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.

Sensible people advise against drinking on an empty stomach, but to my mind it is the best sort of drinking.

There are a lot of little tricks you can do to inject a bit more time into the day. Most important is limiting yourself to a 40 hour week, not working 50 hours or 60 or 70. It's just crazy. It's actually irresponsible to you and irresponsible to your family and friends. Why should your employer's profits be more important than your own family? You're not even going to get any of the profits - all you get is not losing your job. It's a very negative system.

A conclusion I’ve come to at the Idler is that it starts with retreating from work but it’s really about making work into something that isn’t drudgery and slavery, and then work and life can become one thing.

When walking you see things that you miss in a motor car or on the train. You give your mind space to ponder.

Paradoxically, to be truly idle, you also have to be efficient.

In both word and deed, one of the greatest idlers of all time was John Lennon. In his songs we see repeated defences of simply lying around doing nothing.