Tom Hodgkinson

Tom was educated at Westminster School and Jesus College, Cambridge, during which time he played the bass guitar in the Stupids-influenced thrash band Chopper. He lived in North Devon until 2013. He currently lives in London.

In April 2013 he launched the Idler Academy Bad Grammar Award, and in September 2013 he launched the Ukulele Player of the Year competition. Bloomsbury UK and Bloomsbury US published his and Gavin's book, The Ukulele Handbook.

In March 2011 he and his partner Victoria Hull launched The Idler Academy in London, a school running courses in philosophy, public speaking, grammar, ukulele, singing, drawing, calligraphy, astronomy, foraging, bread baking, bartitsu and small business.

In 2006 he created National Unawareness Day, to be celebrated on 1 November.

From 1997 to 2002 he and Gavin Pretor-Pinney ran Idle Industries, a creative consultancy with clients such as Channel 4, the Guardian, Sony PlayStation, ad agency Mother, Paramount TV and Oakley.

From 1995 to 1997 he was Joint Head of Creative Development at Guardian Newspapers, where he worked for Carolyn McCall and Alan Rusbridger.

In the early 1990s, he worked at a Rough Trade Records shop in London, where he had the idea for The Idler. In the late 1990s he became an importer of absinthe.

Tom Hodgkinson (born 1968) is a British writer, and the editor of The Idler, which he established in 1993 with his friend Gavin Pretor-Pinney. His philosophy, in his published books and articles, is of a relaxed approach to life, enjoying it as it comes rather than toiling for an imagined better future. The Idler was originally a series of essays written by Dr Johnson from 1758 to 1760.