Reasons To Be Cheerful

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Perhaps you are like me, feeling happy and looking forward to the holidays with lazy days of summer sunshine, snoring on the beach, and a week or two without having to shave. I know my wife is.

We cheery, summery types are currently under attack from those desperate to rain on our parade and allow Mr Reality in the front door, and from what I read we should be also letting his wife, kids and any passing Jehovah’s Witnesses into our kitchens just for a bit of light relief - but only after hiding the knives!

Everywhere it seems the news is full of doom and gloom with street crime up, fun times down, petrol and gas prices causing riots, and electricity, mortgage and food prices rising quicker than a nudist, with jam on their privates, sat on an anthill. And, as if that’s not enough for us men to cope with, the new Sex And The City movie means half the population have license to hate us again.

At a business lunch today I listened to nine colleagues give their thoughts on whether recession is coming or has already arrived and it was so depressing that even my chocolate soufflé looked deflated. On the way home, I popped in to Waterstone’s and had a look at the current book charts for a quick pick me up, and what a mistake that was! The top selling books chart reads like course work for a Samaritans’ counselling exam.

The biggest selling ones at the moment feature tales of either global warming or child abuse, one features a Death Row murderer, others just your average neighbourhood serial killers, another a school shooting, and for laughs you could try the one about two women struggling against the Taliban. And even kids can’t escape the current misery as the number one best seller for them this week is called Before I Die, the tale of a teenager given months to live.

I guess I now understand why I have been turned down by publishers after sending them the manuscript for my new book, Cheery Tales From My Happy Childhood Where No One Got Abused Or Shot, though I admit I may have to work on the title a bit.

Misery sells at the moment and I understand people feeling caught between wanting the kid in them to just enjoy life and have a laugh and, on the other hand, trying to act grown up and responsible by moping around like everyone else. It seems there’s never been a more boring time to be mature as we all now have to feel guilty about absolutely everything. The whole world is turning Catholic.

Well, I’m opting wholeheartedly for the fun bit and I’m going to leave the grown up part for a while. You’ll remember Ian Dury had a huge hit with a song called Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 3. Amongst the many reasons he could think of for us all to be happy were Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly, Good Golly Miss Molly and boats, though I do think at least part of his cheerfulness may have been chemically enhanced as the next lines included nanny goats and porridge oats, yellow socks and no electric shocks, and days when I aint spotty, sitting on the potty.

Quite how a nanny goat would cheer anyone up defeats me, unless it was tapping out winning lottery numbers with its hoof, but at least Dury tried. As soon as I finish this blog I am writing to the Prime Minister to ask if he could change our national anthem to Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. I’d happily stand and put my hand over my heart for that.

A pal gave me good advice. He said I should ignore miserable folk altogether and that all we need to do is give thanks for what we have, look after what we can control, and ignore the rest. But what about those who feel they have nothing to give thanks for? Well, according to my friend, it’s up to the more fortunate of us to give them something. So, if you’re one of those who feels down and friendless, here’s my contribution to cheering you up - my current happy list.

The price of chocolate is stable, tax on beer hasn’t risen for a while, Sienna Miller and Kiera Knightley play loved up lesbians in their next movie, the weather’s great, The Clintons soap opera is nearing its end, estate agents are miserable, Christmas is only six months away, Al Green’s new album is fab, Indiana Jones is back, Heroes must get better soon, and England didn’t qualify for the European Football Championships. I’m not going to think about Scotland not qualifying. That really is depressing.

The irony could be that in spending time trying to get people to lighten up there’s a danger of overdoing it and making them miserable, but I do have the occasional success. Yesterday I had lunch with a pal from school who was morose and said that he was fed up with the long faces on every street corner. I said that was just posters of Sarah Jessica Parker, which made him smile, and he suggested we wear Don’t Worry Be Happy T shirts – a step too far even for me. His spirits rose and I thought I had made a convert.

As we left the restaurant I put my sunglasses on in the glorious sunshine and commented on how warm the day was. “Ah”, he said. “Bound to happen. It’s the ozone layer thinning”.