The School of Life

Just a quick word about the School of Life, a brilliant-sounding shop-cum-cultural enterprise in Bloomsbury offering ‘ideas to live by’. After I mentioned them in a piece in the Guardian the director kindly invited me down to London to talk about the interests we have in common. So far the usual toxic combination of chronic shyness, extreme busyness and pathological hatred of Virgin Pendolino trains has conspired against it, but one of these days …

Among other things the School of Life organise everyday holidays like A Trip up the M1 and A Holiday at Heathrow. Holidays in 2009 include a Holiday inside your Head and Around the World inside the M25. The cash-strapped and time-poor can buy a Holiday at Home Kit, containing things like an eye mask, fake tan, postcards and a ‘Do Not Disturb’ Sign.

I like the idea of a shop where you can buy knowledge and experience instead of knick-knacks. The sign in the shop window says, ‘The Mundane is to be Cherished’. Agreed, but what’s with the passive voice? Cherish the Mundane!

You can never be too cool for the School of Life. To enrol for the new term check out http://www.theschooloflife.com/.

Mundane quote for the day: ‘How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.’ - Annie Dillard, The Writing Life