Happiness

I’ve been thinking recently about the idea of happiness and what it takes to make people happy. Redundancy, followed by long periods of unemployment, has had a huge impact on our family morale. Whilst this hasn’t been brilliant for us, I’m well aware things could be worse. Working in a public library brings me into contact with people from all walks of life and everyone at the moment is feeling the impact of decisions made by people living far removed from their effects. I wonder if ministers care about the correlation between their decisions and the increasing amount of homeless people sheltering in my workplace every day, and that, because of their cuts, there will probably be ten times the amount of homeless than Library staff if the trend continues for much longer. That means less staff to help these people, to spend time with them, to help make just a few minutes of their day more bearable.


We all strive to be happy. Even the Government said they want us to be happy. Maybe you remember the ‘happiness agenda’ they created a couple of years ago? To remind us to be happy, just in case we’d all forgotten whilst going about our living our bleak, worrisome, ignorant little lives.


And how did David Cameron say he was going to approach this? “As to precisely what we are going to do and when we are going to do it, you should wait and see."


Right, so, no idea then.


According to Mr Cameron, “It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB - general wellbeing.” And from this we derive that Dave can probably spell. What we also know, is that it’s much easier to say there’s more to life than worrying about money if you have the money you’re not supposed to be worrying about.


Downing Street, unsurprisingly, became much less concerned about how happy we were when people started to point this out. When people took to the streets of London to protest about the banking industry, camped outside St Pauls to make their voice heard, the establishment did everything in their power to get rid of them. When people from our disabled community used their precious time and energy to produce the Spartacus report, (a report whose very existence should not have been needed), they were treated to ministers telling them they were not entitled to be comfortable enough to be happy. It’s only going to get worse. It transpires, whoever you are, wherever you are, if you want to be happy you’re on our own. You make your own way. And if you encounter any problems, such as joblessness, illness, disability, homelessness, or all of the above- you’re on your own


I’d like to know, first of all, how he ever intended to measure our happiness. (I say intended, as he’s obviously not bothered about it now).


I mean, we all want to be happy don’t we? Unfortunately- and someone needs to point this out to Dave- it’s almost impossible to measure.


Let’s cover everyone here- as all of us, young and old, need to be happy: A baby clearly can’t tell you if it’s happy, it lacks the vocabulary. A toddler, whilst having some grasp of language, cannot yet communicate effectively, and in any case has moods so changeable they are seemingly only content for fleeting moments. Just as communication is starting to develop into something useful, they hit puberty. At this point, you have next to no chance of being able to get anything more out of them than a series of low moans or grunts. Attempts to derive any meaningful conversation are futile. By the time they reach adulthood, our children will have learned, like us, to carefully doctor our feelings according to our audience, revealing or masking our true emotions as we see fit. I have absolutely no idea how I would react is some self righteous toffs came knocking on my door asking, ‘Are you happy dear?’ For those of us who are brave enough to volunteer an honest opinion though, the message from Whitehall is, unless you’re speaking from a position of money,’ shut up, we don’t really want to know’.


I don’t know what the key to happiness is but I’m sure generation after generation have pondered the same eternal question and I’m sure a bit of money, the opportunity to work if you can, comfort, a home and friends and family bring you a hell of a lot closer to it. I’m also fairly certain, judging by their actions, Westminster do not really give a toss whether any of us truly are or not.

Not so Glittery Twitter...

So. Today we were given the news that the @officialglitter account is not actually the real Gary Glitter. I can't say I completely surprised. I mean, we've established the guy is a vile member of the human race, but I don't think he's quite so witless as to open himself up to the wrath of Twitter users.

So, this begs the question, who did set up the Twitter account. Well, that little genius was someone called 'Ben' as I found out when I did a little digging and found his blog. It didn't take too long and I'm sure we'll hear more from him at some point. Anyway, he claims he set the account up as a social experiment to highlight the dangers of predatory paedophiles on social networking sites.

He says;

'I set this Twitter account up as a social experiment to highlight the dangers and safety of children using the social networking sites and to discover and question public morality,' 

Well, call me a pessimist, but it looks to me more like a case of a trying to gain a little bit of media coverage for not actually doing much. I mean, who of us doesn’t already know that the safety of children and the vulnerable is a problem on the internet? Most of the public realise there is an issue, and do their best to avoid it and stamp it out when it is encountered. There are even PROFESSIONALS working on solving this very dilemma with workable solutions. But, Twitter is a wonderful tool for engaging interesting and likeminded people, sharing information, encouraging freedoms. And, d'ya know what Ben? Most of the people who use it, and other similar sites, are not there to spy on children. I mean,  what does he suggest be done about it? Twitter is already regulated to a degree. But, unlike Ben, not all paedophiles announce themselves so loudly, all glitter and trumpets. That's generally not how predatory paedophiles work is it? All more regulation would do is restrict peoples freedom to share information, which, as we've seen in recent uprisings, is a vital lifeline, and something we should be trying to preserve (See SOPA/PIPA/ACTA). 

That, however didn’t stop people jumping on the bandwagon to support him, judging by the comments posted after his blog. Even Piers Morgan stepped up to congratulate the idiot. 'Very clever' apparently. Really. REALLY? Cos Piers Morgan of all people, is the one who's best to judge people's moral compass? He's not even that good at judging a bloody talent contest. Or even, while we're at it, working out which direction his own moral compass should be pointing.

The bloke who set up the account also quoted celebrities and other twitter users who'd made jokes about the decrepit idiot, vilifying them for making fun of a serious issue. A bit rich, I thought, coming from the one pretending to be that idiot!

All that aside, as I said this is a serious issue and not one anyone should take lightly. However, I think things like this are best left to the experts, and to those of us who use the internet as it was intended, as a tool for knowledge and good. Not jumped up little media whores.

And Bully's special prize.......

I switched on the TV yesterday lunch time, expecting to see maybe pretty Australians or middle aged couples selling off their family silver. Instead, I was confronted with pretty much the polar opposite. Slightly overweight, pale looking men, wearing what appeared to be their entire family's silver (maybe gold plated, maybe the neighbours too looking at the sheer amount of it). And they were throwing pointy things. Yes folks, it's the World Darts Championships. 

Now, darts have been around me all my life (and I don't think they were being aimed at me!). My Dad has played for as long as I can remember in a few local pub teams and has even become somewhat of a legend amongst my friends for it. One of his fellow team members a few years ago was none other than Trina Gulliver, the Lakeside Womens World Darts champion of 2010. So he's not a bad player. I even remember him playing a friendly game against Eric Bristow when I was six or seven, and I was far too excited for a child of my age when he returned with a signed photo bearing the message 'Hayley. Don't worry, your dad will beat me one day!, Eric'. He didn't, btw, but I suppose there's still time. 

My mum also played darts for while, which I could never understand, since she seemed to hate the game. However, I realise, since creating two highly strung girls myself, it was an obvious ploy to get away from me and my sister. 

So, given the family record, (and the training from watching 'Bulls Eye' every saturday tea-time) I should be brilliant a darts, right? WRONG! I tried playing myself a couple of years ago, with a team comprised of some of my work colleagues, imaginatively named 'Library Lushes'. (Can you guess where I work?) We actually did pretty well and got through a couple of seasons with surprisingly few injuries. But it's bloody hard! You need really good hand-eye co-ordination (to hit the board) and spacial awareness (to avoid hitting anything/anyone else around the board, or in some cases, the room). A few of our members found it staggeringly difficult. And then you have to do MATHS! I have a new found respect for my dad who can do fairly complicated sums in super quick time to work out what numbers he needs to hit to win- and then hit them! Sadly then, it seems I have not inherited this talent. Though, to be fair, I haven't put in the time and effort at the local pub that my dad has managed to over the years. 

As such, regrettably, I don't suppose I'll ever be good enough to join this lavish world of designer chic, pointy sticks and beer. I guess i'll carry on just playing my dad now and again, and losing. And you never know, if they ever bring back Bulls Eye....

My First Blog Post

Well, here I am. I've finally decided to take the plunge, bite the bullet, take the bull by the horns, whatever other idioms fit, and start my own blog! Truth be told, I have been thinking about it for quite a while and actually set this blog up a few months ago now. That does not mean, however, that I have managed to think of anything to write about in that time. Quite the opposite. I'm fairly sure that over that time, a substantial amount of my brain cells have died off, leaving me possibly less able to write anything of interest now than I was then. But it can't be that hard, can it? Bit like riding a bike I imagine. I'll either get better with practice or you can watch me becoming increasingly unstable.
Whatever happens, I might enjoy the ride. You're very welcome to watch. Like rubberneckers watching some kind of horrific accident.