Every year, as the Queen's New Year honours list approaches, the Today programme sets out to nominate the great successes of the past year.

But this year, with the great and the good having presided over what might be one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, we thought it might more suitable to celebrate lack of achievement.

"There are advantages to sitting around and doing nothing," says Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler magazine, which has been promoting the cause of idleness since it first went to press in 1993.

"All the great creative breakthroughs come when people are sitting around, or lying in bed in the morning half awake.

"Idleness is a wellspring of creativity, is enjoyable for its own sake and there are health benefits as well."