“In the summer of 1969, when I was 11, I bought a stereo system at the local hi-fi shop.

It cost all of the $100 I had earned weeding neighbor’s gardens that spring at 75 cents an hour.
My father made me a proposition: he would buy me a pair of headphones if I would promise to use them when he was home.

Those headphones changed the way I listened to music forever.”.

This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession , by Daniel J. Levitin.

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“Awhile ago, my husband said “wouldn’t it be funny if you were sitting on the subway reading a book and on the front cover it said, How to Murder a Complete Stranger and Get Away with It?“. So here we are, there are over 20 covers to choose from.”. Flapart, the alternative book cover. By Michelle Watters.

Above: Fast Track to Prison - Exploring the Many Benefits of Life Behind Bars.

Back cover reads:
“Free room and board, never be lonely again, get your education paid for.”.

Book not included.

“If you’re driving down the highway with your girlfriend, a really cute thing to do when you pass a smokestack is to naively ask her if that building is a cloud factory.“. (Sometimes Clouds Just Look Like Clouds, from Defunker)
“We still get about two or three emails a week telling us that we”re idiots for mixing up countries.”.

From the top:
Life shirt, detail, from Defunker. “It’s life, and it happens to the best of us.”;
Greece shirt, detail, from Busted Tees.

“Love to watch people coming in unsure of what they want, peering up at the board, realising they can”t really read it and they’re keeping everyone waiting and ordering something random in a panic.”.

“Then there’s eggbaconchipsandbeans which should be fairly self-explanatory and a good place for a cup of tea and a think, which is similarly obvious.”.

“Crispy little chips and a triangular egg. Formidable!
A big pile of bacon and a mass of beans with a splendid smear of juice up the side of the plate.”.
By Russell Davies.

“The intention of the magazine is to return dignity to the art of loafing.”.

“The current edition of The Idler is titled How To Save The World Without Really Trying
and argues that idleness is eco-friendly and that to save the planet we need to do a lot less.”.

"And what would you like to be when you grow up?"
I asked my 5 year old grand-daughter.

Blythly she came back with a show-stopper of an answer:
"A butterfly."

(Joan Bakewell, On Not Having A Career)

The Idler, by Tom Hodgkinson and Gavin Pretor-Pinney.