If he wants to commend idleness, then that's OK by me. It's not been my own way, but chacun à son goût (or, translating loosely, one woman's health cure is another man's gout). The thing, though, is that as part of giving idleness a plug, he's dissing getting up early in the morning. He's making it sound really bad. He's telling us to lie in bed half-awake.
Well, you do it if you want. But I'm not going to. I've always got up early and not because anybody ever told me to - not my Mom, nor John Wesley, nor Samuel Smiles. I just did it. Back then, in North End, Bulawayo, when I lived a five-minute walk from my primary school and school began at 8.00 a.m., I used sometimes to arrive there when it was still dark. It must have been between 6.30 and 7.00. And you could do that: the school was open; a nine- or ten-year-old could amble down to school on his own without anyone being concerned for his safety.
Yes, I've had my share of late lie-ins. Many times after playing poker through the night. Other stuff. But, by and large, I like to get up when I wake up, these days between 7.00 and 8.00. I love the morning. New day ahead. I can think most clearly then. I feel - always - that I'll be able to do more than, in the event, I manage. For serious writing it's over for me by early afternoon. So, now I've got to lie in bed half-awake for some of that best time of day because bossy Tom Hodgkinson says it's good for me? Doing bloody nothing?
Nothing bloody doing. I'm digging my heels in and, er... leaping out of bed. (You know what I'm saying.)