What seems extraordinary is that the richest countries in the world, in terms of economic output, are the ones where we work hardest. You would have thought that the end of all this innovation, technological advancement, and financial wizardry should be to create less work, not more of it.

There's nothing new about anti-work philosophy. History is dotted with individuals and groups who decided that laziness was next to godliness and work was a waste of time.

We have to wonder whether digital technology, rather than making it easier to communicate, is actually doing the opposite. We now sit alone at a keyboard, firing off zeros and ones into the ether. Offices are silent.

Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience. 'I feel really guilty about getting drunk last night,' we say, when in actual fact we feel no guilt whatsoever or, at least, we could choose to feel no guilt. When people say to me, 'I drank too much last night,' I always reply, 'I drank exactly the right amount.

What seems extraordinary is that the richest countries in the world, in terms of economic output, are the ones where we work hardest. You would have thought that the end of all this innovation, technological advancement, and financial wizardry should be to create less work, not more of it.

I don't put much faith in the political system because it's a question of how are you going to run capitalism, not how are we going to develop a different system to capitalism.

Surely, anyway, a working day of eight or nine hours which is not split by a nap is simply too much for a human being to take, day in, day out, and particularly so in hot weather.