a knife in your gut and ship your family to a camp; all for a 0.5% increase over last quarter's profit.

They voted for this now they are reaping what they sowed

It’s a crime to cut a little girl’s hair like that

If this became a weekly series, it would run longer than The Simpsons.

Yes, Charlie Kirk called for President Biden to be imprisoned and put to death, but he was so well-groomed when he said it so ...

The UK fired their ambassador to the US over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Meanwhile, Epstein’s best friend remains the President of the United States.

A sheep staring intimidatingly over a wall in an attempt to watch one of the more tightly written episodes of the 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles.

For fuck's sake, Michelle, I'm not telling you again: stop trying to watch our telly through the window. Pay for your own.

A charismatic tree beneath a dramatic sky, in the hills above Beaminster, Dorset. I took this photo at the beginning of spring last year, as I was thrashing out some of the later stages of my new novel Everything Will Swallow You in my head. I'd done a fabulous eight mile walk, lashed by wind, felt a more healthy version of the kind of inspiration that hits after three cups of coffee, and was thinking about, amongst other things, the way some of the other trees at the top of the conical hills in this area looked like the receding hair on top of men's heads. I found some graffiti on another tree, near a casually imperious triangulation pillar, and it expanded into a whole sub-plot about an ill-matched teenage couple, which became quite an important thread in the novel which I found a way to circle back to right at the end. It was one of those magical days when you feel like the landscape is writing your book for you.

Few sights gratify me more on a long equinoxical walk than an eerie weather-ravaged tree playing conductor to a screaming sky.

Why would anyone think Trump is in the Epstein files?

Just because he declared that voting to release the files is a 'hostile act'

And reports of MAGAs charged with sex crimes appear daily

And he's coddling Ghislane Maxwell

And halting investigations into human traffic ---

Okay, I get it now.

A photo I took of a crunchy autumn bridleway in Gloucestershire

"A culture is no better than its woods." - WH Auden

Our cat Professor Charles Cardigan, in his final days as a kitten

It is a legal requirement that all cat names must evolve like avant-garde jazz. By the time of a cat's fifth birthday the name by which it is generally known should have zero resemblance to its original name.

Tom Cox is one of the writers who got ripped off by Unbound publishers (you can read about it in the thread to this post). I've always liked his books a lot, and am glad to spread the word about his new book.
And yes, I've ordered my copy!

A door with 'PLEASE RING THE BELL FOR RECORDS' written on it

The first step in a witch's cunning plan to trap and kidnap me.

A scarecrow who has just watched Monty Python's The Holy Grail for the first time

A scarecrow who is feeling pleased with himself after forming a 1950s sci-fi themed surf rock band, of which he is the sole member

A scarecrow who is dolled up and ready for a night out in the fanciest part of Newcastle

A very pleasant and well-meaning scarecrow who will paint your house for a competitive rate while rhapsodising about the beauty of the land

THREAD. A collection of photos I have taken of scarecrows I have stumbled across during walks in the British countryside over the last fifteen years.

Concern over low birth rates was what the theocracy in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale used to come to power.