Idler's Almanac for January

January is named after the two-headed god Janus. It’s a time to look both backwards and forwards. We reflect on the year that has just ended and speculate on the year ahead. Janus was associated with doorways and gates, and so the first of January can be seen as the start of a new journey.

Idler hero Dr Johnson would sit down on the first and write his resolutions. His story is, perhaps, a warning against excessive resolution. In 1738 he wrote: “Oh Lord, enable me to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth.” Nineteen years later, things didn’t seem to have improved. He castigated himself once again for being too idle: “Oh mighty God, enable me to shake off sloth and redeem the time misspent in idleness and sin by diligent application of the days yet remaining.”

In 1775, 38 years after his first resolution, he wrote: “When I look back upon resolution of improvement and amendments which have, year after year, been made and broken, why do I yet try and resolve again? I try because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal.” Would it not be wiser, we wonder, to find a middle path between reformation and despair?

Full moon: 3 January
New moon: 19 January

Husbandry/Jobs
Deep in the winter, we’d recommend doing very little in the garden. “Winter is the farmer’s lazy time,” as Virgil wisely wrote in his Georgics. However, if you’d like to get out there, chopping wood is a nice task which will warm you up. You may also like to sow onions, leeks and salad on the windowsill, and do some pruning if you have fruit trees.

Calendar
1 New Year’s Day.
3 JRR Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and member of literary club The Inklings, was born on this day in 1892.
5 Feast of the Epiphany and Twelfth Night
9 Plough Monday, the traditional start of the labouring year for men.
20 Eve of St Agnes. The patron saint of virgins, St Agnes was martyred in her early teens for refusing to marry. Maidens would go to bed without supper, hoping to dream of their future husband. This festival was immortalised in Keats’ poem of the same name.
25 Burns Night, celebration of Scottish national poet Robert Burns, born on this day in 1759.

Who Were the Inklings?
Gathering at pubs and college rooms in the 1930s and 1940s, an all-male group of Oxford scholars would sound out their writings in front of one another. Offering criticism and praise, the group became an informal literary society called The Inklings and continued to meet all the way up until 1949. They were the first to hear some of the most important literary works of the century: JRR Tolkien read from The Lord of the Rings (1954) and CS Lewis from The Problem of Pain (1940). Both Tolkien and Lewis were founding members of the group, but other Inklings included philosopher and founder of Anthroposophy Owen Barfield, and novelist Charles Williams, whose work was highly admired by WH Auden and TS Eliot. Today the Lamb and Flag pub in Oxford, which housed some of the Inklings’ meetings, is still open for business. If any Idlers happen to visit, look out for an inscription above the door, written in Elvish, that means: “Speak, friend and enter”.

“By this fire I warme my handes”

This, and the rest of the year’s Almanac, appears in Idler #100 January/February 2025.

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A Drink with the Idler

“A Drink with the Idler” returns at 6pm on Thursday 15 January, when health psychologist Dr Kari Leibowitz will be revealing her secrets to finding joy in the darker months. Book here.
It’s FREE to subscribers.

Our January/February 2026 issue Idler #107 is available in Waitrose, Waterstones, Smiths Travel outlets, select Smiths high street branches and around 100 indie stores. Click here for your nearest stockist.

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