The Idler Academy Tent brings you Old School savvy for the new world. Its talks and workshops focus on the classical liberal arts and practical skills.

The Idler Story

Back in 1991, bored to tears by his job, 23 year old journalist Tom Hodgkinson lay on his bed and dreamed of starting a magazine called The Idler. He’d found the title in a collection of essays by Dr Johnson, himself a constitutionally indolent man. How to live, that was the question. How to be free in a world of jobs and debt? And curse this alarm clock.

Tom was fortunately sacked from his job and started to sign on. He wandered across the road to where his old friend, designer and writer Gavin Pretor-Pinney lived. Gavin could get things done. He was the kind of person who could help Tom to realise this dream. And he did. In August 1993, the pair produced issue one of the Idler. It had the sub-title “literature for loafers”. Dr Johnson was the cover star and there was an interview with magic mushroom guru Terence McKenna. Contributors included a young journalist called Louis Theroux.

The magazine has since enjoyed a number of incarnations. For three years it was published by the Guardian newspaper, then for a year by the publishers of Manchester United magazine. Following a fallow year, the pair produced a bi-annual book version of the magazine independently. Then they found at home at Ebury publishing for three years, after which Gav left to write a book about clouds. Tom continued to publish the Idler as an annual collection of essays. In September 2014, the Idler launched as an online magazine.  

The Idler Academy is the Idler’s educational offshoot. It is a school based in London which offers online and real-world courses in the classical liberal arts and practical skills. During the day the London HQ operates as a calm, quiet bookshop selling beautiful, useful and unusual books and gifts alongside Monmouth coffee, tea and cake. And there is an enclosed medieval garden to retreat to. 

Tom and his partner Victoria Hull had always been festival-goers, and in 2010 the pair ran a tent at the Port Eliot Festival which they called The Idler Academy of Philosophy, Husbandry and Merriment. The first event was a lesson in how to sew on a button properly, and this was followed by classes in Latin, grammar and natural history with interludes of medieval music. Their tent was packed. 

Tom and Victoria enjoyed themselves so much they they decided to open a full time Idler Academy in London, a convivial place where people could go to learn and to meet people. They took out a five year lease on a shop in a quiet corner of Notting Hill, stocked it with educational books and started to advertise lessons in ukulele, philosophy, sewing, idling, carpentry and Latin. The people came.