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A Reliable Unit of Joy

Imagine if each month of the year could be personified in accordance with the feelings they bestow upon us: June, the bright breezy shopkeeper, buzzing around and emitting positive energy to each customer; December, the cosy cosseting grandparent with an endless supply of treats and rich food for loved ones; and January, the frosty fickle fiend who brings a chill with every new encounter. January is cold, dark and unforgiving; people are low on cash after festive excess and the outlook is bleak. Of course the days are slowly starting to lengthen, and spring is beckoning from the distance, but there is little else to cheer about unless you happen to celebrate the Epiphany with undue fervour.

Cliff Arnalls, a tutor at Cambridge University, recently devised a formula to calculate the most depressing day of the year (entitled Misery Day), and the result produced was January 24th. This formula is based on festive debt, and takes into account the weather, the time elapsed since Christmas, and any failed New Year’s resolutions. Whilst the outcome is rather predictable (the above criteria was never going to give the result August 24th for example), it suggests that January is indeed a cruel mistress with very few friends at the societal ball. There was an interesting counter-argument to Arnalls’ findings (on C4’s Best of the Worst programme) which cited Valentine’s Day as the most depressing day of the year due to heightened expectation and/or loneliness. The trouble is, February 14th is merely one day, whereas January is a whole month of misery which may or may-not climax on the 24th.

January marks the beginning of the annual cycle of reality television shows which seem to grow in importance year-on-year. Before long we will be treated to vaguely familiar cricketers learning to ice skate, Ant and Dec will be testing the mettle of more ex-Neighbours actors in the jungle, and some chronically mismatched couples will exchange partners for a week in the hope of salvation from a dead-end marriage. Exciting stuff I’m sure you will agree, and in actual fact it has already begun in the form of Celebrity Big Brother. There is a certain sense of irony in the fact that the most recognisable entrant to the show, Jade Goody, only became a celebrity by being a contestant on Big Brother. It’s a self-satisfying pat on the back for the producers, a cruel case of deja vu for the watching public, and an indicative comment about the nature of the modern celebrity.

In truth I had barely heard of most of the current contestants, and whilst I don’t consider myself an expert on the celebrity scene per se, surely the very nature of a celebrity implies that one shouldn’t have to try too hard to recognise them. Thankfully all is not lost; it was recently announced that this year Morrissey is to write the UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. It is good to see the industry making use of genuine home grown talent, and I am sure I’m not the only one looking forward to hearing what he comes up with.

Returning to the wider subject of January blues, it seems that even the Government is concerned about the nation’s quotient of happiness, and they consider January to be our bitterest month. In typically pro-active fashion they have established a task force of civil servants who will seek innovative ways to make people feel ‘more cheerful and less grumpy’. The task force have given themselves the rather catchy moniker of the ‘Whitehall Well-being Working Group’, a name which is sure to bring joy to the masses in itself, if only for it’s usefulness as a tongue twister.

In a recent article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (The Independent, January 8th 2007), she gives the following summary of the task force’s current line of thinking: “A report written for this jovial W3G (Whitehall Well-being Working Group) by Paul Dolan, professor of economics at the Imperial College, who aims to quantify a reliable unit of joy, has come up with a list of what makes us light-up - long marriages and lots of sex, apparently, walks, gardening and gossiping over your fence with a friendly neighbour. Oh, and divorce and grey rain make us sad.” This is hardly revolutionary thinking, although perhaps I am missing the point. Maybe their idea is to produce one ludicrously amusing policy each January which will have the public in hysterics, thus curing the January blues, and inducing conversation over the garden wall between neighbours who want to know what on earth is going on.

Putting aside the Government’s meddling, January is a psychological turning point for each of us. Nothing physically changes in us between December 31st and January 1st, but sometimes it feels like a whole new beginning, especially for those giving up old habits. In light of this, I propose that January 24th be designated a new national holiday (working title Joy Day), where we each give someone a unit of joy from Professor Dolan’s list. It would be the perfect antidote to commercialised Christmas, and would thus give everyone something to look forward to in January. Now there’s a sensible idea for the W3G.

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