When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.

Embrace the faff. Stare out of the window. Bend paperclips. Stand in the middle of the room trying to remember what you came downstairs for. Pace. Drum your fingertips. Move papers around. Hum. Look at the garden.

There is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m.

Laziness works. And the simple way to incorporate its health benefits into your life is simply to take a nap.

We think we have to work because the advertising industry has elevated wants into needs. The newspapers and the television batter us incessantly with the latest "must-haves", whether that's shoes, videogames or patio heaters. As a result, mums think they "have" to work at Tesco in order to buy expensive trainers.

To me there is no more depressing sight than a five-year-old staring at a screen, unsmiling, mouse in hand. Besides whatever dreadful things this prolonged exposure to screens is doing to their brains, computer games tend to be solitary affairs, and produce little laughter.

Computers tend to separate us from each other - Mum's on the laptop, Dad's on the iPad, teenagers are on Facebook, toddlers are on the DS, and so on.