Ben Law
A telly programme called Grand Designs came up in conversation recently and Samara (my Canadian and therefore alien girlfriend) wanted to know about it.
The episode that had made the greatest impression on me was about a woodland house constructed using traditional methods and volunteer labour by a woodsman called Ben Law.
What stood out most in my recollection was that the house was built precisely around the dimensions of hay bales so that the bales could be neatly plopped into place for cheap, efficient, and eco-friendly insulation. It was just so neat and well-planned and straightforward. It prompted the question: why can’t everything be this simple? Why must everything be bloated and ostentatious and bogged down by bureaucracy?
So we snuggled down to watch this very episode on YouTube. It’s ace. It almost makes me want to join Ben Law and my own house-building chums the Wests and the Money Mustaches in doing the same. But only almost. Because I’m too lazy.
Anyway, here’s the vid:
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Out Soon! Issue 10
How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.
It’s a joke attributed to Woody Allen and the basis for our forthcoming bumper tenth edition: Tell Him Your Plans.
The theme is Absurdity: how to cope with the tedium of replacing toner cartridges in an infinite universe.
As well as top-notch articles and essays from all your New Escapologist favourites, we’ve got interviews with novelist Ewan Morrison and comedian Richard Herring; a tale of sick day liberation by Allan Wilson; and a thrilling escape story by Raptitude’s David Cain.
It’s one heck of an issue. Possibly our best yet.
Be among the first bold heroes to get a copy and pre-order now in print or more cheaply on PDF.
Also starring the Wise Space Baby from the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey!
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Notes from Overground
“Man is born free and is everywhere in trains.”
I’d like to recommend a twenty-year-old book called Notes from Overground by Tiresias.
It was probably my favourite read of 2013. Strangely enough, the Guardian mentioned it recently too, so maybe it’s time for a Tiresias renaissance.
The book should be held dear by any Escapologist. Treasure it. Keep it in your breast pocket, close to your heart. (If nothing else it might intercept a bullet during a particularly exciting post-employment misadventure).
It contains no practical information on how to escape the 9-5, but it’s a beautiful plaintive cry on behalf of commuters everywhere.
As it happens, the author Tiresias (real name Roger Green) eventually escaped. He went to live on the Greek island of Hydra to continue his life as a poet.
But before escaping, he commuted daily between Oxford and Paddington for twenty years. In Notes from Overground, he gives us extremely witty and highly-literate musings about life as an intelligent person relegated to white-collar purgatory. Do read it if you can find a copy.
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An Escapologist’s Diary. Part 38. Solvitur Ambulando.
This post is dedicated to Escapologist of distinction Lentus who is walking the Camino Santiago. He taught me the term Solvitur Ambulando, which means “it is solved by walking”.
For almost three months, I’ve been prevented from walking everywhere by the ferocious Quebec winter. If that sounds sissy or uncommitted, you should know that we’re talking about snow up to the knees, torrents of slippery grey slush, pavements like frosted glass, and temperatures as low as -40°C (though -15 is more typical). Here’s the view from my balcony.
It’s not impossible to walk through this and it can be fun to do so on occasion, but when your daily routine includes two 45-minute walks, such oppressive conditions cease to be entertaining very quickly.
So I started travelling by bus. It will come as no surprise to anyone that I’m not hugely fond of a rush hour bus. It may offer protection from the elements, but it’s crowded and lurching and it frequently smells like farts.
For a fortnight now, the bus has been particularly bad. Several times, it has simply failed to arrive at all and I’ve resorted to splitting taxi cabs with other commuters after waiting in the cold for half an hour. Did I mention it’s -15°C on a good day?
So I’ve taken matters into my own hands this week and started walking again in spite of the winter. It’s no picnic, but at least I can stay relatively warm when walking, compared to standing still at a bus stop.
It’s also an opportunity to try some black-belt Stoicism. I just try to remember that my internal self cannot be pelted with ice. Only my outer shell is vulnerable.
The return to regular walking has been tough but rewarding. I feel strong and vital! The physical exercise doubtless helps, but it’s also the solitude and the time to think and the sense of being connected to the world instead of just crammed into the same cattle truck again and again, never really seeing anything.
Try it yourself. Damn the elements. Go for a walk. Solvitur Ambulando.
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Consider the Sloth
From a nice New York Times article about the humble sloth. Leave it to an animal fable to say it all.
[The three-toed sloth is] not a sluggard because it’s lazy. Rather, it has carved out a remarkably ingenious mode of life in the treetops, but one that imposes certain constraints on its speed and energy level.
O.K., back to your harried, fast-paced schedules. But remember the sloth, which has solved all its problems by living in the slow lane.
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Young and Jobless
I enjoyed this article by Erica Buist, author of How to be Jobless. It’s a response to UK employment minister Esther McVey’s offensive suggestion that the 941,000 unemployed youths of Britain “start at the bottom” and “get a job at Costa [Coffee]”.
We already started at the bottom. Our parents and teachers asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, and held it to ransom. We spent countless hours in meaningless exams: GCSEs, AS-levels, A-levels, BAs, MAs, even PhDs; not forgetting the unpaid internships (yet another barrier between us and employment) – because these were sold as tickets to where we wanted to go.
And now we’re snobs for wishing those miserable years had paid off. At this juncture, the only honest thing a politician could say about youth unemployment is: “We messed up the economy, you will not be getting what we promised you’d get in exchange for the years spent becoming educated, qualified and willing.”
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Platitudes
I’m in Seattle. Arrive to find this poster hanging in my AirBNB room. A bit mawkish but can’t really argue with it! Tidy version here.
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An Escapologist’s Diary: Part 37. 2013 Review.
Dear Imaginary Shareholders,
It’s been a weird year. For starters, I took a job. Not something I generally recommend, as you know.
Read the rest of this entry »
A New Year’s Podcast
Happy 2014!
I point you to this little podcast for your Jan 1st enjoyment.
This time last year, Neil Scott’s ill-fated resolution was to record and post a weekly interview with one of his friends. Since I was staying at his house on New Year’s Eve, I would be Episode 1.
For some reason, we weren’t particularly happy with the result and Neil never posted it. But digging it out of the archives today, it’s hard to know what we didn’t like. It’s just a nice little chat between two friends.
I’m surprised by how articulate I am. I remember feeling pointlessly anxious about nothing and hungover from the previous evening’s revelry.
Anyway, it’s a nice little podcast. Have a listen. We talk about New Escapologist a lot, especially the practice of Escapology. Jacob Lund Fisker gets a mention, as do Tom Hodgkinson, Momus, Richard Herring, Matt Caulfield, Leo Babauta, Nicolette Stewart and other heroes of Escapology
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The Absurdity of Work
This question paves the way perfectly for our upcoming Absurdity issue. I giggled all the way down the comments thread. The question lets the madness in.
Would you do a completely pointless job?
In particular, we’re talking about the acts of digging holes and filling them up again, or writing the words “I am working” over and over before binning your efforts.
The comments left by the ERE readers fall into four main camps:
1. No, I’d never do it because my freedom is too important;
2. No, I’d never do it because my work must be personally satisfying or socially worthwhile;
3. Yes, I’d do it if the money was right;
4. Yes, because it’s no more absurd than my current job.
The latter is the whole point. The work we do is all too often not necessary or doesn’t really need to be worked on for so many hours. So many of us are in an absurd Touch-the-Truck situation in which we’re basically paid for physical presence.
The Escapologist, of course, recognises this Sisyphean torment for what it is and tries to escape it.
Most people, sadly, will inevitably pick up the shovel–largely against their will–in exchange for £10 or £20 or £40 per hour. For forty years.
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