Apparently the Prime Minister David Cameron is to officially measure how happy we all are. He's going to ask statisticians to come up with a questionnaire that quantifies whether we're getting more jolly – or not – as a nation.
I thought perhaps I could be of some assistance with this and have devised my own list of questions I strongly feel should be included on his list:
• How much sleep did you get last night? And did your husband move a muscle when the baby needed her dummy sticking back in – for the tenth time – at 3am?
• Was the sun shining when you opened your bedroom curtains this morning? Could you, in fact, see any shade of blue at all?
• Did the postman bring news from afar contained in something other than a brown envelope or one with a horrible see through window thingy?
• Were you able to open your wardrobe, pull out something ironed, and notice with delight it didn't, then, have a blob of dried sick on the shoulder?
• At 8am, were all your children sitting in the car – hair brushed, teeth cleaned, happily testing each other on their nine times tables?
• Did your dog – just for once, on its morning walk – not try to hump the arthritic Labrador with cataracts and a really grumpy owner?
• When you went to withdraw money at the cashpoint did it say: 'Just twenty? Here, take two hundred and treat yourself!'
Sigh. Happiness can be measured in many ways. But not, I fear, by a questionnaire from the coalition government.
Read more Moments Like This ponderings here.