I DOUBT that there can be anything much more tyrannical than a stratagem to make the miserable smile. It is a gross interference with individual identity and very possibly a breach of European human rights.

Sorrow is an essential entitlement. If, for  instance, a man’s wife walks out on him, taking all the furniture with her and having his dog put down on the way, he is entitled, for at least a short time, to show the world a downcast face. You might say ‘tough cheese’ to such a wretch. You wouldn’t, unless you were a tormenting pervert, invite him to say ‘cheese’ for a  happy photo shoot. Tiger Woods, I expect, will not smile for the cameras again until he has got over the wreckage of his limo’s rear window by a vengeful woman with a golfing iron. Who would begrudge him his tears?

As a matter of fact, the affluent world is awash with happy-clappy counsellors who would beseech a smile out of a crumpled tiger. And some of them have landed themselves chortling berths in the Manchester education system. On their advice, happiness classes are to be set up in all the city’s schools. This follows a pilot scheme launched in nine of the  schools two years ago. Thousands of pounds were spent on sending 28 teachers and aides to Pennsylvania where Dr Martin Seligman runs a psychological clinic for traumatised victims of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. The teachers came back berserk with compliments. As a result, the city council will now expand the scheme to all its schools, an enterprise that will entail, in a time of high recession, the outlay of £500,000 on giving 1,000 or more teachers lessons in the inculcation of cheerfulness.

 That, I should add, is not quite the way the council, or Pennsylvanian psychologist, would describe the proposed techniques. The idea, they say, is to encourage resilience, to help, the schoolchildren bounce back from setbacks instead of turning, in despair, to drugs, drink and crime. On the face of it, there seems nothing wrong with that. But did  those 28 teachers need to travel all the way to Pennsylvania to learn how to help their charges overcome the inevitable disappointments of adolescence? And were the taxpayers told how much they were spending on their transatlantic air fares?

There are setbacks and there are pratfalls. Failing an exam may make a kid feel down in the dumps,  but it doesn’t necessarily make him a  candidate for psychotherapy. As traumas go, it doesn’t rank with seeing a fellow soldier blown to bits on an Afghan roadside, the kind of life-stunting tragedy that Dr Seligman’s US clinic daily strives to abate.

I cannot help feeling that the American middle-class culture of treating the everyday bumps and disappointments of life as if they were  clinically serious trauma-induced derangements has already reached our shores. Hence the loopy idea of  squandering big money on showing kids how to get over minor misfortunes—a thing nearly all of them will do on their own bat anyway.

The wise and balanced man laughs in relief that some bad times are behind him even if worse trials are almost certainly on the way.

 

IN an Abergele hospital ward, Mr Geraint Woolford, 77, found himself lying in a bed next to another occupied by Mr Geraint Woolford, 52. The elder one was in for a hip replacement, the younger  one for a kneecap job. They are not, as far as is known, related. This was the first time they had ever set eyes on one another. When the two Mr Woolfords exchanged biographical details, it transpired that both had worked for the same police force, though not, of course, at the same time. What about politics? Both are fervent Tories. The septuagenarian Geraint was a former president of the Llandudno Conservative Club. The middle-aged Geraint is still vice-chairman of the Ruthin Conservative Club. The two clubs are only 34 miles apart.

You could not  blame these two coincidental gents if they got busy on the internet to find out where the rest of their namesakes are hiding. Alas, they would be disappointed. The public records office declares that there are only two Geraint Woolfords in the whole of the United Kingdom, both dwelling in Wales.

However, another Tory obsessive can boast an equally exclusive  monicker.  She’s Annunziata Rees-Mogg, 30,  chosen only a few weeks ago as Conservative candidate for Somerton and Frome, a constituency she is almost certain to win. Of course, the Tories have always been awash with Rees-Moggs. The lady’s brother, Jacob, is standing in a neighbouring seat, and their father,William, is a former true blue editor of The Times. But Annunziata? If there is more than one on earth prefacing a double-barrelled political Moggy I’ll donate 50 pence to the Conservatives’ election fund.

When Duke Dave Cameron heard of Somerton and Frome’s exquisite selection, he had the nerve to ask Annunziata Rees-Mogg to alter, or abridge, her name. To make life easier for the headline writers, you understand. Whether he  meant her baptismal name or one half of her surname I am far from sure, but such speculation is irrelevant. The lovely Annunziata quite rightly told the opportunistically self-abridging Dave to get lost.  

 

SOME critics have berated Carol Ann Duffy, the Manchester-based poet  laureate, for producing for her festive chore a parody of The 12 Days of Christmas. Too cutting and bleak, they complain. They should read some of the stuff her most eminent Victorian predecessor, Tennyson, turned out, especially the savage embittered anti-love ode, Locksley Hall. He is the bard who coined “Red in tooth and claw”.

Carol Ann, promising though she is, has a long way to go before she writes anything as terrifying as that.

Tweet