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There is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m.

Tom Hodgkinson

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Tom Hodgkinson
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Bookseller
Essayist
Journalist
Writer
Newcastle
Pinball
Pint
Pints
Perfect
Nothing

More quotes by Tom Hodgkinson

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When walking you see things that you miss in a motor car or on the train. You give your mind space to ponder.
Tom Hodgkinson
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One of the least arduous but most productive of gardening jobs, the magic of deadheading never fails to delight me. It was a revelation when the principle was explained to me: that flowers are the attempt by the plant to reproduce itself. So if you cut the heads off before the flower turns into seeds, the plant will continue to flower.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Although I played a lot of computer games in my 20s, now I have children of my own I hate them with a passion.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Faffing of course does not fit the programme. We are supposed to be busy, productive citizens.
Tom Hodgkinson
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I count it as a certainty that in paradise, everyone naps.
Tom Hodgkinson
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The idea of a government is to create an ordered, willing work force where there's no trouble. I think idlers are generally seen as potentially dangerous because they're asking questions.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Truly, the bench is a boon to idlers. Whoever first came up with the idea is a genius: free public resting places where you can take time out from the bustle and brouhaha of the city, and simply sit and watch and reflect.
Tom Hodgkinson
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The world's richest half billion people - that's about seven per cent of the global population - are responsible for fifty per cent of the world's emissions.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Bosses should sanction the nap rather than expect workers to power on all day without repose. They might even find that workers' happiness - or what management types refer to as employee satisfaction results - might improve.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Punk was a protest against work and against boredom. It was a sign of life, a rant, a scream, a rejection of bourgeois morals. But have things improved since then? Arguably, they've got worse.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Part of this individualism is you feel this pressure that you alone have to conquer the world, and if you don't work all the hours God gives then you start feeling really guilty. If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it's easier to start doing what you want to do.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Paradoxically, to be truly idle, you also have to be efficient.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Sensible people advise against drinking on an empty stomach, but to my mind it is the best sort of drinking.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Management gurus in general are, I think, best avoided. All too often they reduce your working life to a list of rules to be followed. Targets are aimed at. Goals kicked at. You then break the rules or forget them and, hey presto, you start beating yourself up.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Life is about recapturing lost freedoms.
Tom Hodgkinson
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When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Alongside my no email policy, I resolve to make better use of the wonderful Royal Mail, and send letters and postcards to people. There is a huge pleasure in writing a letter, putting it in an envelope and sticking the stamp on it. And huge pleasure in receiving real letters, too.
Tom Hodgkinson
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I think it's good to look at how people lived before, and then take the best bits of that culture and try to mix it in with your own.
Tom Hodgkinson
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I've never understood activity holidays since we seem to have far too much activity in our daily lives as it is. Find a culture where loafing is the order of the day and where they don't understand our need to be constantly doing things. Find somewhere you can have a hammock holiday.
Tom Hodgkinson
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Life has been reduced to a series of long periods of boredom in the office punctuated by high-octane experiences which you can rack up on your list of things to do before you die. That's not really living: that is slavery with the occasional circus thrown in.
Tom Hodgkinson