There’s plenty of mind-expanding stuff to enjoy at the upcoming Idler Festival. And that’s just in Tom Hodgkinson‘s events…
With only two weeks to go until our annual gathering – The Idler Festival, at Fenton House and Gardens – I’d like to let you know what I’m up to across the three days.
On the Friday at 6pm Florence Read and I will lead a masterclass on Stoic philosophy on the main lawn. We’ll be encouraging you to ask lots of questions so we can hold a proper Socratic dialogue with the aim of getting happy and wise.
Then I’ll be moving to inside the house for an interview with skateboarder Neil Macdonald about his new coffee table book Elsewhere, which is a loving visual and oral record of skateboarding in the UK in the eighties, nineties and early noughties (I feature briefly as I worked at London skate store Slam City Skates in 1990). We’ll be joined by historian Ian Borden, author of Skateboarding and the City and professor of Architecture and Urban Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture.
On Saturday at 12:30 I’ll be interviewing tech critic Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification, who is always wise, illuminating and entertaining. Then at 4.15pm I’m talking to the great Charlie Higson of Fast Show fame. Charlie is the polymath author of 25 books, including the Young Bond series, and most recently published a history of the British monarchy. Maybe we’ll talk about that.
On Sunday I’ll be chatting to Kojo Koram, Professor in Law and Political Economy at Loughborough University, about his new book The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs.
Then at 6pm I’ll be picking up the ukulele to play a set of stirring protest pop and Stoic singalongs with The Loafers.
And in between I’m looking forward to Murray Lachlan Young’s Five Minute Parties (MLY’s FMPs), short Idler salons created with the purpose of meeting other readers.
Libertas per cultum.
Tom
PS We’ve just got hold of surplus stock of my book How to Live in the Country, itself a reissue of my Brave Old World of 2010, a month-by-month compilation of farming advice drawn from the great authorities: Columella, Thomas Tusser, William Cobbett, John Seymour and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. It also offers tales of Victoria and my attempts – not always successful, by any means – to live the good life, with chapters on beekeeping, pig-keeping, chickens, bread-baking, vegetable-growing and so on. This recent edition features an introduction from Dominic West and is on sale for half price. Was £10.99, now a mere £5.49 – less than the cost of a pint of good beer. Click here to order (and scroll down slightly).
THE IDLER FESTIVAL
The Idler Festival runs from Friday 10 to Sunday 12 July at Fenton House and Gardens in Hampstead, London NW3.
See who else is performing and buy tickets on our Festival poster here. Just click on the performer’s name for more details.
See you there!
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How to Live Like a Stoic
Tom Hodgkinson’s latest book How to Live Like a Stoic: A Handbook for Happiness (Bloomsbury Continuum, £16.99) is out now. Order a copy via Linktree here.
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Click here for your nearest stockist.
It’s late, but has to post my favorite skateboard poem. (That I just made up now.)
Ode to Slammed Skates
Hostile architecture is the worst,
Halting skateboard freedom’s burst.
It stops the flying through the city,
Which I believe is such a pity.
So before we build to take away,
Ask: what could we add to make more play?
It’s just a matter of imagination!
Don’t we make both trains and stations?
Warmly,
Juana