I originally welcomed the mobile phone as it seemed to me that it would enable you to work from anywhere. On the mobile, who was to know if you were sitting on the branch of a tree or sitting in an office? But it instead had the opposite effect: instead of freeing us from the office, it allowed the office to take away our freedom.

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.

One aspect of fast London life I have never understood, for example, is the custom of the gym. Why do people go to gyms?

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.

Labour-saving devices just make us try to cram more pointless activities into each day, rather than doing the important thing, which is to enjoy our life.

The terrible thing about the internet and Amazon is that they take the magic and happy chaos out of book shopping. The internet might give you what you want, but it won't give you what you need.

Doing something you enjoy at times of your own choosing and making a living from it: now tell me, is that work?