Even the most committed loafer needs to get off the sofa sometimes. And should she find herself wandering down Westbourne Park Road and into Idler magazine founder and How to be Idle author Tom Hodgkinson’s Idler Academy she will certainly find her people. The Academy’s inventive program of evening talks and workshops offers opportunities to perfect your grammar, discuss poetry (over a glass of red, I was pleased to discover) or learn to play the ukulele, while the daytime coffeehouse does a fine line in Prestat hot chocolate, Monmouth coffee and sizeable slabs of homemade cake.

A well-edited selection of titles line the floor-to-ceiling bookshop shelves (as well as nearly every other available surface) and leisurely browsing is pretty much compulsory. So, pull up an old church pew, flick through whatever takes your fancy and prepare to do battle with your inner moody Londoner. This is the kind of place where strangers smile, chat and strike up random conversation (about everything from philosophy to the season one finale of Girls when I was last in). And my favourite part? The sunny enclosed garden out back where you can contemplate the meaning of life with your eyes closed when it all gets a bit much. Don’t worry if you nod off: As they declare clearly on their website, “Napping is encouraged.”

Image courtesy of Emma Howarth and Idler Academy