29 July 2010
THE VEGETABLE GARDEN continues to thrive. We have feasted endlessly on new potatoes, beetroot, carrots, peas, broad beans, saladings of all sorts and the biggest cabbages you have ever seen. Truly, labor omnia vicit. Now the climbing French beans and the bush beans are beginning to flower. I harvested the last of the broad beans. There were over 20 lbs of them. I podded them, bagged them up, and froze them. Hugh F-W says that they freeze well. And talking of Hugh F-W, I met him last Friday at the Port Eliot Festival. He demonstrated how to bake bread and cook mackerel at your camp fire on stage, and I was his straight man. Hugh was very affable and we made a curiously entertaining double act. I was also able to meet another hero over the weekend, and that was Simon Fairlie, who came to give a scything course as part of the Idler’s Academy. The sight of eight men and women swishing away at the lawns of Port Eliot with their scythes was one to remember. And I learned that I’d been scything all wrong: I’d been hacking away rather than sliding the blade along the surface of the earth.
Everything grows so fast at this time of year that to leave the garden for just a few days means that you return to a wilderness. So I tidied up with the shears. It’s actually amazing how much you can do with a pair of shears, and very quickly too. I edged the paths with the spade and things looked much better. I’m particularly delighted by the parsnip patch. I allowed three or four radish plants to go to seed, and they spread right out over the parsnips, and produced pretty little purple and white flowers. These flowers turned into gorgeous little seed pods, shaped like scimitars. I hope to collect the seeds. It really is truly remarkable, how one seed can produce hundreds or thousands of new ones, and in doing so makes beautiful and unique shapes. The flowers and seed pods of vegetables would make a fascinating area of study in themselves, and in fact I call for a new movement, Vegetable Art, where artists will paint and sculpt from nature’s miraculous creations.
THE HENS HAVE started to lay, and we are getting five or six eggs a day out of ten hens, which ain’t bad. We have also bought ten small hens for meat purposes: it makes sense, while we are keeping hens, to raise our own organic, free range chickens.
VICTORIA HAS PURCHASED a colony of bees, and a nucleus. Roy and Tony came round to install them in their hives, and the whole process went very smoothly. The bees seemed to be unangered by the move, and swiftly started to explore their new habitat. This is Victoria’s second attempt at bee-keeping, the first lot having died over the winter. She is now a soberer and wiser bee-keeper, and will be helped in the process by Tony, with whom we shall share the produce of the hives, the honey and wax. In fact he is going to show us how to make candles. And so it is that we will benefit from those immortal gifts of the bees: sweetness and light.
ENDS
12 July 2010
Miss Smith's Design For Our Sign
WE HAVE now finalized the timetable for the first term at the Idler’s Academy, taking place this year at the Port Eliot Festival, 23-25 July. New additions to the faculty are Mr Charles Hazlewood, our choirmaster, Mr Ian Bone and Mr Ray Roughler-Jones, who are giving a careers advice talk, Mr Justin Welch, who will be leading a drumming masterclass, and Mr John Moore, who will be teaching us how to play the saw. I’d remind you also that Mr William Peers, the famous sculptor, will be running a sculpture workshop, and Mr Bill Drummond, our woodwork master, will be building a bed without the use of power tools.
Our new crest, complete with our motto, ‘Libertas per Cultum’, meaning ‘freedom through education’, has been designed by Miss Alice Smith of Rochdale. TH
22 June 2010
Thank you to Matt Wingett for pointing out my error in assigning Midsummer Day to the 21st of June (see Country Diary 96, below). In fact, tradition places Midsummer Day on 24 June, while 21 June is the summer solstice. 24 June is also the principal feast day of St John the Baptist. John was imprisoned by Herod Antipas, who John had condemned for marrying his brother’s wife. Herod had John beheaded at the request of his step-daughter Salome: ‘she, being instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist’s head in a charger’ (Matthew 14.8). Anyway, this means that I still have time to organize a feast for Midsummer’s Eve. The problem is that no one will come, because it coincides with the blasted football. Football ruins everything, or follibus ludere omnia perdit, as Virgil might have put it. Maybe I will just read A Midsummer Night’s Dream instead. The good thing is that our first day at Glastonbury will be Midsummer Day, by custom the time when the good people of Albion would go completely mental. TH
21 June 2010
TODAY IS Midsummer’s Day, the summer solstice. Really I should have held a Midsummer’s Eve party last night, and put on a Mummer’s Play. That was the pre-Reformation custom. We modern people still like to celebrate this time of year, but generally our revels are in the commodified and contained form known as music festivals. They’re a lot of better than nothing, though, and in fact I am off with the family to the Glastonbury Festival of the Performing Arts on Thursday.
Well, the glorious weather has been doing wonders in the vegetable patch which, though I say so myself, is the best it has ever been. I’d say it is positively Edenic. I have just been to visit it with my tape measure and proudly bring you the following progress report: (more…)
This is a big-up for the Real Seed Company in Wales. I bought loads of vegetable seeds from them this year, and they have all done fantastically well. The Real Seed Company also encourage seed-saving, which has got to be a good idea, and point you to all sorts of valuable resources, whether it’s good books, good techniques or good tools. Here is their latest newsletter.
Following my article about Latin teaching which appeared in a recent issue of The Lady, I have received numerous requests about the Latin grammar tea towels which I mentioned in the piece. These fantastic items, which elegantly combine beauty and utility, are produced by Latin teacher Mrs Barbara MacSweeney, and are on sale at very reasonable rates, with the profits going to a charitable cause. For more information, please call her on 01727 857958. TH
03 June 2010
On the weekend of the 2nd to the 4th of July, we are running a Simple Living Weekend at our home in North Devon. The course is run in association with the School of Life. The course will combine philosophy, husbandry and merriment. We will debate usury and learn about bread-making, bee-keeping, wood storage, poultry and vegetable growing. We will go ‘wild’ swimming, and an expert forager will show us the edible treats on our own doorstep. We will feast in the village hall. Here is Dixe Wills’ account of last year’s course. Go to the School of Life for more information. There is a discount for Idler readers. TH
26 May 2010
Back in January, I appeared on the BBC’s Daily Politics show and advised viewers to boycott the banks and buy gold coins. It was the same advice that we have been giving in the Idler for over a year, thanks to Dominic Frisby’s essay on the magic of gold in Idler 42: Smash the System.
Well, in the last six months the gold price has rocketed by nearly 20%. Sovereigns that cost £172 in December 2009 are now changing hands for over £200 (have a look on Ebay). This compares to the 0.025% interest that my bank would have paid over the same period. And pundits predict that the gold price will carry on going up as currencies around the world continue to be devalued and the stock market continues to get the jitters on a regular basis. (more…)
24 May 2010
I’M AFRAID that I have many animal deaths and disappearances to report. The first is Twister the ferret. About six weeks ago, we separated him from Whisper, the female, because we didn’t want them to have babies. He was vasectomized, and we put him in a different cage to recover from the operation and because it takes a few weeks to take effect. Two days later, I found an empty cage and a dead rat in the yard. Twister was on the loose. (more…)
14 May 2010
The US edition of The Idle Parent was published today by Tarcher/Penguin with a rather lovely new cover. Stateside idlers, or aspiring idlers, can buy the book from Amazon or, better, go down to your local bookstore and have a chat with the staff.
10 May 2010
We have now received our copies of Idler 43: Back to the Land. The printers, the fine folk at MPG Biddles, have done a fantastic job and the book looks very nice indeed. We are sending out subscribers’ copies today and tomorrow, and then we’ll send out individual orders.
From Idler 43
Just to remind you, the book features a long interview with David Hockney, covering the Renaissance, Facebook, smoking, bespoke tailoring and much else besides. Hockney has also done two sketches for us: a self-portrait and a diagram which explains the change in artistic perspective that came about in the Renaissance, and its relationship to a new theological worldview. Also in this issue we have essays on hedgehogs, the 13th century, the medieval guilds, land reform and the garden as a political statement. Contributors include Harry Mount, Paul Kingsnorth, Jay Griffiths, Penny Rimbaud, Jay Griffiths, Stanley Donwood and Clifford Harper. Click here to buy your copy. Alternatively, buy it from your local independent bookshop and have a chat into the bargain.
Another sample spread, with illustration by Alice Smith
06 May 2010
Turmoil, chaos, mess… come, one and all, to the Rough Trade shop off Brick Lane in London Town, tonight, Friday 7 May, for a night of merry anarchy. We’ll have two hours of music to launch the new issue of the Idler, Back to the Land. Starting at 6pm sharp, we have Tim Burgess of The Charlatans on the wheels of steel. Your editor will lead a singalong of the great hobo fantasy song, Big Rock Candy Mountains. Then we have gentlemen slackers Ian Bone and Ray Roughler Jones on stage, followed by the delightful Louis Eliot. Also appearing will be Zodiac Youth, and then Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, with a special guest appearance from Mr Adam Ant. To wind up, Asbokid will play. Doors will close at 8pm, after which it’s time for curry and beer. Here’s hoping for a weak and unstable government!
30 April 2010
THE VEGETABLE PATCH IS now almost completely sown and planted. There are about seventy broad beans plants, now about three inches high. Then come twenty or so lettuces and cut-and-come-again plants. Then ten cabbages. Then a large patch of radish sown with parsnip. Then a block of peas, Telephone and Hatif d’Annonay. Then a block of rocket, also parsley (Gigante di Napoli), Mizuna and Salad Bowl. On the other patch, I planted about seventy seed potatoes (Maris Bard, Orla, Amorosa and Colleen). Also a block of turnips and a block of beetroot. There is now only one block left unsown, and I will have to decide whether I go for beans or carrots. The problem is that I wanted to grow a lot of beans, and I have three packets of different bean seeds to try, and they are: Cherokee Trail of Tears climbing French bean; Cosse Violette purple climbing bean, and Minidor yellow dwarf French bean. Maybe I should have not bothered with all those potatoes. I wonder if I could grow some of the beans in pots in the front garden, or even in the flower beds? (more…)
29 April 2010
I have been shocked, horrified and appalled by a new campaign to promote Microsoft’s email service, Hotmail. The creative team has created an aspirational model for us to aim at, a new category of happy, hard-working superbeings called “the new busy”. In common with the “superhuman” Blackberry advertising campaign of a couple of years ago, this brainwashing campaign suggests that just by using Hotmail, you will be transformed into something more efficient than the average human being. The “old busy” were stressed out and tired, but the new busy are fresh-faced, full of upbeat energy and relentlessly cheerful. It is positive psychology gone bananas. The campaign, which is global, is peppered with sentences such as the following (I don’t think it is grammatically correct to begin a sentence with “because”, but anyway). And it’s a lie, anyway:
“Because we know that having a full calendar means having a full life.”
This is presumably all excellent news for the corporations. If Hotmail can somehow make it cool to be busy, then management – ie, the art of extracting the maximum amount of money from each employee – is made a hell of a lot easier. The campaign also provides the self-improving new busy with some ideas about how to fill up that calendar in their quest for a “full life”. These range from the insane—”Would be open to taking a class in their sleep,” to the horribly twee and patronising—”Make pancakes into exotic shapes.” The new busy, we understand, “make beavers look lazy” and are schooled in the arts of aggressive optimism: “Have 100 good reasons why it will work.” As ever with such conditioning campaigns, we do not hear any mention of beauty or truth.
Truly, this is merely the latest form of Calvinism, or the corporate attempt to create happy slaves. Luckily for us, the journalist Barbara Ehrenreich has written Smile or Die, a devastating attack on the American cult of positive pscyhology, which I would urge everyone to read. It’s a trend that is coming over to Blighty, where whooping and high-fives are appearing in our offices. The new busy, I’d suggest, can be easily identified by their blinkered, self-important stupidity. The new busy is the new slavery.
We must all resist this brave new world with every core of our beings and get grumpy, uncommunicative and pessimistic. In other words, let us embrace the old lazy.
10 April 2010
The new edition of the Idler, our Back to the Land issue, is now finished and has been delivered to the printer. It features a major interview with David Hockney who has also contributed two sketches. Essayists include Paul Kingsnorth, Harry Mount, Penny Rimbaud, Jay Griffiths and Simon Fairlie, plus there is new work from Clifford Harper, Alice Smith and Stanley Donwood. There is also a conversation with the idling anarchists Ian Bone and Ray Roughler-Jones. The book has been typeset by Christian Brett who also designed the cover. It is bound in yellow cloth. Order it now and we will send it out to you in the early days of May, or subscribe. Click on the Shop button above (and marvel at the lovely new shop layout). TH
The New Idler for 2010, featuring David Hockney
30 March 2010
Last week I motored to Kent for a ukulele extravaganza at the Whitstable Labour Club, where I was joined by Margate’s Ukulele Eric. A great time was had by all, as you can see from this picture:
Tom Divulges His Earnings for Tax Year 2009/10
The next day I had lunch at Margate’s Harbour Café with Eric and Sadie, and we were joined by Louise of Margate’s literary B&B, The Reading Rooms. We had a little jam.
Tom and Eric and the Harbour Café, Margate
Then I motored on down to Lewes where I met Matthew De Abaitua and Gustav Temple, editor of The Chap magazine, in the Lewes Arms, We drove back to The Rooms, a bar in a part of St Leonards appealingly called Bohemia, and very bohemian in there it was, too. Thanks to all the fine young mothers who had left their children with their Dads to come along. The night was organized by Sarah Janes and featured a fine choir from Brighton singing Tudor madrigals.
Garland Hearse of Brighton Sing Tudor Madrigals
I sang songs in praise of idleness and chatted about anarchy for about an hour. After a delicious local beer called Boadicea, we went back to Lewes for a few Harveys ales around Matthew’s kitchen table. A few days later Gustav engaged me to write a column for The Chap magazine, so look out for that. We plan to call it Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, after Jerome K. Jerome’s book of that name.
Thanks to all the good folk of Whitstable, Margate, St Leonards and Lewes, and in particular to Val and Sadie Hennessy for organizing the Whitstable gig, and to Sarah Janes for the St Leonards gig. I hope to return soon for another mini-tour. TH
23 March 2010
The Idle Parent is now out in paperback, with a price tag of £8.99, and rather a fetching picture of yours truly surrounded his toerags. So get down to your nearest independent bookshop and buy a copy of this consoling manual that puts the parents first. Do NOT buy from Amazon as I consider their low pricing policy to be unjust. If you must buy it mail order, then go to the excellent Book Depository. You can still buy signed first editions of the hardback from the Idler Shop. TH
The Parenting Guide that Puts the Parent First
19 March 2010
FOR THE FIRST time in months, it is warm enough to sit and work in my study without lighting the fire. Spring has finally arrived. I can hear the birds tweeting and from my desk I can see the tower of the 11th century church of St Martin. Now that the good weather is finally here, Victoria decided to go and inspect the two bee hives. She found devastation. Every bee was dead. She suspects that the collapse may have been a result of the nosema virus, but investigations into the cause of death are ongoing. Now she will have to start right from the beginning again and find a new nucleus. The only upside is that we can take some honey and wax from the hives, and so the bees will bring sweetness and light into the homestead.
(more…)
10 March 2010
During the last few days, a whole host of goodies has been delivered to Idler HQ, ready to send out to Idlers worldwide. First we have had the third edition of my Facebook pamphlet, “We Want Everyone”. This is a limited edition of 100 copies, each signed and numbered, and printed by Christian Brett. It features a new introduction by yours truly, and is available for a mere fiver.
The new Facebook pamphlet. All supplied with free anti-Twitter bookmark
Furthermore, Ged Wells has sent us a new load of t-shirts. There are brightly-coloured snail designs, and Smash the System t-shirts in ladies’ fit.
Our new snail t-shirts, and our new candy-striped bags
All orders will be wrapped in our new hand-printed bags, and will be packed with one of our hand-printed “Read: Don’t Twitter” bookmarks. Click here to browse through the shop, and thanks for your custom. TH
A close-up of our fine new bags, hand-printed by Christian Brett
My mother, journalist Liz Hodgkinson, and her publisher, Revel Barker of Gentlemen Ranters, have organized a day of inaction for freelance journalists. It is Maundy Thursday, that is 1st of April, chosen because in the old days it was a day off. Revel is launching a new book by Colin Dunne, and is using that as an excuse for a freelances’ get-together and sit-down protest. The point is, says Revel, for all freelances to be unavailable to commissioning editors at the same time. It is, he says, “a gentle and even polite reminder” that freelances are fed up with falling rates and discourteous treatment. All are welcome at The Harrow, 22 Whitefriars Street, London EC4 from 12.30pm, for an afternoon of convivial protest. TH
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"For Jerome, idleness had little in common with laziness. His notion of idleness in the world beyond his fiction was one of contemplative productivity with the minimum of fuss."