30 June 2009
The talk at Wells Town Hall is actually on Wednesday the 8th of July, and not the 25th as previously announced. Apologies for the mix-up.
TH
PS Thanks to everyone who came along to the talk I gave at the Free University of Glastonbury and to Mathew Clayton and Emily Eavis for inviting me. It was a fabulous festival, demonstrating that the free anarchic spirit is alive and well. We particularly enjoyed the House of Fairy Tales, the kids’ area curated by Gavin Turk and his missus Deborah. On Saturday night they threw a grand feast in the medieval style with excellent food and most diverting minstrelsy.
22 June 2009
The Idler 42: Smash the System is in the Foyles Charing Cross Road Top Ten this week. If in town, do pop in to this most excellent of bookshops and bag your copy.
For overseas readers, we have introduced a digital subscription, which means that the Idler will be delivered to your computer in digital form. Clearly it will not have the grandeur, majesty, wight and aroma of the real thing, but it is certainly a cheap way of accessing the content.
The subscription is operated by Exact Editions, and you can click here to see how it works. Exact have also put up a free facsimile of Idler 41: The QI Issue, which is now completely sold out in its real form.
TH
I am selling my 1994 Ford Day Van. It is a seven seater with double bed. We have used it as a camping car and general Idler runabout for nine years, but we have bought a nice tent and an old people mover instead. It is listed on ebay. TH
Tom's Van is For Sale
16 June 2009
The new Idler arrived from Biddles the printer today. This was a few days later than I’d hoped. UK subscribers and all those who pre-ordered the book (for which many thanks) should get their copies early next week.
Retail copies also arrived at our distributor, Central Books, and so in a few days you will be able to buy or order it from your local bookshop. Or you can buy it direct from us by clicking on the button on the right. The book is very heavy and so the postage and packing is now £3.00.
Any retail outlet who would like to stock the new Idler can order copies from Central Books on 0845 4589911.
09 June 2009
I’d like to mention a couple of excellent publications which deserve a wide readership.
The Land: This is a magazine about land rights edited by Simon Fairlie, who founded the Tinker’s Bubble community and who sells excellent scythes. Fairlie has produced six issues of The Land so far. They are ad-free and have the best mix of radicalism and practical suggestion I have ever read. Truly, we have here the spirit of William Cobbett, with articles on pig keeping, squatting, Polish peasants, hand tools and links to all sorts of useful resources, particularly for those seeking planning permission for low impact dwellings and smallholdings. The current issue is called “Welcome The Recession” and opens with an excellent attack on the media and a cheering argument that the recessin is bringin us all back down to earth, The mag is worth the admission fee for the cover alone: a wonderful late 19th century illustration, showing a collection of radical slogans in the form of a garland around a pre-Raphaelite beauty. A subscription costs just £10 and I think it money very well spent. The Land, The Potato Store, Flaxdrayton Farm, South Petherton, SOMERSET TA13 5IR; www.tlio.org.uk.
New Escapologist: This is a zine produced by the Glasgow flâneur Robert Wringham and its purpose is to help its readers “to flee the humdrum spreadsheet of prescribed reality into an exciting world of one’s own invention.” To this end, the second issue is titled “The War Against Cliché” and offers tips for cultivating your own unique self and shedding received opinion and humbug. There is a handy manifesto by Idler webmaster Neil Scott and a nice practical final page, which invites readers to send in ideas for businesses that would create a median £356 a week income on just four hours’ work a week. Go to www.wringham.co.uk.
21 May 2009
Here is a thought from Masanobu Fukuoka’s The One-Straw Revolution, the great bible of “do nothing” farming:
“The more people do, the more society develops, the more problems arise. The increasing isolation of nature, the exhuastion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity’s trying to accomplish something. Originally there was no reason to progress, and nothing that had to be done. We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a ‘movement’ not to bring anything about.”
Therefore to save the world, just do nothing.
14 May 2009
MAY HAS come at last, the merry month of May, and I have bought a copy of Thomas Tusser’s One Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, first published in the 16th century. Tusser himself was rather a comical and even sad character. (more…)
12 May 2009
We’re pleased to announce that the new Idler is now at the printers and will be released on 17 June. Apologies to those who were expecting the book on the previously advertised launch date of May 1.
Idler 42: Smash the System is a 350 page hardback book bound in cloth and printed on high quality stock. The editor is Tom Hodgkinson and the typesetter is Christian Brett. Our aim has been to collect together the UK’s best radical voices and to explore real alternatives to the neoliberal programme, which has so clearly failed us. Contributors include Alain De Botton, Jay Griffiths, Clare Pollard, Paul Kingsnorth, Andrew Simms, Oliver James and Penny Rimbaud. There are illustrations from Gee Vaucher, Paul Ryding, Alice Smith and Bronwen Jones.
Individuals can order the book by clicking on the right. All orders from the Idler Shop will be accompanied by a letterpress bookmark.
Alternatively, ask your local bookshop to order it.
Bookshops or other shops who would like to stock it should contact our distributor, Central Books, on 0845 458 9911.
Press and syndication enquiries can be directed to Gavin Knight at gavinkni@gmail.com.
11 May 2009
I will be appearing at various pubs, halls and festivals over the summer. Here are the events so far booked. See you. TH
Sam and Tom at The Crown, Lynton
Tom plays the ukulele at a singalong to raise money for the Lynton and Lynmouth Free Music Festival.
The Crown, Lynton, North Devon.
Saturday 30 May, 8pm, free
CANCELLED – WILL RE-ARRANGE – WATCH THIS SPACE
Idle Parents, Ukuleles and the Reformation
Tom gives a talk organised by the Wells branch of Waterstones, tel 01749 677881.
Town Hall, Wells, Somerset.
Wednesday 10 June, 6pm, £1 in advance, £2 on the door
Sam and Tom’s Sunday Night Singalong
Tom is on the uke and Sam Chalkley is on guitar, for an evening of real ale and real merriment.
The Hunters Inn, Heddon Valley, North Devon
Sunday 21 June, 8pm, free
Anarchy in the Middle Ages
Tom gets medieval at the Free University of Glastonbury.
HMS Sweet Charity, the Park area, Glastonbury Festival.
Sunday 28 June, 4pm
Simple Living Holiday
Tom hosts a holiday organised by the School of Life.
Martinhoe, North Devon
The School of Life
Friday 10 – Sunday 12 July
How to be an Idle Parent
Tom talks at the Port Eliot Festival. There will also be a uke singalong.
Port Eliot, St Germans, Plymouth
Sunday 26 July
Smash the System
Tom discusses alternatives to the neoliberal project.
Save Our World Festival, Tapeley Park, North Devon
Saturday 29 – Sunday 30 August
29 April 2009
I have just heard that the great John Michell died on 24 April. An original and inventive thinker, his books were always a delight and an inspiration as were his columns in the Oldie. Over the years, I visited John a few times in his Powis Square flat to drink white wine till late. With great good humour, he would question everything you said, and make you look at life with a fresh eye. I remember him chuckling to me as I put forward some half-baked theory of life and saying: “The thing is, Tom, you’re still trying to make sense of it all. But you must see that the world is confusion. Confusion!”
The conservative critic Toby Young, writing in the Mail on Sunday, said: “this is an original, thought-provoking book” while also teasing me for being what he called “a fanatical anti-capitalist”. In the New Statesman, Zoe Williams was hugely positive about the book: “He is never boring; at times he is intensely readable.” She described the Idler as “a magazine-turned-book that was really everything you could possibly ask for from the modern pamphleteer: it was funny, original, unorthodox, cool in an effervescent, unstudied way, intellectual without the angst and defensiveness,” and concluded: “The ‘idle’ brand is a bit of red herring, I think. There is a serious, pioneering spirit underneath this velvet smoking jacket.” And in the Evening Standard, a thoughtful Ned Denny focussed on the Taoist elements of the book, calling the idea of idleness “wu wei” (ie the philosophy of non-action) for the West. “Add liberal doses of music, jovial company and deep woods to play in—all central to the idle, not to say Taoist, life—and you have a recipe for bright, happy people with need of neither television nor shrink. Who could ask for more?”
Alain De Botton, whose new book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is a great read, says of The Idle Parent: “Tom’s book came as a huge relief to the whole family. Suddenly, we no longer had to feel guilty that we hated days out at overpriced so-called attractions. Suddenly, it was OK to leave the kids to sort it out among themselves. Suddenly, it was OK to be responsibly lazy. This is the most counter-intuitive, but most helpful and consoling child-raising manual I’ve yet read.”
TH
11 March 2009
There was a very nice review of The Idle Parent in the Sunday Times of 8th March. Matt Rudd described the book as “the most easy-to-follow-without-being-made-to-feel-inadequate parenting manifesto ever written… he is right on almost everything…. a godsend to parents.” And in London Lite, Victoria Segal wrote: “This is an inspiring book, refreshingly unsentimental and, in its rejection of parenting and childhood as states to be commodified by the consumer society, genuinely subversive.”
The book can be bought direct from us by clicking on the right.
TH
11 February 2009
Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson is speaking at the following events in March:
Tom Hodgkinson and Ed Mayo
Tom discusses consumerism and children with Ed Mayo, author of Consumer Kids: How Big Business Is Grooming Our Children For Profit.
At the Glasgow Aye Write Book Festival, Mitchell Library and Theatre, 201 North Street, Glasgow, G3 7DN
www.ayewrite.com
Wednesday 11 March, 6pm, £6/7
Idle Parenting and Ukuleles
Tom discusses the new book and leads a singalong with his uke.
The Big Green Bookshop, Unit 1, Brampton Park Road, Wood Green, London N22 6BG
Tuesday 17 March, 7pm, admission free
Anarchy in the Middle Ages
Tom discusses the amoral “free spirit” movements that popped up all over Europe in the medieval era. With early music from Princes in the Tower. Part of the Think In Kingston festival.
At the Studio Rose Theatre, 24 Kingston High Street, Kingston
Think in Kingston website
Box Office Telephone: 0871 230 1552
Wednesday 18 March, 8pm, £6
Here’s a bit of US research which suggests that there’s not enough play in kids’ lives.
It seems that schools there have been cutting back on breaks and free time, since a 2001 Act which took time away from creativity and play and towards maths and reading.
09 February 2009
Problems with Wood
OVER THE LAST two months, we have been mainly concerned with keeping warm. Now that we have two wood-burning stoves, writes Tom Hodgkinson, the amount of work for me in wood-chopping and preparation has nearly doubled.
The major problem has been the wood supply. The wood I bought this time last year had all run out. We had in the wood barn the load we’d bought in the summer, and another load I bought in December. Neither really burned well. I have spent hours kneeling in front of the fires and blowing on them to keep them stoked up. The wood is simply not seasoned enough. I am learning that hard woods like oak need at least a year and preferably two to dry out properly. Chop a log open and you can see the damp wood inside.
(more…)
29 January 2009
Just a quick post to let you know that signed copies of my new book, The Idle Parent, are available for pre-order from the Idler shop. You can also order from Amazon. It’s published by Hamish Hamilton on 5th March, and we’ll send them out a few days before this date. Oliver James has this to say:
“Wise, funny, practical and personal, The Idle Parent puts the fun back into parenting,” while Jay Griffiths commented: “The sort of book which any self-respecting child would wish their parents had read. Gently comedic on the surface, it is a book about serious freedom underneath. Profoundly sane, kind and endearing, it is written with a huge generosity of spirit as an act of family-liberation.”
TH
09 January 2009
The way to thrive in 2009 is simply to join the Idler’s Do Less Campaign. It’s simple: you just do less. That means less shopping, less driving, less holidaying, less working, less spending. And more sitting around at home, more reading, chatting and drinking. Doing less is cheap and easy and it’s kind to the environment. The era which privileged the busy high achiever is coming to an end. That system has been found wanting, and there is a new world out there, a world of more fun, more freedom, more time for reflection and contemplation, community and cooking, making and mending. John Calvin – you have so much to answer for.
A Do Less t-shirt is on the way.
And watch this space for a new feature: The Idler’s Guide to Thrift: How To Escape From Capitalism and Live Like A King.
TH
20 December 2008
Just to notify everyone that we have sent the last Christmas orders off, and any orders received from now will be posted in the New Year.
As for the Idler itself, you may have noticed that there has been no October issue. This is because we are “between” publishers. Ebury, after seven issues, have called it a day. We are talking to new potential publishers, and in the meantime we are working on Issue 42: Smash The System. This will be a 350 page hardback retailing for twenty pounds. We are publishing it independently and it will be released on May 1.
Have a very merry Christmastide.
TH
09 December 2008
We’re thinking of bucking the trend this year and getting luxurious gifts for loved ones. Books and food should never be “economised” on, and it’s better to get small amounts of very good stuff than large amounts of rubbish. Feed the body and mind with quality ingredients. My friend Alan is selling the most fantastic artisan-made sugars, salts and teas on his new Speciality Farm Foods website. A little of the sugar on porridge or oats in the morning is something else.
Merriment is also important, and to that end may I suggest ukuleles as presents? There is only one place to go, and that is the wonderful new site from The Duke of Uke, London’s ukulele emporium.
Finally, we have just produced a nice downloadable Idler Price List, listing all the books we sell, plus t-shirts and other stuff. The Idler’s Diary 2009 is a particularly cheering gift, and we have a few comforting hoodies left, too. A new release is John Mitchinson’s essay on William Morris, first published in the QI Idler, which Christian Brett of Bracketpress has produced in a fine limited letterpress hardback edition.
TH
05 December 2008
Charles Hazlewood is coming to our local village hall in North Devon to host a Christmas Wassail party. Wassailing is an English custom involving the singing of old songs and the drinking of large quantities of spiced cider.
The date for this evening of merry-making is SATURDAY DECEMBER 13TH (*NOT* FRIDAY 12TH as previously advertised), the time is 6pm, and the place is Hannington Hall, Martinhoe, EX31 4QT. Martinhoe is off the A39, next to Woody Bay.
£5 on the door; kids free.
TH
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"The answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it. And just to live. But you're doing that anyway. However you intellectualise it, you still just live."