THERE’S A GREAT piece in this week’s Evening Standard magazine on how London is slowing down and smelling the flowers.

The writer, Richard Godwin, sees signs of what he calls “the new slow” everywhere he looks:

“The new slow is everywhere. The best coffee places are phasing out the espresso (originally designed to make Italian factory workers move faster) in favour of slow-drip. Mindfulness has become a multimillion-pound industry as the more enlightened firms see the value in allowing their employees to meditate. Meanwhile, as increasing numbers of twenty- and thirty-somethings take ‘second’ gap years, it seems the sabbatical is the new mini-break. Noah Baumbach’ generational comedy, While We’re Young, captures the shift well. While Ben Stiller’s past-it forty-something runs on a treadmill in a gym, Adam Driver’s modern twenty-something plays basketball on a Brooklyn street corner. While Stiller flicks around Netflix looking for something to watch, Driver draws from his old VHS tapes. While Stiller plays a game on his phone, Driver invites friends over to play Risk. ‘These kids, they’re so into process, it’s inspiring,’ marvels Stiller.”

I need hardly mention that the Idler Academy coffeehouse has always prided itself on selling slow-drip Monmouth coffee.

Mr Godwin goes on to quote yours truly:

“London has become a wonderful city to be slow in,’ he enthuses. ‘Take Boris bikes — you can’t actually go fast on those things if you want to. I have come to see them as an important affront to the MAMILS [middle-aged men in Lycra] on their racing bikes, who see commuting as some sort of competitive sport.’ Tom points out that our civic infrastructure makes ample space for slowness, too: we have a gleaming new Overground for slow train travel, more parkland than any comparable metropolis and free museums.”

The piece ends with a nod to the emerging demographic of digital nomads, or freelancers, or what we would call idlers: those freedom seekers who are looking to emancipate themselves form mental slavery and quit their jobs:

“There is another factor underlying the new slow wave, which is the ever-increasing number of freelancers (who linger in the ever-increasing number of slow coffee places). According to the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, the number of self-employed workers in the UK will overtake those employed in the public sector by 2018. For many, the loss of security is more than offset by the ability to take a bath in the middle of the day.

“Indeed, Hodgkinson sees plenty to admire in the maligned hipsters and draws a parallel with the late-19th-century Arts and Crafts movement, which was a revolt against the slapdash speed of the industrial age. ‘Have you noticed how much these East London hipsters look like William Morris?’ he says. ‘Of course, it’s a very self-conscious aesthetic and gets its detractors, but this notion of craft and autonomy comes from a real place. Look at Etsy. It’s a site for people who make things at home with their hands and it’s just floated on the stock exchange. The fact that Wall Street investors have invested in this pleases me immensely.’

“The fact that they are their own bosses doesn’t mean that the new digital artisans will be any less productive. It simply means they will move at their own pace. Fast, slow, fast, fast, slow. Isn’t that more liberating? As Oscar Wilde once said, it takes a lot of effort to be idle.”

Well said, sir!

ENDS

PS I also wrote a piece for the Daily Telegraph here on how pubs are becoming centres of learning.