The Idle Idol

Idling fits well with permaculture. Remember the Global Gardener video, in which Bill Mollison demonstrates the making of his mulched garden in less than thirty working days over a three-year period? "And this is where the designer turns into the recliner", he winks, lying back and munching fruit amongst an embarrassment of abundance, "If you have it well planted you can pretend to be working in the garden and be invisible from the house…"

It was truly a treat therefore to attend the first workshop hosted by The Idler magazine, held in the laid back setting of the Dial House garden in deepest Essex.

Of course, the Idler concept isn’t about laziness so much as a riposte to outmoded linear ideas of ‘busy-ness’; "The idler's work … looks suspiciously like play. Victims of the Protestant work ethic would like all work to be unpleasant. They feel that work is a curse, that we must suffer on this earth to earn our place in the next... The idler on the other hand sees no reason not to use his brain to organise a life for himself where his play is his work, and so attempt to create his own little paradise in the here and now".

We arrived late (plus marks there already!), in time for a ‘pointless tasks’ practical workshop, for which participants were judged on their assignment avoidance skills. Outright winner of course was the fellow who didn’t bother to show up for the session at all!

There were serious points to be made as well, including sessions by Jay Griffith (author of the brilliant ‘Pip Pip, A Sideways Look at Time’) on the enslaving nature of Western time concepts and ex-Crass drummer and spokesperson Penny Rimbaud on the politics of money. Ron and I also got into a long discussion with Idler Head Honcho Tom (a recent convert to veggie growing and fan of John Seymour) about the ethics and principles of permaculture design, and the contrasts between indigenous and industrial peoples concepts of ‘work’ (the former meet all their needs from 2-3 hours a day, the latter slave 50 plus hours a week but are never satisfied…).

But back to chilling, an unavoidable weekend theme. 25 years ago, if anybody had told me, the angry young Crass fan, that I would one day be lounging in their garden sipping champagne, eating strawberry cake and listening to Noel Coward on the Dansette, I would probably have denounced them as heretics and sent them off to the anarcho-punk self-criticism retraining school. How times change when wisdom (?!?) kicks in (and one finally gets the point…)! Like the old Zen master taught, don’t just do something, sit there!

Graham Burnett www.spiralseed.co.uk/

Check out The Idler at www.idler.co.uk