I was reminded of these wise words this evening, as I struggled to find a clean, reasonable crisp shirt to wear tomorrow. How much of our lives are taken up with the most mundane repetitive tasks? How many great things are left undone, how many great thoughts are left unthunk?

It's in a new light I'm seeing things like laundry, doing dishes (as I am presently living without a dishwasher... I say living in it's most general sense, as without a dishwasher I am as alive as a small snail), and putting out the garbage.

While these events and their completion bring a certain sense of hunter-gatherer satisfaction, and that was before I began timing myself doing the ironing and setting up a benchmarking scheme for the proportion of my rubbish that goes into the recycle bin, is it not when idle that the most profitable thoughts are formulated and the most creative plans are put into action? I wager that Bell (or Meucci, depending on how you like your history) spent many hours sitting on his arse doing nothing, and with no intention of doing anything, before the telephone was invented. It certainly wasn't on a Tuesday evening in the half-hour after he hoovered the hall and before he cleaned the microwave.

So leave aside an evening to think, plan and scheme.

Here's to going to work in a smelly, crumpled shirt, with half of last night's dinner hanging off your unshaven chin, and filing the most creative expenses claim ever.