The Great British Art of Doing Absolutely Nothing

“What did you do at the weekend?”

“Nothing really.”

This is rarely true. You may have gone to the pub, ordered a takeaway, watched two films, visited a garden centre, had friends round and spent three hours on Sunday looking for something you were convinced you’d left in the kitchen. As far as you’re concerned, though, nothing happened.

The British definition of doing nothing is remarkably generous. Going for a coffee doesn’t count because you were only out for an hour. A couple of drinks at the pub isn’t really going out unless somebody has to apologise the following morning. Going to the shops is obviously an errand, even if you return four hours later with several things you didn’t intend to buy.

The important thing seems to be whether there was a plan. If tickets were booked, a table reserved or somebody expected you to arrive at a particular time, you did something. If you simply left the house and things happened, the weekend can still be filed under “quiet one.”

Staying at home makes the rules even more relaxed. You can cook something unnecessarily complicated, reorganise a cupboard, watch an entire series and spend 45 minutes on the phone to your mum, yet somehow all of this qualifies as doing absolutely nothing.

The internet has made doing nothing considerably busier. A night on the sofa once offered whatever happened to be on television, a book, a phone call or perhaps a video you’d already seen three times. Now there are enough distractions within arm’s reach to fill several lifetimes.

You can watch half a film, check the football, order a curry, play a game with someone in Denmark, spend an hour chatting to someone on Babestation, watch seventeen short videos you immediately forget and somehow end up reading the Wikipedia page of a minor actor from The Bill. Asked what you did that evening, the answer remains: nothing.

Sunday is particularly good for this. Sunday afternoon seems almost specifically designed for activities that don’t count. Reading some of a newspaper counts as nothing. Falling asleep in front of the television is definitely nothing. Going for a walk is nothing unless the walk has a destination, in which case it risks becoming an outing.

The pub occupies an interesting grey area. Meeting somebody for a pint at lunchtime can still comfortably fit into a day of doing nothing, provided you don’t stay long enough for the evening crowd to arrive. Three pints probably still counts. Four begins to suggest that something has happened.

Food operates under similar rules. Cooking a roast is an activity. Eating one at somebody else’s house is a social engagement. Ordering enough food for four people and eating it in front of the television is doing nothing, even if choosing the takeaway took longer than cooking dinner would have.

Perhaps this is why we enjoy a weekend with nothing planned so much. It doesn’t actually require us to sit motionless in a chair staring at the wall. It simply removes the requirement for anything we do to have a purpose.

You can potter about. You can go somewhere because you feel like it and leave when you’re bored. You can spend an embarrassing amount of time looking at your phone. You can have a nap at precisely the wrong point in the afternoon and then wonder why you can’t sleep at midnight.

By Sunday evening, you may have watched, eaten, drunk, walked, shopped, chatted, scrolled and slept your way through two entire days.

Then somebody asks what you got up to at the weekend.

“Nothing really.”

And somehow, that’s exactly what’s happened.