Saturday 23 April 2011

5 Suggestions for a Happy Society

Features to improve a nation's Happiness Index.

1) Totoro in your living room. For every household. Huge furry stomach to lie on.

2) Free visits to local cat place. Enter room of cats. Be sat on by tons of cats. Covered in cats.

3) Book House. Every town must have house of books that can be borrowed for free. What? Lie-breh-ree...?

4) Playparks for adults. Slides wide enough for adult female hips. Swings and more swings. Maybe a roundabout, although one can have bad experiences with roundabouts. We'll call them "outdoor gym facilities" to appease the snootier grown-ups' sense of superiority.

5) Free tea on a Friday afternoon. No take-aways. If you feel happy, you are allowed to sing. You DO NOT have to sing. I am completely against prescriptive ditties; I am thinking of "If You're Happy and You Know It" at this point. My experience of this song is that you will not get away with not clapping your hands, even if this means you are forced to lie about your emotional state.
This is what I imagine having Totoro in your living room would be like. Assuming you have a taste for Bridget Riley wallpaper. And you like eating ice cream and wearing a hat indoors.