Book of the Week: An Idler's Manual

Loll by the fire this winter, says Tom Hodgkinson

I am confin’d to a narrow Closet, lolling on an arm chair, nodding away my days over a fire, like the picture of January in an old Salisbury Primer.
Pope

I WAS SHOCKED to read recently that there’s a movement among ecological campaigners to ban fires.

Now although I am an ecological campaigner myself, or like to consider myself one, and attempt to avoid polluting the planet, there is a point at which ecological campaigning turns into a sort of finger-wagging puritanism. No fun allowed. Fun has an excessive carbon footprint. So stop it. Stand around an electric radiator instead.

However, the pandemic led to a rise in standing around piles of burning stuff. Sales of fire pits increased as we sought out new ways to socialise. We were getting medieval, in a good way. There were even murmurs against that smug product of American modernity, air conditioning. We were told to fling windows open, get the air moving, which of course is standard folk wisdom, the kind of thing that granny advised.

I am going to carry on making fires and staring at them. I believe that the ecologically sound method is to burn logs which have been thoroughly dried out. I’m also happy that by burning wood, I am helping to manage forests and woodland.

So, with the puritanical anti-fire brigade (ha ha) in mind, let me quote you a list of the benefits of burning wood, from a piece in The Land magazine by forestry expert Mike Gardner:

• Increase the timber quality of the forest;
• Increase the biodiversity of the forest;
• Increase the forest’s resilience to climate change,
• Increase the forest’s capacity to take up carbon;
• Replace fossil fuels with renewable wood fuel;
• Substitute local fuelwood for wood from further away;
• Provide truly green local employment.

This means that we can carry on making fires without guilt and if George Monbiot tells you off or reports you to the authorities, throw that list in his face.

Wood is good. Fire is freedom.

And not only do fires make sense from a practical point of view, let us also celebrate their beauty and ability to create a space for both reflection and for merry-making. Sitting round the fire with some friends and some beer clearly satisfies some sort of ancient need in us. It’s time to bring out the guitars and ukuleles, sing some songs together and generally make merry, away from jobs and bosses and commuting and debt.

The indoor fire is a great aid to reflection and idling. In the old days, January was the best time for lolling by the fire and it’s a custom that Alexander Pope refers to in our epigram, which comes from a letter in 1712, bemoaning his confinement during, I guess, the Christmas holiday, due to illness.

The “January” to which he refers was the two-faced God Janus from where the month gets its name. Janus looked back on the year just gone and ahead to the new year. He was all about calm reflection, fireside loafing and simply being idle.

Inaction points:

Order a load of dry logs. Burn them outdoors or indoors. Stare and wonder.

Or just stick with a barbecue. A barbecue is a fire, it is socially acceptable, and is an easy way to cook – no washing up!

This extract is from Tom Hodgkinson’s An Idler’s Manual.

Tom Hodgkinson also has an Idler Academy course on How To Be Idle. Take a look at the Idler Academy here.

Our November/December issue is available in bookshops as well as Waitrose, WHSmiths, Booth’s and Easons.