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Flare
Jul
3
Early to bed. Well, that was the plan. I wanted this day to end and end quickly.. but well… To guarantee the ‘well’, I would read a few feeds, catch up on at least the most recent of the talented bastards that I read and then climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. Bed by 9:30. At the latest. But nooo… you all have to go and be entertaining and all that. Damn you all.
I then checked my email – realised I got… one or two from people I should answer to. I haven’t. Yet. The reason is… I’m lazy. I’m sorry. Tomorrow is Friday and I’ll do my damnedest to get to you all. It’s just… y’know?!
And then I saw this (opens .doc file). It’s the findings on the Happiness Trends of various countries between 1946 and 2006.
Go on, can you guess what the UK’s trend is? This got me to thinking, if we are trending towards more miserable since the end of the Second World War… then what the hell is is going to make us India, China, Canada or France (rising trends) or even the US with a flat trend – not getting happier, not getting more miserable? And what would the last two years show?
This rolled around in my head for a bit along with finding out that Denmark is the happiest place on Earth
and then the reason for our downturn on the happiness front filtered through. We were incredibly happy in 1946. We’d had the war, we had rations, we had to struggle through every day – live was hard. We British are never happier than when we’ve got something communal to whinge about. That’s why we talk about the weather so much! With that kind of start, where else could the figures go but down?
So, I ask you (ignoring the real figures) do you think your country has got more or less happy?
And now I am going to close my eyes and dream of another day…
6 Responses to “Happiness Trends”
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July 4th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Over at Intellectual Dropout HQ we’ve been studiously avoiding all entertaining content. It is pleasing to see that this is appreciated.
July 4th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Having dated a Dane and commuted between UK and Denmark for 2 years I have to say DK is one of the lovliest places to visit. Whether or not they are happier per se I don’t know. They are bloody polite! Maybe being polite makes people feel happy?
(Yes I did type “per se” – you may squish me now)
Penelopes last blog post..Doesn’t matter how you dress it up…
July 4th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
yorksdevil – as you can tell I am doing my damnedest to remain un-entertaining to make sure we stay on target in the misery stakes.
Penelope – If politeness is the thing that make people happy then we have a lot of work to do with the little baskets out there. Let’s start with people who push buggies and bus drivers!
This is your first ‘per se’ warning. If you ‘per se’ another time I will be forced to upgrade it to a punishment of ‘minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum’ – yes, I rock in weird latin phrases! Die dulci fruere! and remember Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
July 5th, 2008 at 2:06 am
What’s wrong with ‘per se’?
July 5th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Blimey! I consider myself duly warned! My Latin study days were a longgggg time ago, I’m not even going to ask what you said! ;o)
Penelopes last blog post..Stolen A to Z Meme
July 5th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
yorksdevil – Nothing, nothing at all… But just add it into a sentence and watch people beat you to death for being a smart arse! It is very smart arsery… Very very smart arsery!
Penelope – Ooo, wikipedia has a whole selection of wonderful phrases to amaze and confuse. The last phrase says ‘If you can read this you have too much education’. And I’m very glad to say I have just enough!
Becs last blog post..Big News. Huge.