International Happiness Day is on 20 March. There is something inherently funny about this, implying as it does that the rest of the year may be wilfully abandoned to misery. It reminds me of the slogan that my adored adopted home town is keen on: “Brighton and Hove – no place for hate”. Perhaps the originators could tell us where in Sussex, then, we may give full rein to our rancour: Steyning, Fulking, Pease Pottage?
When we are stroppy teens, we often declare mulishly that we’d rather have an interesting life than a happy one, seeing cheeriness as something suspiciously shallow. Each time we hear the vulgar street exhortation “Cheer up, it might never happen!” we dig our dismayed heels in further. But before we know it, we’ve gone from exquisitely doomed youth to grumbling old git. Look at poor Morrissey! Like Maoism and love bites, miserabilism only looks good on the young.
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