Tom Hodgkinson reveals what’s between the covers of our latest edition, including Ai Weiwei‘s superb essay on AI and censorship

Our new issue is out today and has a decidedly Stoic vibe. Psychologist Kari Leibowitz uses Stoic principles when she argues that mindsets can be changed and, for example, we can learn to love winter. This is very true. Our reasoning faculty can, say the Stoics, be trained to remain cheerful in even the most trying circumstances.

I’m thrilled to run an extract from Ai Weiwei’s new book, On Censorship, which combines images and words into an Orwellian critique of totalitarian states, and of AI, and is based on his own experiences of incarceration and surveillance.

Funnily enough, I’ve just been censored myself in China. My little book An Idler’s Manual is being published there next month, which is great, but two chapters have been dropped. The agent told me: “[Publisher Gingko] would like to request permission to omit Chapter 16 SEEK AN ALTERED STATE and Chapter 18 LIE DOWN. The reason being that ‘these two chapters don’t quite align with our country’s national conditions and publishing regulations.’”

The first of these chapters is about magic mushroom research, and the second is a piece in praise of the Chinese movement tang ping or lying flat, which sees young people opting to pay lower rents in more remote cities so they don’t have to work so hard, and have more time for living, or idling. Drugs and lolling about doing nothing are clearly activities which the government does not wish to encourage.

Will Hodgkinson has contributed a fantastic piece on the decline and fall of pinball, his favourite idle pursuit. Tim Richardson takes a trip to Margate for the Bridget Riley show. And returning to Stoic themes, we publish a new poem from the inimitable Murray Lachlan Young – “Be a Stoic”, an attack on the tech bro appropriation of this ancient, radical and mystical philosophy.

Finally I am thrilled to introduce Lydia Lunch as our new agony aunt. Lydia has been a mainstay in New York counter culture since the 1970s and is bursting with wit and wisdom.

May I also send a big “thank you” to Virginia Ironside who has retired as our agony aunt after many years dispensing wonderful advice to us all.

SELECTED COMMENTS

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Sir: The Chinese are not inclined to look kindly on Brits pushing drugs on them. Please refer to the Opium Wars for an understanding of their position on this.
Philip Nash

A Drink with the Idler

Our next guest on “A Drink with the Idler” is the tech critic Cory Doctorow, whose subject for discussion is: Why everything suddenly got worse, and what to do about it. That’s Thursday 26 February at 6pm. Book tickets here.
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How to Live Like a Stoic

The March/April 2026 issue of the Idler (#108) is out now – available in Waitrose, Smiths and TG Jones.

Click here for your nearest stockist.