Travelling in a suit
I don’t often travel with other people, but when I do they’re often surprised to see me hanging around the airport in a three-piece suit. I suppose it is a bit strange, but there are reasons for my madness:
1. Just like anyone else, I want to be comfortable for the flight. Since my suit is tailor-made, it is the most comfortable thing in my wardrobe. More comfortable even than my pajamas.
2. When I had it made, I kept in mind my frequent trips through airport security. I added waist tighteners and omitted belt loops so I could leave my belt at home; and I made sure there were pockets in the jacket capable of holding my passport, handkerchief, wallet and book. All of this means I surrender my jacket to the x-ray machine and nothing else.
3. By wearing my suit on the flight, I don’t have to fold it into my check luggage. This means it won’t get crinkled. As the most expensive thing I own, I don’t want to entrust it to luggage handlers or pay for extra baggage insurance.
4. If you encounter a service problem (your flight is delayed or your vegetarian meal was forgotten) people are more likely to take your concerns seriously if you wear a suit. This is possibly because they think you’re rich or important if you’re wearing a suit, but I think it’s actually because a person in a suit is more instantly identifiable as a human being and therefore easier to empathise with. I know it sounds odd, but I think a person in a suit somehow fits into a mental schema of ‘person’ than someone in a miscellaneous outfit.
5. It wasn’t part of my planning, but I recently read that wearing natural fibers is a good precaution to take if you want to survive a plane crash. If the place is on fire, you don’t want to end up kebabbed in polyester napalm. My suit is made of wool, and wool apparently is the best thing to wear in a plane crash.
Buy New Escapologist direct from the printer
As an experiment, I’ve made New Escapologist Issue 5 exclusively available from our printers, Lulu.com.
Bohemias. The Bohemias Issue celebrates the artists and eccentrics of history who have chosen to live as Bohemians, plus lots of practical articles on how to live the Bohemian life. Featuring writing on beards, entropy, rambling, bedsits, Quentin Crisp, garrets, Buddhism, digital work ethics, Erik Satie, Emperor Norton, Bohemian love, and more. Includes a special interview with Alain de Botton. 106 pages. £6 / €7.80 / US$10 / C$10
Normally, when you order a copy, it is shipped from New Escapologist HQ. In other words: I personally receive the order from PayPal, package your copy and stand in line at the post office to send it. I quite enjoy this process and am proud to be so involved, but as New Escapologist increases in popularity it’s getting to be a bit much. It’s also tricky to find volunteers to take care of everything when I’m away. So let’s give the alternative a try, eh?
There are significant advantages for you too:
– You can enjoy the benefits of Lulu special offers (in fact, you can get 20% off right now);
– You can enjoy a discount if you want to buy multiple copies;
– Readers outside the UK will enjoy cheaper shipping rates;
– Your order will arrive in higher quality packaging than we can afford in-house;
– Your order is less likely to be lost in the post, coming from Lulu rather than a parochial post office;
– Lulu have an excellent customer services department and can afford to send you a replacement copy if yours gets lost in the post.
The new process doesn’t require you to learn anything special. It’s just like buying a book on Amazon. Let me know if you have any complaints about this new method. We can always go back.
For now, Issues 1-4 are still available in the usual way (because I’ve got a hundred of each sitting in my living room). But if the experiment with Issue 5 is a success and people are happy with ordering from Lulu, we’ll make all of our issues available there.
To get things going, why not take advantage of the current 20% discount coupon? It’s valid until August 14th. Type SINKUK at checkout*.
*I’ve just realised that this coupon code is a UK-only offer. See Lulu.com for discounts where you are.
Is it time to go to the pub now?
Since far too much productivity advice these days seems to assume that productive work is all that matters in life, let’s be clear: “calling off the day” to go and join friends in the local beer garden – or to do anything else that’s similarly fun or enriching – is an actively good thing (providing it won’t get you fired). You should do it a lot. What you shouldn’t do is fail to make progress on what matters because of what it says on your wristwatch. Don’t head to the beer garden because you’re postponing the important stuff till tomorrow, in other words. Head to the beer garden because it’s important in itself.
Oliver Burkeman this week writes about the phenomenon of ‘calling the day off’. I do this too, and I’m sure many of the self-employed or self-motivated among you will have experienced the same phenomenon.
It’s 4pm, you’ve had a few aborted attempts at knuckling down, but you’re just not feeling the productivity vibe. So you call the day off and go to the pub.
I’ve started practicing an extreme version of this. Over time, I’ve learned to get a feel for what’s going to be a productive or non-productive day from the get-go, so now I give whole days over to skiving thoroughly, from the morning. Better that than waste half the day looking at a blinking cursor only to achieve nothing. I either throw myself into several hours of workflow with total gusto, or I cut my losses immediately and have a nice day.
Leonard Dubkin
During [his] year of unemployment, he took a job briefly in answering customer inquiries for a radio manufacturer, but he could not understand how his colleagues managed to work without a nearby window. In fact, many preferred no window at all. It was only Mr Dubkin who liked the chance to look out on the world, to gaze on, with particular attention, the formations of swooping birds.
My favourite article from the upcoming New Escapologist Issue 6 is a biographical item by Reggie Chamberlain-King about the gentle naturalist Leonard Dubkin. The article is illustrated throughout by the incredibly talented Landis Blair.
Issue 6—Against the Grain—can now be pre-ordered from the shop.
Escape to the Athens of the North
We’ve a few events coming up in Edinburgh. Why Auld Reekie? Simple coincidence, Madam.
August 7th sees a small press fair at the Forest Cafe, at which New Escapologist will have a stall. I’ll be there myself, so do come along and say hello. Free entry.
On the same day, I’ll be recording an Escapological walk-and-talk for Thomas Fazi’s upcoming film about Dudism. This isn’t something you can come and see, but you can come along to Thomas’ Dude-themed “rug-in” at Prince’s Street Gardens in the evening.
On August 24th-27th, as part of the Free Fringe, Friendly Mr Pineapples and I will be recording four improvised podcasts with a live audience at the Rabbie Burns cafe/bar on the Royal Mile. This is nothing to do with Escapology, though I’ll be happy to talk about it (as part of the podcast or secretly in the bar after the recording) and will probably have some copies of New Escapologist to buy at the venue. Free Entry.
We’ve not got a date yet, but the Edinburgh Festival will also see the official launch of New Escapologist Issue 6. Yes, we’ve been beavering away to produce the sixth issue in record time. More news on the new issue and the Edinburgh launch event soon.
On October 10th, I’ll take part in The Salon for Untitled Projects at the Traverse Theatre. The theme for the evening is ‘The Future’ and will involve my dressing up in Nineteenth Century garb and talking about the Escapological Utopia. There will be other speakers too, and even the audience will be invited to dress up!
I should also mention that the famous WordPower bookshop on Edinburgh’s West Nicholson Street is now a proud stockist of New Escapologist. If you’re in the vicinity, do pop in and buy a copy of The Bohemias Issue. It’ll help the project immensely.
After all of this, you will probably find me collapsed, exhausted, upon Arthur’s Seat.
Freelancers
The great thing about working for yourself is that there are no limits. You can incorporate as much as you want into your career – and draw on a portfolio of interests and talents. At times I worry I spread myself too thinly, but as long as my imagination is engaged – and I can pay my rent – I’m a happy girl.
From a Guardian photo feature about self-employed entertainers.
An Escapologist’s Diary. Part 27.
Last week, Typographer Tim and I set out on the Lyke Wake Walk. Though we didn’t do it to make any kind of Escapological point (we did it for fun), it did feel like a New Escapologist field trip of sorts.
I suppose there are connections to this kind of activity and Escapology:
1. Endurance: knowing you can do difficult things yourself increases confidence and decreases dependence.
2. Against-the-grain: because walking 42 miles certainly isn’t normal.
3. Self-initiated: nobody told us to do this.
4. Personal liberty: it’s good to know you’ve the fitness to take flight with minimal equipment or assistance.
5. Minimal cost: in tune with a life on the lam, the best Escapological activities are cheap or free.
I completed 34.5 miles of the 42-mile walk. I had to abandon the last stretch after my knee became the source of a lot of pain. I could have pushed on, I suppose, but I agreed with Haruki Murakami’s sentiment that “suffering is optional” and, ever Epicurean, didn’t see the point in suffering to such an extent. My podiatrist sister (after a very proficient series of questions on the phone: “does it crunch like broken glass or pop like an elbow?”) says that my bad knee can be attributed to simple lack of fitness. This is good news to me as fitness can be improved.
The walk was great fun but not easy. There were swamps to navigate, steep inclines, treacherousness rocky declines, and vast expanses of soul-sapping nothingness. Beats having to stop for cars every two minutes though.
Anyway, I’ll not go on about it. Last time I posted an entry about walking, fifteen people unsubscribed from the RSS! For anyone interested in the minutiae of our epic a-pied adventure and to hear about how much I moaned about it on the day, here is a PDF of Tim’s report to the New Lyke Wake Club with pictures.
Cubicle woes
The Guardian‘s Dear Jeremy column is about work and career-related problems. I read it every week as a way of remembering what employment is like.
I really love this week’s quandary. It is titled “I want to throttle my talkative office partner”.
I share an office with a woman who is in her late 30s. My problem is that she talks to herself – all day, every day. If she is writing an email she reads it out loud; if she is working on her PC she talks through the process. The boss won’t allow a radio and because I use the phone, I cannot wear headphones. I have tried doing the same but she just talks louder.
I have also tried saying “Sorry did you say something”, but this is obviously too subtle. I even said “Shush” once and told her to stop muttering to herself as I was trying to concentrate. She sulked for half an hour, then started again. Help – I might just throttle her soon.
Hahaha! Offices.
The Blurb
Here is what the blurb looks like on the back cover of Issue Five. The reference to Brobdingnag is from Gulliver’s Travels, which remains timeless and inspirational.
Issue Five is available in the shop.
An Escapologist’s Diary. Part 26.
In the New Escapologist survey, our readers’ joint-favourite activity (joint with ‘reading and libraries’) is revealed to be walking. We are a well-read and eternally roaming bunch. As if we needed a survey to tell us that.
What does walking have to do with Escapology? There’s certainly a strong sense of freedom in knowing you have the physical fitness to take flight at a moment’s notice and with minimal assistance. It’s also the cheapest mode of transport there is, meaning less need to sell your time for money. Walking keeps you fit without resorting to the expensive indignity of the gym, and allows you to discover parts of the city you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise: secret alleyways, blue plaques, hidden bars, unusual statues and masonry.
I’m an eternal pedestrian, walking mainly as a way to get from A to B. If ever I resort to the subway or a taxi, it feels like a slight failing. Sometimes I even forget that the subway exists, which is a shame because the one in Glasgow is very charming. Walking, these days, is my primary means of transport.
On rare instances of walking specifically for pleasure, I am likely to do so as an urban flaneur. Unlike the hiker or hill walker, I am not particularly interested in the countryside. I am trying, however, to take a more active interest in walking, and it has inevitably taken me into the countryside. I may have been pulled in this direction by Stephen Barry’s inspiring account of the Rambler’s Association in New Escapologist Issue 5.
Yesterday I walked 23 miles from Glasgow to Loch Lomond. It was training and a fitness indicator for next week’s challenge of walking 41 miles across Yorkshire moorland: the dreaded Lyke Wake Walk, which my dad remarkably completed as a hungover twenty-year-old in the 1960s.
I’ll be doing the Lyke Wake Walk with New Escapologist‘s typographer, Tim. My dad, meanwhile, will be our support team, meeting us by car at each of five checkpoints along the way.
Here’s the report I sent to Tim about yesterday’s walk to Loch Lomond:
