16 us presidential election had split Americans more violently than anything I have seen in my own life with the exception of the o.j. Simpson verdict including Thomas Chatterton Williams Angelo Paul it was much talk of division of a divided nation even of divided marriages beginning Weezer Heller's feel of the Trump victory he was running as an anti politician a disruptor of the smug Washington letters from America this Monday to Friday morning at a quarter to 10. B.b.c. News that 8 o'clock a tram driver has been suspended half to video a man that however is a lighter note now that stone to the very beginning good everybody plays and all their gadgets are. So wedded boredom begin it's quite well known that the word itself was 1st used by Charles Dickens appearing 6 times in his 1953 classic bleak hills Lady Dedlock has been bored to death many people believe that this is evidence the boredom is a relatively recent phenomenon form with the arrival of leisure time join the industrial revolution of the arts into 19th centuries before this people who never really had time for know where to go. Boredom. Thank you Ok so my relationship with boredom is not really that existential boredom the chronic sense of for Taig seem to be a boredom with life itself no what I'm talking about is more of a situational boredom or boredom affects everyone because we've all experienced it and we know it can crop up anywhere. Standing in a slow queue that I busied himself just said you seem to. Be Stuck in traffic jam. And. Pick up a white in for a delight try to write new strings the fight. While sitting patiently in the studio as your producer tries to work out how to get the microphones working. Saying. You can't. Be productive. 3. Current. So it could be just. On the sofa flicking through that sees a chance. To chat. To him Boredom is a professional problem and so I think it's important to establish just how prone to boredom I am and so he psychologists Norman some Doug and Richard Farmer in 1906 invented the boredom proneness scale it's a 28 point questionnaire that measures how susceptible a person is to board and it's these questions which we have thankfully. Sects about yet yet sit where analog. Right let's just look at the instructions for the boredom premise go paranoid statements can be answered using a truthful sure sponsor is a bit boring Usenet or with a 7.4 might from one to highly disagree. 7 highly agree so I think I'll use the number scale in that scene and we get on with that Ok here we go boredom premise count press. Question what it is easy for me to concentrate on my activities. Let's go with Ok there are solid 4 question too frequently when I am working I find myself worrying about other things yes 7 solid 7 Question free time well good listener may get a bit boring for you listening to all 28 questions so who is your story from someone who found themselves trapped in a potentially boring situation with the whole world watching. My name's Simon McCoy I'm a presenter on the b.b.c. News Channel who when the Duchess of Cambridge went to da spittle to have a baby I was the one who was called in to report. The boy who is outside the hospital for us in central London So how did it all begin I was told it just before 7 o'clock in the morning she's gone in I was outside the hospital by 8 o'clock and for the next 12 hours I was on the hour every hour for many minutes talking about something that none of us knew anything about we knew she going to hospital and that was it so speculation about and I'm pretty may do for hours because she went into labor in the early hours this morning and who knows how do you be interesting when nothing really is happening I felt that honesty was the best policy the news here is that we have no news not everybody agreed not some of my own bosses I'm not sure comfortable with it took up a text to me and to the b.b.c. God help us if this ends up a long labor that's a view that I have heard expressed here but I thought you're being dishonest if you're telling your audience that this is an exciting place to be I would rather at that stage been anywhere else but until then we're going to be speculating about this world this with no facts to hand. The interesting thing is is the public because what I lost count that day of the number of them that came up to us to sit on your board and we're all going oh no goals that we have a great time yet we were we were bored because we weren't actually doing anything that we were hoping to do because we didn't have a story so here we are standing outside waiting for it to be finished but we weren't bored because we were we were having a broadcast for 24 hours so there was always something to do. It's an interesting one can you be bored when you're really busy Yes I think you can and I was adding to mine and the point is they're waiting very patiently on you so I'm. Happy the 12 hours that I was many of us here so I got home after 12 hours knowing that I was going to get up early to be the next morning I just I just put the television on and. I can't really describe my emotions I saw the breaking news flash was it's a boy. That the Duchess of Cambridge has given birth to a son. But then the next day of course you've got to. Be coming out when we get our 1st glimpse of the 3rd in line to the throne now that that really was not boring but tedious. Work. When I was young I was often not in the sense time situation 7 so there you go that's I've answered all 28 questions there on the board I'm prone Nisco earth Thank you Dr Sun Bergen farmer. So. Let's talk up. There you know that's what the result is then that's the number and let's read here what the doctors say to find out your own promise to boredom and up the total scores you gave each question the average score is 99 and the average range 81 to 117 in bold if you scored above 117 you become bored easily and if you score below 81 your boredom threshold is very high and well my score was 139.5 So that makes me. Yes bored easily I think we knew that. Yes well I can't say I am exactly surprised that I am easily bought It's been a recurring facet of my life since childhood I'm well into my career but I'm quite happy being bored and whether if you're highly principled and not so comfortable with it it could be a problem is Dr Sandy Mann psychologist and author of The Upside of downtime why boredom is good. People talk of being bored to death and there is this sort of correlation a big piece of research is done which suggests that it can actually be true people can actually be so mind numbingly bored that they can actually die in theory from it who perhaps lose motivation to breathe but this is a piece of research carried out of University College London and followed at around $7000.00 civil servants in the u.k. Every 25 year period so what we found was that those people who claim that their levels of boredom with very high and we're nearly 40 percent more likely to have died by the end of the study now before we all panic and start taking legal action against a mass shooter must teach of a boring us to death and you have to look into that very carefully because as I've discovered with my research people do things risky things dangerous things perhaps or unhealthy things when they're bored so boredom can lead to risk and danger which could just bring comfort eating a sugary snacks or it might be something a lot worse than. They could be reckless driving major driver what 1st made you fly under a bridge in 950 I was just bored there could be some violence I think a big reason the fates cause a book. Vast majority of them are quite good not else could it be they could be rioting there's been more trouble in the must side area of Manchester but in the past few hours police in riot gear been out in force dispersed groups of you for example talking about a guy in a daze a gamble Duran Duran again his son from all they could a even a drug taking Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel piece and his hypodermic syringe from it in the 2 morocco case. With his long wipes nervous fingers. Just did the delicate needle and rolled back his left shut cup. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy form. Raam interest or dotted in SCADA with a new mobile puncture marks. Finally he thrust the shop point home and press donned a tiny piston. So not Holmes played by Clive members and there in the sign of for the semi celebrates a drug taking military hero but why does he do it my mind drawback is that stagnation stagnation. Tedium. Boredom. Not everyone looks to risk any pain it is the Reverend Richard Combs some of my favorite religious heroes talk to finally tell. Jarrett my only hope can be a great great great poets of the vote but it's a great Christian poet Roman Catholic a Jesuit he used to he was that everyone saw that he was thick when you join the Jesuits in Dublin because he used to just stop in the middle of what he was doing and just kind of look around and people thought that he was he was simple to use an old fashioned way but actually he just got completely absorbed by what was in front of it and once that happens it's each union to when you're not looking for drama and spectacle and excitement in the kind of rollercoaster ride but actually just what's in front of you and to look at that experience that and live in the moment that's a wonderful thing that's why I mean I think as I get older I began to love boredom I hated it when I was a kid impatient twitchy all the rest of it and now I love boredom. As do only Richard. Changed in my life now allows me to move away from external distractions we're not actively thinking the mind is still churning away this gives me an opportunity for some much needed creative thinking spice and I'm certainly not alone in this is the writer Natalie. Short to back me up I think if you're not bored it's a struggle to come up with ideas I genuinely do believe if you are consistently distracted from or distracting yourself from the presence of just sort of sitting. Think about that that generally is when ideas appear those bits where people are quite bored and quite bold in court you know they go dashing they go into as Date of narcolepsy in a waiting Sicily to happen but I thought end of that in that space it's quarter. Of our costs of kind of coming alive I have ideas all the time when walking but I wouldn't expect them to come to me when I was walking through a new place because then you're trying to pay attention I don't know I'm going out and come from a flamingo etc whereas I do the exact same loop at the park every single day either running or walking every day like my boredom threshold is astonishingly high. Their seed isn't bored in the ground is in the darkness is just kind of. Give it a couple months of a sunflower so what looks like a bored seed actually is somebody doing something quietly underground. George my friend you are on to something there that is an excellent analogy lots of people have quietly found creative inspiration when being overwhelmingly bored driving another novel Margot bored of it but the staff must write novels you get bored of the one you're working on and you yourself have to goodness opposite direction Travis is talking how did you come to write the whole bit. Average is a relief from joining the schools with us citizen. Can dismiss at least one opinion the Russians. Which is this the country have you never. Never done it in a hole in the ground the new knowledge. The names always generate a story of a man even just a little bit of fun I want to. Rarely if ever I think any one of wanted a particular job more before getting it and rarely if ever can anyone of become more passionately bored with it very quickly the job was being at sea never a fashion editors on a glossy London weekly. Out of aching boredom with the pretense of being all agog about the hymn line up or down I took to inventing colors rules blue was my highest achievement in this line it was taken up by other with the fashion writers a well known actress at the premiere looked simply to do I catching my ideas wearing a blue blue creation in someone else's report this went to my head I started inventing perf humans to come past as an off the shaving lotion the men with that country look which women of my are this was my favorite and my last the editor in chief wouldn't so to speak with compost he realized and high time that I wasn't taking the job seriously enough compost because you and your god worth it. You just heard the literary triumvirate of John Fowles Johnny on talking and on Robinson all talking about the creative impetus that emerges when you're distracted from a very boring task I mean it prefers it's how King had been engaged in a very exciting job not a writing code draw a real bomb disposal experts would hobbits every being created would Middle earth remain a lost world forever trapped in the recesses of his imagination. Who knows but we can agree that boredom can stimulate our creative thought process is not to Theresa Belton who's written extensively about our relationship with creativity the way that boredom can help us to develop our creative skills is that it gives us time to let our minds wander and the wandering mind can daydream and inventive imagine scenarios it can reflect on and assimilate and probe our past experience and understanding and perhaps help us to see things in a different light it can help us to think about the future and things that haven't yet happened yet and I think importantly ideas sometimes come to us apparently out of the blue and we're not we don't think we're thinking about anything in particular and am Milne actually expressed this beautifully when he put in the mouth of Winnie the Pooh the words poetry and homes and things which you get there are things which get you and all you can do is go where they can find you and I think rarely that times of boredom are times when ideas can find us. Now this creative vision of boredom is all well and good if you have the freedom to do other things and find stimulation when needed but what happens if you have all the time in the world to be bored without the freedom to escape it suddenly nothing to do and no way to go seems a very real problem. In prison is a very. Rips just routine every day is basically this and consequently time doesn't seem to really poss in the same way as it does in outside. I do a bit of mentoring in schools and there was ask me what prison is like and I say the worse aspect of prison is actually the boredom. I said to Harvey to imagine being totally bored because it got so much stimulation out here but if you were to sit in your bedroom. Day off today from what gizmos and gadgets you've got eventually you get bored and you go stir crazy. Heads for a lot of people needing to taking drugs consuming and Hooch and just causing trouble really through boredom. But I was very lucky before I was sentenced I talked to someone who had just finished 7 of our sentence and he said we want to do this make sure you're occupying. If you occupy the target really creek you were in that city for 4 k. Let me for 5 percent things that I could do I used to love school when all the kids are all right let me go to school to see how I do but of course that doesn't take up all the time inside and so I wait to use my overtime which are used by studying chess studying classical music on the guitar and also or which something I always did but as you grow up be kind of forget about it he just continues. I think it's fundamental that we're creating of the new life it's very hard to get time because life kind of gets in the way you know I would urge people to explore your creativity. Because a lot of people as I write know of committed suicide and if they were just lost and if they had had something perhaps maybe to focus on the mob scene and over they you know may as well I think personally the their. The enemy. Stone me what a life. You may recognize this for traffic Hancock's Half Hour episode Sunday afternoon 101st broadcast on the b.b.c. Night programme in April 950. It brilliantly captured the endless desperate sunshine forced boredom of have nothing to do and no way to go because everything was shot. Here are the programs brilliant writers than Alan Simpson talking about writing that episode is when you're writing about boredom that's important is not to make it boring. And that that really is the art of. Going to go to make sure I'm not by my choice family yeah. I'm bored and should be funny because if there's one group in the performing arts and I was about downtime it's comedians or their performance spices or exposing an act of environments the free time between these bursts of intensity is both frequent and long I spoke to someone who knows all about the importance of boredom in comedy yeah I'm over I'm here doing this flight oh I'm Robert papar I'm a comedy yellow writer and producer Oh yes I keep talking about Burris is robot pass I tell you my favorite bird. In a world black he knows what Michael read funny I think is a trope in British comedy with like maybe men doing boring things but I think if it's done right it can be just so brilliant I think like obviously the royal family is basically one long song a really isn't a think about it it's funny story when I used to work at Granada and what they used to do with all the new shows they would probably seek relief pharma scripts out readers who didn't work independent readers script readers and there was in a fall I read this I used to look at this a lot and this is when this the royal family became the biggest show in the country and someone had read the script and said it said Nothing happens in this in this show completely boring characters boring no one says anything nothing happened verdict shred. It was amazing. You know the best Chris rest of the day. There's Dennis. Rodman kind of. Comedy reflects all kinds of boredom from seemingly by. During events in working class Manchester to the existential boredom of London suburbs and to Robert probably the deepest for me British comedy that reflects exactly that suburban boy would be ready parent Yeah which was just everything was boring he loved his wife but it was boring you know he highlighted ravioli finish your interview on the scene you're hearing very yourself that you're the scene you're hearing is it Ok to sing on years that's why Debbie it was because I ordered ravioli followed by love the o.o.b. Was that you know I was going to say that was my feeling that they were the greatest but for me because he's so bored he goes to a restaurant and just to shake his boredom he orders ravioli for starters and they come over to life and make us around the area and for does it rank it's over and yes this is the best ones like oh you know what the punch line is you hope she's going to saying here's what's for dinner and she says exactly only it was me just green just. Sums it all up with. Suburban boredom for me was also teenage boredom probably the time when boredom was my biggest enemy I was too old for the playground but too young for the pub long tedious evenings wandering from one end of town to the other 1976 nothing to do and I wanted to go and I job now money. No future but that was one of sky. the trial. Why and. I'm waiting for me when I got off was perhaps Boredoms greatest creation punk rock Yes Well do you really think the punk rock this is such a threat to society that yes. This is a problem walking out what is this exactly. What it's about really is the politics of for them and if so why are you trying to destroy the prior previous musical rock culture that was Melkor McLaren's opens the b.b.c. In 1987 and if you were a bit doubtful about what you say the let's face it who wasn't the music that came out the trash sang about London burning we told you now about being so forward would you assign the Sex Pistols show it no future of the damned with a good refrain going so boredom people session I'm from spokes well. I mean to keep the whole thing up with this and some. Of the talent there was another classic one that spoke directly to its audience in the suburbs and beyond. Just the. Next day. It was a reaction to so many different things but boredom was one of the big ones. That began to make kind of what was interesting about it was it did give a sort of shape to what punk was about you know one Yeah and there was a lot of a lot of people felt the same thing and. Something about that and it became a sort of constructive dealing with. The last thing punk was boring in day. To the 1st punky sort. Of behind the 1st flush of it I remember that we had things you are one of the most exciting things in your life and this thing about. It is quite. Something and then you know. The fact that. You mean not to people. Who have. So it's a lot of fun it was an exciting short sharp shock how about a piano recital. And. Piano recital. And I would cycle where you hear the same thing repeated 840 times. This is the music broadcaster and journalist Tom service my name's Tom services. I can do this again I know who I am here is American composer music theory writer philosopher and artist junker each they're quite different both are fans of Eric Satie's vexations Well the background to. Young vexations is a little bit shrouded in mystery it's written in 809394 is he's this strange known musical eccentric who's kind of wandering the streets and creating these weird strange and as time has gone on extremely popular piano pieces that there's you know podia written just before where shortly before the excess young but big stations is a work of a totally different. Writes an inscription about the piece vexations on the manuscript and it says in order to play the theme $840.00 times in succession it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand and in the deepest silence by serious in the abilities well is that an instruction to future generations of performers to do that to play $840.00 times is a kind of warning nobody really knows. When I arranged in New York the 18 hour and 40 minute preferments this act is vexations a piece which was repeated a 140 times my closest friends who are nearly would come to any council that I would arrange failed to turn out. Now no absolutely couldn't listen to a 140 times because if you hear this piece once I think you're quite annoyed by it because it makes such brightly unpleasant and disturbing sounds deliberately So now if you hear it let's say between 20 and a 100 times I think you'd be sort of tearing your limbs to get. Then do anything but hear this thing again then probably a state of catatonia Woods would come in and you would just try to let the music was your view even though it doesn't quite let you do that so I think it would be you know the perfect experimental testing ground for that savage and strange states of long term. Nygaard it'll just be this thing just going over and over. Not at all but they station society I would be willing to equate in terms of experience with any religious were of any culture. Well sadly we don't have the time to play $840.00 times in a row so instead here it is multi-tracked. Times at once. Or twice Gordon does does vexations. Is wonderful. Because this is a completely This is a completely fascinating and scintillating sound because you can hear that it has some relationship with vexation is and of obviously of the idea of the piano but it's become this completely supernatural instrument. To do in a funny way to achieve that yeah I'd rather hear that time to end in 40 than the thing. I've done to. Talk to you about ritual worship. Now boredom isn't just an inspiration for creativity can be mesmeric and strange and beautiful in itself just think about the paintings of Edward Hopper or David Hockney or Walter Sikka the art house cinema of Andy Warhol or the more mainstream ones like Paris Texas or so Lara's And then of course this theater where boredom is used as a dramatic toll in the work of some of the great dramatist Chekov the painter to Beckett although not everyone is a fan is Natalie. Like yeah that is probably my. Last My auntie art I suppose I know I should like it and I feel bad for the fact that I don't and I really do feel about it and I understand the beauty of the language and I understand the sort of sly wit of it but I still can't get past the fact that absolutely nothing happens for an hour and then there's an interval and then they do it all again why do they hate me I don't know of course Natalie could just get. Was intensely bored by it and that's another benefit of its ability to tell us when we should get up and leave. It's clear I think that. As one of these push away emotions for example if. You're feeling. In a room it is a push away emotion isn't it you step away from that because it could be a corpse rotting or it could be just rotten food been somewhere another your instinct is to move away from something that's potentially injurious So it is with boredom usefulness is a push away emotion so that you stuck in it it forces you to do something to remedy the boring situation. Bored of this music put back on. Buzzcocks ever fall in love. Music for misfits watching. Telly for our generation don't know. Fifty's in 10 or 20 years are the fascinating stuff. So much to catch up with. Their ninety's pre-board ever again really so. Those people average. Ever again we have reckoned with oh it seems we never need to be bored again. 40 years only 976 when bus cuts were just beginning this is what you. Had to offer on the evening of Saturday the 20th of November. You had Shirley Bassey starring in a run t.v. Show on b.b.c. One there was a triple bill of European ballet on b.b.c. To radio once who was simulcasting kings of the keyboard with State Rice moments there was drama on bugs for I guess right and right there for all. I say very nice and commercial radio obviously will sound bite of all that really that was it 3 t.v. Channels and 4 or 5 right there stations that sold. Them trying to get out them a 2nd you know into time and you have access to today side baby sees 12 and 4 when they see 3 online on t.v. 123 fall in China for a formula for film for Sky One Fox going is religious channels Food Network's dice gone movie scene in Boston t.v. Show then at the catch up services on a spiral for idea itself and then this huge Netflix now t.v. All the other online string sets is a by little in fact that brings in an old maid backed with over 6000 of available apps people to even make studying the game going l o this is it we are blessed this song must be seen that they really is no need to be bored as a again it really is there I . And in top of all that less than a decade ago this happened now how did we manage without a gadget that means you can make phone calls send an email surge the Internet play a song watch a video recorded video properties but the atom was jogging around the bar every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything it's good text colander photos comment that's all normal mobs spygate it's got. Its. It's going to a full and. That was September 2007 the launch of the i Phone in the Yukon now in 2016 similar gadgets from Apple Samsung Sonny Marcus often all the rest have completely taken over so I'm walking from Brokaw sing house I'm good looking so it's true that I stand in London it's a busy morning and I'm just now trying to look at how many people are actually using the fund so there's an idea so on 5 people talking on the final cut so the classic one looking for someone that's right guy looking at 2 guys looking 34. I find 6. This is just right now me walking along. 70. 2 hours since the thing I mean I was walking on the wall you know I came from so how through see it I walked past a solid 25 to maybe 40 percent of people I was walking by were looking down at their phones as they walked along yeah I think that is the need for them. I don't know what is it what is it the so captivates us about phones I mean the immediacy of the contact the fact that you can kind of cross straight bread upon the waters so effectively I don't know. Like most things I suppose we will get bored of it or peek in there it'll decline and then we'll probably do something else but it's very good isn't it I bet a bloke the other day who had just made 2700000000 pounds and I said he's rather rushed on and he said Yeah I said How did you do it and he said I sold candy crush so. Does not tell you something about the extraordinary power to captivate of diverse stuff on the phone. By 627. Years doctors and the man again any moment you have to kill you get the device out and we think we're conquering boredom with think we're eliminating scrolling and swiping the boredom away but the problem is that we're not we're actually setting ourselves up to experience even more boredom than we did before and there's a number of reasons for this one is that we're doing quite repetitive things we spend most of our days on screens and then we're using screens all the time so everything we're doing involves the same movements the same sort of brain actions the very passive activities so we're not doing different things and that repetitive nature is very boring but the bigger issue is that the things that we're accessing a very fast moving high paced high intense forms of stimulation constantly changing and actually as humans were wired to seek novelty we get a doping hit when we see when we see something new or novel and exciting and that's because it has evolutionary benefit for us to seek new experiences out so what we're doing is we're seeing something new and exciting and we get that nice feeling that this is exciting I don't mean here it's but of course it immediately isn't novel and exciting anymore and doping is very dicked of so we seek more of it so we're constantly seeking new and exciting a novel and have fun fast paced high intense stuff but never really being satisfied because our on need just keep growing and growing because it's so addictive so we're getting into this this crazy cycle of the very things that we're doing to try to eliminate boredom or actually increasing our propensity to be bought a part of got the brain spun now all the concentration span less than a goldfish which is 8 seconds less than a goldfish a goldfish I mean isn't that something that we should be concerned about well not everyone is so sure. My name is j.d. Carrick And I run a social media agency in Birmingham that is you need oxygen do you need for me not sure what you've made the decision to look at your face and you can never really people would because I think everyone has a routine that they go through when have a look at phone say some people to retain my only involve 3 apps some might involve 10 and then along checking all of those apps you're probably going to find something which is going to hold your attention for at least a couple of minutes so you only need to do that a few times and then the thought of an hour gone yeah that time suck element but is it times Cory's it is a productive use of time because you could learn a language from your fire and that's the language really easily you can find out later Steph you could research the whole history of it and I remember Can President if you wanted to I'm. As I suppose it's I'm just losing a hand on boredom as I remember as a kid it's is Ok teenage boredom of. Literally walking around a suburban Essex. Got nothing to do with too young for the pump was too old for the swings but that time the camera rebuilt the friendship through this negative. Space that that male you know we we think you know the younger generation now have that boredom as we experienced it probably not but doesn't that demonstrate every source file in their. Because you've got f.a.a. Probably that age which allows you to do a list death sale if you're saying ways to fill your board and I'd say that's a positive thing for teenagers everywhere. SCIRI does boredom still exist not as such when I still think boredom exists but perhaps not the boredom as I remember it do you think that we're losing boredom as we remember it from Sunday afternoon but my going to that's the show and right now yeah afternoon boredom I think we've lost it I think collectively enforced border such as a Sunday afternoon and into the seventy's in in middle England that's probably not the case though is that because there's rugby because there's because that's all the kind of things Carvey's with all the stuff that people do to gratify in fact his desires on Sunday afternoons I think probably took a sort of Corporate a collective experience to generate that kind of boredom the smell of work wall and just what's left of capital sourcing watching raindrops get when a window thinking will this ever end yes because basically this is that simply doesn't happen anymore it just doesn't happen I mean I remember hating him as a kid but I wasn't good for one male those long Sunday afternoons endless Sunday afternoons Yeah everything was shut. I mean not that long ago going to West to Ross in the northwest of Scotland in a separate area imposing world and everything being shot on a Sunday going to kind of forgotten what it was like I needed that she's trying to go but there was no way to get that she was trying to live is kind of where you we're saying here is the river riches and fealty of his heart on the brink of opening a seventy's boredom re creation tribute think of. I could bring my story. I'm going to get my old Stanley given stamp album out again guilty. A 970 s. Boredom recreation tribute thing park myself like just nostalgic whimsy but perhaps is not actually that far fetched an idea London's boring conference is a one day celebration of the mundane that has been boring center audiences for the last 6 years with talks on topics like toast i.b.m. Tills barcode yellow lines and even the shipping forecast is organizer James Ward Hi I'm James Ward and I'm the founder of the poor in conference a one day celebration of the mundane the ordinary use and the evil that. I came to bring conference because it. Is kind of a celebration of the mundane and think about ordinary extraordinary at the same time normally lots of the event they're all about these ideas will change your life we're kind of saying the complete opposite of that we're saying nothing of any value or importance what we discussed and I think people quite like that I think anything that doesn't grab our attention within the 1st 3 seconds these days is missed is boring and I think it's a very lazy way of thinking there's a lot of one to be found within when you shine. Thank you for coming. Not wishing to be wilfully perverse but I have to say the idea of a boring conference sounds completely interesting to me but if that doesn't satisfy your thirst for boredom there is a more radical solution do you have the calendar app on your phone I have a calendar and to use it to plan your week I don't use a calendar I don't know to plan events not planned events but I kind of consult it I look at it like a lock up with a diary so I write maybe write in how often would you like to be bored once a week once a day you can't catch a portion of. A come on show because you're going to. Get it for you and not schedule boredom. I. Can get you for now going add to your voice if you've got the why not because otherwise things will fail if you don't timetable boredom other things will fill it and that's what you don't want any more time to listen boredom. Really. Really I believe boredom should be wild and free like the birds of the year old the wind in the trees the ceaseless and been flow of our time it's. Like we always understood that it should find you at inopportune moments when you are it will look you know we've friends it called the shape its. Border is surely one of the last bastions of true freedoms individual I was just that your mind be free to one we don't operate change your brain from boredom passionately born to the field you of course just sign and sleep to take your call. On a bus we're going down the road the simple truth is not like you for watching television at home but a place in civil state. Or perhaps a windowless is for. Why not allocate yourself off an area to just sit 'd do nothing and be bored. Planes open your hearts and your minds to the magnificent freedom of boredom. Sartaj can Jody's advice some board and I'm going to shed some Bowden right now here and I thought I'd channel my in a teenager and I've come to the edge of a housing estate here in Northampton I'm a fan and I swore a set. Of left the fun back at the apartment. And. Just say a really. Because. Being bought the importance of doing nothing was presented by Phil Jupitus some produced by Luke Tory after ministry rejoined 5 a big wig and the other rabbits in the 2nd part of Richard Adams fantasy classic Watership Down. The country kill you throw barge of ours it's a ship full of Roberts Louis Stevenson on b.b.c. Radio 4 Stevenson declares kidnap.