New Escapologist : April 2025
What do I want to be when I grow up? A foreigner
Sweet darlings,
How are things? I’m still not well and my life feels like a scene from The Singing Detective at the moment, but a bed is a perfectly nice place to write to you from.
Before we leap into our Escapological titbits, let’s talk about Escape Everything! for a moment. This was the book that came along after the first 13 issues of New Escapologist. It was the culmination of everything, the magazine almost being like a research project for the book. I’m very proud of it and it stands up. Originally published by Unbound in 2016, they also published a paperback version in 2021 with the new title of I’m Out.
Both versions are now out of print. The original EE! is as rare as hens teeth and I’m Out, while still lingering in some shops, is no longer in stock at the publishers. In fact, the rights have reverted to me, which makes me think about an anniversary edition for 2026. Hmm.
In the meantime, I have about 20 copies left. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Would you like one? They are priced at a very reasonable £10 and can be purchased here. Get it while you can.
From a sickbed,
Robert Wringham
Editor, New Escapologist
I Already Knew I Would Leave
I was not like them. I very quickly realised where I was, and at the age of seven I already knew I would leave. I didn’t know when, or where I would go. When people asked me, what do I want to be when I grow up? I’d reply: a foreigner.
Isn’t that great? It’s from Waiting for a Hurricane by Margarita Garcia Robayo (a quickie novella in her Fish Soup collection).
The story is about characters stuck in a small Latin American town. They all want to escape and have different designs on how to do it. Some people look for green cards to America by marriage. Our protagonist becomes an air hostess, enjoying brief exits every day while simultaneously building the escape fund.
Seven though. Hah! When, dear reader, did you begin mentally packing your bags?
The Rule Benders
Why is your boss a narcissist? asks the Guardian.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. But then I’m my own boss.
No, really. When I read the news this week that WHSmith are finally ditching their scruffy and expensive high street stores, some old memories of being their teenage employee came to the surface. In particular, I remembered one of the Bosses, Tim, and how awful he was. He’d stride around self-importantly in his dismal black suit, lambasting his “team” of teenage students and retired old ladies. In the staff cloakroom one day, I found his cocaine, which explained at least some of his behaviour.
Once, he had me leafletting uselessly outside the shop because there was an unexplained error on my cash register — a single one in an audit roll of thousands of transactions — which he felt had eroded his trust in me to use such a complicated machine. I never found out what the error was.
I bet the inside of his car was filthy. Footwells filled with McDonalds cartons and scattered change.
Why was he such a narcissist? I asked myself. He was only the Assistant Manager of a WHSmith. What pride does he take in all this? I don’t mean to say one can’t take pride in the seamless running of a bookshop, but he wasn’t the type.
Well, according to the study presented in the Guardian today its because of the bullshit they put in the job ads for managers.
In the study, Gay and his colleagues divided language used in job ads into two categories: phrases that might attract “rule-followers” and phrases that might appeal to “rule-benders”. Postings seeking an applicant who is “grounded and collaborative”, “thinks methodically” and “communicates in a straightforward and accurate manner” went in the “rule-follower” category. Phrases like “ambitious and self-reliant”, “thinks outside the box” and “communicates in a tactical and persuasive manner” were filed under “rule-bender”.
It’s the “rule-bending”-type language that goes into ads for managerial jobs. And it’s narcissists who are most likely to find that sort of language appealing and actually apply for them.
Tim at WHSmith was awful but far worse was his boss Richard — a creeping moustachioed pervert who once said he wished he could do to us what the Americans were doing, it was announced that morning, in Abu Ghraib — and Tim’s equal Olwyn who died. When the news came around, one guy said “well, I wouldn’t have wished that on her.” And then there was Sally who was nice enough, but when I accidentally sold an embargoed copy of Shaggy’s “Angel” on CD, she said that “Shaggy’s people” had been in touch and weren’t happy.
Shaggy’s people indeed. What a bunch of rule benders.
Get Out!
There’s a lovely quit in The Furnished Room (1961) by the late London Bohemian Laura del Rivo:
“…your progress here has not altogether given satisfaction–”
Beckett cut in, “Alright. We both know that I’m inefficient, habitually late, and completely uninterested in the work that poverty forces me to do. Having agreed this, let’s end the matter without a long and boring discussion.”
Mr Glegg stared at him, his mouth dead-fish open. Then he banged his fist on the desk. “Get out!”
Beckett went.
Shortly after storming out, our hero notices some glittering shards of glass on the floor near the Tube. He zones out on it for a moment and feels happy.
The only place, I think, to get a copy of The Furnished Room now is the wonderful Five Leaves radical Bookshop in Nottingham. So, you know. Do that.
Our Plain Duty to Escape
A reader called Robin as us to consider this Ursula K. Leguin quote:
Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? … if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.
Right. This is why we, at New Escapologist, have come to separate “escapism” and “Escapology”:
It’s Escapology, not escapism. Escapism is when you briefly leave your cares behind by watching a film or building model aeroplanes. Escapology is a permanent effort to leave work and consumerism behind. It’s the art and science of politely saying “no thank you,” and walking away into a self-made alternative.
We’re not the only one to make the distinction. Escape, Escapism, Escapology by John Limon is a recent book that does the same. We reviewed it in Issue 14.
Without the opening note about fantasy being escapist, I agree with Ursula K. Leguin’s point. It is “our plain duty to escape” when cornered. We owe it to ourselves and to the principle of the thing. We owe it to others by way of example. When all life on Earth is extinguished and there’s a final accounting of things, it would be nice if it could be said (though by whom?) “they lived free.” I mean, that won’t happen now, it’s too late in the day, but one must try. One’s bean must be counted in the right column.
A related point that rolls around in my head is that while fantasy is said to be escapist (though of all the writers to say this, Le Guin’s work bulges with allegory and polemic) it isn’t unreal. A fictional character or world might not occupy the same plain of reality as we do, but when we’re reading, we’re reading. Reading is a real event, happening materially in the material world. So if fantasy is not unreal, can it really be said to be escapist? One doesn’t escape reality into the same reality, does one? Just a thought.
I think I prefer this Ursula quote, where she begins to separate escapism from Escapology:
As for the charge of escapism, what does “escape” mean? Escape from real life, responsibility, order, duty, piety, is what the charge implies. But nobody, except the most criminally irresponsible or pitifully incompetent, escapes to jail. The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is “escapism” an accusation of?
Admire the Application
I mentioned this narrow boat couple a little while ago. They escaped expensive London in favour of a life of on the canals.
Since then, I’ve become pleasantly hooked on their videos. A lot of the joy comes from the beautiful b-roll and drone footage of frosty fields and ducks-a-dabbling, but I’m also increasingly impressed at the resilience and practical-mindedness of the couple themselves. The episode where they have to rescue a dropped water cap from the canal could have been banal but is riveting.
Sometimes, with escape-to-the-country-type stories, the joy comes from watching silly urbanites floundering and out of their depth. But that’s not true for this pair. They go about things in a very sensible, practical way; always learning but always putting those lessons to good use. Less exciting that the “retrieval” video linked to above is one where Andrew has to fish a carrier bag out of the engine prop: not exciting viewing but a very good case in point.
What all of this should remind us of, once again, is that escape is possible. If you find ways to apply yourself. Yes, escape can be a game and escape can be fun. Above all, it can be a great romance. But admire the application. Admire the seriousness of mssion.
You could dip into any of their videos at all, but here’s their latest episode, posted just yesterday, about the joys of spring on the canal.
Baudelaire
Baudelaire [elevated] idleness to the rank of a working method, of his very own method. We know that in many periods of his life he was not acquainted with, as it were, any worktable. It was by drifting that he fashioned and above all that he incessantly rearranged his verse.
Hooray, Baudelaire!
This comes from a piece of writing by Walter Benjamin, which was only recently translated into English. How can we only now be translating works — even minor ones — of Walter Benjamin? What a world.
Things we don’t know may already be known. In other languages. Apparently the biggest sci-fi franchise of all time isn’t my beloved Star Trek but some German thing. See also Fitzcarraldo Editions and Charco Press who, lately, have been bringing light to my reading not through new commissions but through translation.
Anyway, yes. Baudelaire. The idler’s poet. Benjamin’s piece goes further.
The End of the Workplace Necktie
From Dickon Edwards’ diary from 2005:
Wednesday 22nd June – a historic date for some. The head of the UK Civil Service announces the wearing of ties as no longer mandatory for male employees. As long as they’re still smart, office boys and men alike can now wear their shirts open-necked as they oil the cogs of government. Must be a relief for those suffering under the current heatwave in offices built before the invention of air conditioning.
It may just be the Civil Service, but I suspect the trickle-down effect for the world of work will be ineluctable. When a similar guideline was made with bowler hats in the past, the trademark headwear of the English businessman soon disappeared from the streets and onto the naughty head of Ms Minnelli in Cabaret.
Fascinating! That was just a few months before my first escape from office work.
When I went back to office work in 2017, I didn’t like the “open collar” lack of formality (so it did indeed trickle down as Dickon expected, though at the time I saw it as Silicon Valley trend-setting). It was as if The Company had sidled up to me, straddled a chair backwards, and said “hi buddy, let’s rap.”
We’re not friends, The Company, and we never will be. Our neckties were there to put distance between us. Well, that’s how I felt until they were taken away.
So I continued to wear a beautiful tie to work most days, despite all of the justified ridicule. It worked too. It said “I am here formally.” It was a Big Fuck Off to the lot of it.
Dickon continues:
I personally welcome this news. Soon, when a man is seen in public wearing a tie, he will no longer be accused of having come straight from work. Tie-wearers will at last be deliberate tie-wearers. All ties will be nice ties, not ugly arrows of drudgery.
Nice.
And a final detail:
This apparently follows an industrial tribunal where a man claimed the forcing of ties upon male workers but not their female colleagues was tantamount to sexual discrimination. He won. The times are indeed a-slightly-changing.
It occurs to me there might be more pinpointable moments like this in the history of work: the day they invented modular office furniture, for example, or the very first building to have air conditioning and fluorescent lighting instead of windows. I’ll try not to get carried away.
Letter to the Editor: A Major Flaw in Your Argument (2016)
Aside from some well wishes from readers concerned about my dying (and thank you), there were no real letters to the editor this month. That’s never happened before! As such, I’ll run this old from 2016 one because it predates this newsletter and it’s about the very book that’s about to go out of print (buy it here).
To send a letter to the editor, simply write in. You’ll get a reply and we’ll anonymise any blogged version.
Dear Robert,
I like your writing. I came across your column about “the Hot New Thing” in the Idler which prompted me to get your books Escape Everything! and A Loose Egg, while also subscribing to your newsletter.
I’m only 10% in to your Escape book, which is hilarious and I literally laugh out loud when reading it on the tube (a good reason to have a long commute), however I have come across a major flaw in your argument, which if you forgive me I would like to relay to you.
If we all became idlers and escapees, who would do the absolutely essential jobs that no one wants to do, like street cleaning, rubbish collecting, sewage clearing, etc.?
Surely the economic system we live under has facilitated wage slavery for this very reason – someone has to do the dirty work. The only way to reserve some people for pawn-like functions while others enjoy their kingly status is to set up an unequal, hierarchical system that keeps the poor out of pocket so that their only choice is to collect your black bin liner once a week.
I get that your writing is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, silly, and quite often ridiculous, but unfortunately it doesn’t come across as economically viable. I hope one of your later chapters will rectify this though.
Have a good day and I look forward to reading more of your witty passages.
D., a fan
Hi D. Thanks so much for buying the book. I can just about live on the strength of my book sales but I’m still in a position where every book counts, so I hugely appreciate it. Thank you. I’m glad you like the Idler column too – more of those to come!
I think I come some way to answering your question later in the book (the epilogue is literally and directly about “what if everyone was an Escapologist?”), though I appreciate that I may not have handled it fully and that the shortcoming you have detected probably remains a valid criticism of the book. Hold tight though and finish the book to see what you think. In brief:
– The sort of jobs I really take aim at are “bullshit jobs,” i.e. white collar, boring jobs that either make no difference to world or actively harm it. Toilet cleaning and the likes can be said to be “shit jobs” but hardly useless, so they don’t really attract my ire. David Graeber makes this important distinction in his brand new Bullshit Jobs book, which actually serves as a nice (if belated) preface to Escape Everything! and the sort of thing Tom writes about in the Idler.
– The “who would sweep the streets and do other sorts of dirty work” question is, I’m afraid, very common. There are ideas about automating it in various ways (not necessarily in high-tech ways but in upstreaming the problem, etc.), but you’re right that the work has to be done for now. It should also be better paid than it is, which is something social activists are working on (here in Scotland they’re doing quite well too – the living wage campaign is quite a success and should continue this way). If my writing enterprise should fail, incidentally, my plan is to become a street sweeper. I’m serious. I refuse go back to shovelling bullshit in an office. My wife has already quit her own bullshit job to become a funeral arranger.
– The idea of things being “economically viable” (i.e. making sure the economy stays strong) is a problem. I hold that the economy is a tool to make life better and more effective for us humans. It serves us, we do not serve it. So it doesn’t matter if growth decelerates a little. It might even be a good thing when overwork and environmental problems are taken into account. Might even be the moment all those anticapitalists have been agitating for. I think I probably do a better job of handling this sort of discussion in my NEXT book. It’s tentatively titled The Good Life for Wage Slaves: How to live beautifully as a white-collar drudge.
Sincere thanks again for buying my nonsense and also for writing to me. Lovely, lovely. All the best. Robert.
That’s all for April then. Thanks for reading. Here’s where to get one of the very last copies of I’m Out in existence. And here’s where to buy New Escapologist goodies more generally (mostly digital publications now until our next issue, though there are still a couple of Issue 17s left).
Wishing you all good health and a happy escape,
Robert Wringham
www.newescapologist.co.uk