The very best of Will Self's columns for the Independent on the oddities of place, with Ralph Steadman's trademark illustrations.

'Brilliantly original, Will Self is one of those rare writers whose imaginations change for ever the way we see the world' JG Ballard 'Steadman has always been one of my heroes.' Raymond Briggs

Will Self is the author of The Quantity Theory of Insanity, winner of the 1993 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Grey Area, Cock Bull, My Idea of Fun, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, Great Apes, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Dorian, How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year 2002, and The Book of Dave. He lives in London. Ralph Steadman is the author of Sigmund Freud, I Leonardo, The Big I Am, The Scar-Strangled Banner, the novel Doodaaa and the memoir The Joke's Over: Memories of Hunter S. Thompson. He is also the illustrator of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Alice, Animal Farm and The Devil's Dictionary. He lives in Kent.