"Hello, I'm from the Happiness Party, can we count on your vote at the upcoming election?"

"Eh? The who?"

"The Happiness Party, we are a new political party devoted to making everybody happier. Our pledge is that we will only make changes which have a positive effect on the overall happiness of the population."

"Blimey, well, how are you going to do that?"

Well, here you go, the answer to all of our problems, the Happiness Hat:

http://www.lauren-mccarthy.com/happinesshat/

So, all we need to do is to make the wearing of happiness hats compulsory and we will achieve our goal of "Making Everybody Happy"...

Compulsory happiness is not the goal, I don't think anybody would want to live in a world with happiness police. And I suspect that is one possible side effect of governments measuring happiness, with any kind of measurement there is the temptation to massage the figures, find an easy way to make the numbers better.

Artcile on the BBC:

Happiness revisited: Does money make us happy after all?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8484368.stm

Looks like the people at Davos have been looking at the issue of happiness and welath - but not very closely as far as I can tell. Funnily enough, I have been planning an article about this very subject as it is absolutely fundamental to the whole issue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/6195370/Happiness---the-new-currency-…

Yes, even the Telegraph are starting to take notice, Happiness is set to become an unstoppable force in world politics.

Richard Layard talking about how happiness should be the main goal of society and individuals:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8254000/8254249.stm

The alternative is to not take the happiness of the population into account, which sounds like the stance of a dictator!

We live in an age of celebrity. Our heros are seen as special people towering above the rest of us mere mortals and entitled to the lavish lifestyles we see paraded before us. These are people out for themselves, for what they can get. They are special after all, why shouldn't they have a guitar shaped swimming pool and an all red snooker room with a stuffed camel? Or German themed prison nights with expensive prostitutes, or their own private island or a multi million pound farmhouse for the weekends. Or all their expenses paid for by the taxpayer...

It can get really sickening sometimes writing about happiness, you can see it in the author photos on the backs of some happiness books, the fixed smile is really starting to hurt. You can hear them thinking, "Can't I just be pissed off for one day???" Well, maybe you need the antidote:

http://www.howtobemiserable.org

We don't claim to have all the answers, so if you know of a better way to be miserable - or to make large numbers of people miserable, drop us a line