In Stupid Stories for Tough Times a woodland spirit causes havoc in suburbia; a wayward uncle causes suspicion in the family; a ferocious troll seeks a friend; and Churchill's statue goes walkabout in Westminster. In much the same vein as the short stories of W.S. Gilbert, whose oeuvre Crowther knows more about than perhaps anyone else, these tales of life and death are filled with the impossible and the improbable, the ordinary and the absurd. Together these so-called Stupid Stories for Tough Times are a tonic for our times – a search for sense in the strange and baffling times we live in, shot through, as all good stories should be, with humour and observational wit, with purpose, fate and dogs.