I count it as a certainty that in paradise, everyone naps.

The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.

Little things like making clothes, baking bread, cooking, even useless things like bird-watching, sketching flowers, playing guitar in the home - that sort of time is gone. And the time we have? We're so exhausted, we want to let ourselves get sucked in to the escape world of TV. I'm speaking from experience; I'm not above all this.

It takes a while to master the art of hammock-lounging. At first I could only manage five minutes or so before I thought I ought to get out and go and help a child learn how to swim or something. But after observing the Mexicans' capability for staring into space for hours on end, I decided to put in some proper practice.

Long weekends at festivals, short weeks at home, all summer long: now that is surely preferable to the immense cost and headache of the nuclear family holiday in the sun?

I would like to propose slow cycling. Commute by bike. At a stroke, you remove the need for and absurd cost of public transport. Cycling is almost completely free. There is no longer any need for the gym as you get fit by cycling. And you can go at your own pace.

The world's richest half billion people - that's about seven per cent of the global population - are responsible for fifty per cent of the world's emissions.