Idleness becomes us

Have you noticed just how much you accomplish while you are idle?

I mean those times when you've kicked the tight shoes off, tucked your feet underneath you on your comfy seat, and done absolutely nothing?

I mean nothing.

You're not being unworthy or wrong or naughty. You are just being.

Don't the good ideas spring from wells of idle thought? The worthiest of new plans are laid whilst you lie about.

Here is a foundation that agrees with me, the NEF:

"Just think how much more congenial life would be if all of us worked less and some did no work at all. Oh, for a life of idle politicians, torpid bureaucrats, silent and inert celebrities, and listless pressure groups. Truly, the devil makes work for busy hands.

The notion of working less and mooching more is endorsed by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which argues the case for a 21-hour working week. There is nothing, it says, natural or inevitable about a 'normal' 40-hour week whose pernicious effect is a vicious cycle of work and consumption. People live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume.

'A much shorter working week would change the tempo of our lives, reshape habits and conventions, and profoundly alter the dominant cultures of western society' it adds.

I'm quoting from Mr. Iain Murray who is writing the column entitled 'Funny Money' in the Money Observer magazine (May 2012).

He and the NEF are right, of course. But do modern societies want to be altered and made better for the heaving millions of us who aren't rich enough to down tools and downgrade? I would think not because from CEEFAX today came the news I've actually been watching for and now I've found it again:

"The UK's richest people have defied the double-dip recession to become even richer over the past year, according to the annual Sunday Times Rich List.

The newspaper's research found the combined worth of the country's 1,000 wealthiest people is £414bn, up 4.7%.

It means their joint wealth has passed the level last seen in 2008, before the financial crash, to set a new record."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17885570

The already wealthy small minority of us have got wealthier. Quel surprise!

And don't be concerned about the rich brigade having their wealth snatched away any time soon. The Chancellor, Mr. George Osborne, is reducing the amount of tax they'll be paying in future.

OK, now you can get back to work, you slackers!