The Idler

The Real Seed Company

21 June 2010

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.

Latin Tea Towels

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 for just £5. Go to the Idler home page here or the Idler Shop, here. TH

Gold: Idle Investment Tip Pays Off

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…)

Country Diary 95

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…)

Idle Parenting Hits America

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.

Back to the Land now in

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

Anarchy in the UK

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!

Country Diary 94

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…)

Resist the “New Busy”: Join the Old Lazy

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.

Idler 43: Back to the Land

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

East Coast Tour Report

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

The Idle Parent Now in Paperback

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

Country Diary 93

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.
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New in the Idler Shop

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

Day of Inaction

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

All Hail the Shorter Working Week!

04 March 2010

Here is a report from think tank the New Economics Foundation which recommends the widespread adoption of a shorter working week. Their idea is a 21 hour week, and we can’t see the harm in that.

Country Diary 92

02 March 2010

FOLLOWING THREE months of neglect, I have finally started work on the vegetable patch. Alan came round and we spent six or seven hours up there with the fork, spade and unrelenting mattock. The first step was to throw out the raised beds. On the advice of gardener Kirsty Knight-Bruce, I have abandoned the idea of a raised bed garden in favour of two forty foot long plots separated by a path. Alan and I worked out that this has actually doubled the growing area. We cut the turf off the top of the overgrown paths and chucked it into a mound along the fence. This little bank will offer a bit of protection against the fierce winds which ravage the patch. I am told by Kirsty that wind can seriously reduce your crop. The final plan will be to plant a hedge of hawthorn, blackthorn and beech, but in the short term I will also put some green netting along the fence as an extra windbreak. (more…)

Country Diary 91

04 February 2010

THE FIRST SNOWDROPS have appeared. Their arrival slightly, but only slightly, lightens the gloom caused by the rain. Our yard is a sloshy mudbath and brings to mind the peevish refrain of my city-loving mother, when she comes to visit: “I don’t like mud. I don’t like it!”

The Little White Bells of Spring

The happy days of the snowfall are now just a memory. Jobs beckon. I ordered two large loads of logs and they are sitting in the rain in the yard. They need to be stacked. One pile will be stacked in the wood barn, and the other will be stacked in my new log drying area. This is a row of three pallets with a plywood roof above them, which Alan has fixed up for us. Logs piled up to dry here will get all the benefit of the wind and the sun while being protected from the rain by the roof and also from ground moisture by the pallets. They therefore ought to dry our much more quickly than logs left in the shadey barn. And as far as wood goes, one plan is to do a lot more scavenging. There are woods all around us which are packed with fallen trees and branches, but no one takes them away. If we could drag big branches home, we would have a fgree supply of wood. The problem would then be how to cut the wood up. To this end I have been recommended an electric chainsaw. They cost about £80 and are quieter and safer, I am told, than their oil-powered cousins. But before then, I am going to ask Nick to come round with his chainsaw and tidy the hedges for us, and cut the wood up. We could probably find a lot of free wood around the place and smarten up the appearance to boot. A reader has suggested that we use the pony to collect wood, thus killing two birds with one stone: finding a use for the pony and saving money on wood. This is an excellent scheme.

THERE WAS A problem with the wood burner we put in my study last year: the heat from the stove was causing poisonous fumes to fill the room. The fumes, we surmised, were coming from the bricks behind the stove which we had painted with black floor paint. Alan came and took the paint off and repainted them with proper stove paint and now it is working beautifully.

The New Non Smelly Black Bricks

MY NEW SEED order has arrived from the Real Seed Company and I have great hopes for their seeds. They are a small company based in Wales, and encourage you to save seed. But the vegetable patch looks absolutely appalling. It has been neglected for at least two months and is covered in weeds and grass. I should have manured the whole thing in the autumn, but somehow never got round to it. I think I need help, particularly as I am planning to grow a lot more veg this year. Beans and peas, beans and peas: that will be our focus. That and salad. And carrots. And beetroot. And parsnips. But those seeds are just not planting themselves.

WE HAVE BEEN out ferreting with Brian again, but again no luck. We patiently netted the rabbit holes and then slipped five ferrets into the warren. The ferrets did their job beautifully, and five rabbits fled their warren, but all five somehow eluded our traps. Again we walked home empty-handed. Next time we are going to put up a long net to catch any stragglers. Bernard, who fixes the Rayburn, says that he used to go out with ferrets and a shotgun, and that they would regularly catch sixty rabbits, which they would sell to the butcher.

Twister and Whisper Hope for Success Next Time

THE GREATER-SPOTTED woodpecker visited the bird feeder a couple of time which was thrilling to watch. We have also seen a buzzard sitting in the ash tree opposite the house.

THERE IS CHAOS IN THE HEN HOUSE. The white chicken, we now know, is most definitely a cockerel. Victoria heard him crowing and I saw him vigorously fertilising a hen, very possibly his own mother. So he has come of age, and the poor young man is confused. He has tried to split off and create his own brood but this has not been a success.

Spare Cock

We will have to remove him from the scene sharpish, and either give him away or eat him. Otherwise he will fight the other cockerel. It seems a shame to kill him as he is a fine-looking bird, but there is not much demand for cockerels, and anyway, he will make excellent eating. The other chicken born here is a hen, and she may even have starting laying eggs: I found a very small egg yesterday. We are still getting one or two a day all told.

I MADE MARMALADE for the first time. Out of two kilos of Seville oranges, I got ten jars. This time I used a thermometer to get the setting point right, rather than relying the unrelaiuble “crinkle test” recommended in all the books (do these recipe books actually make the recipe the reproduce? They all seem completely indentical to one another, as if they have just copied them out from the same source). It is absolutely delicious. My only mistake was to leave the shreds cut too big. This makes a spreading little awkward but it is certainly not fatal, and as Bernard said encouragingly, “you’ll know for next time then, won’t you Tom?” And I have named my creation “Big Marmalade”, with the intention of covering up my mistake by pretending that the over-sized bits of peel are actually a culinary innovation.

Tom's First Marmalade

ENDS

Boycott the Banks: Buy Gold

27 January 2010

For those who missed it, here is the short film I made with the BBC’s Daily Politics show, about the romance and practicality of buying gold coins, and using them as an alternative currency.

And if you are persuaded to buy gold coins rather than putting money into pension schemes and usurious banks, then here is the website of John Haynes and Co, noble dealers in gold and silver. I’d highly recommend a visit to this charming shop if you find yourself in the City, and many thanks to John and Christopher for their time and insights. TH

Do Less in Two Thousand and Ten

18 January 2010

Here is my latest “idle parent” column for the Daily Telegraph. TH

BACK TO SCHOOL, BACK TO WORK, back to the fields. In the old medieval calendar, Plough Monday, which was the first Monday after the Feast of the Epiphany or Twelfth Night, marked the end of the Christmas holidays. Those lucky medievals had enjoyed a two week holiday over Christmas, but now it was time to open the shops and harness the plough, in order to prepare the ground for spring sowing. Another custom was St Distaff’s Day, the first Tuesday after Epiphany, which marked the day when the women would resume their duties at the spinning wheel. As Herrick put it:

Partly work and partly play
Ye must on St Distaff’s Day

So in 2010, the men would have returned to their toils on 11th of January and the women on the 12th. As it is, most us generally resume toil on the 4th, meaning that before the Reformation people we had a much better deal, although this year the snow extended the holiday, giving us a nice insight into what the medieval Christmas would have been like.
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