The eternal quest for adventure

It seems that barely a month goes by without someone coming up with some unbelievably expensive challenge that gets scientists over-excited and governments, who should know better, racing for their cheque books. To my mind, neither of which should be encouraged.

The latest hair-brained scheme is for a new aircraft that will fly the Atlantic in an hour. Dubbed ‘The Son of Concorde’ it will be a hybrid aircraft/rocket that has got international high fliers in a frenzy of anticipation. So, celebrity A-listers will be able to appear live at a US film premier, fly to the London for the UK launch and still be back in the US in time to appear live on the Late Show. The fat cats in the city will be able to enhance their bank balances by trading 24 x 7 on both continents and elite footballers will now be able to play for 2 clubs at the same time.

Last month it was high speed trains, the month before that they were looking for volunteers for a one-way ticket to Mars and before that there was talk of plans to build an even faster version of the Large Hadron Collider.

Just how many trillions of pounds are all these schemes going to cost? Is this really what the world is screaming out for? 

Like many commuters I often struggle to work in traffic that barely reaches 5 mph – will I be any happier knowing that an aircraft could make the 5000 mile journey from London to New York in the same time it takes me to negotiate the traffic and pot holes on the congested streets from my home to my office.

Maybe I should be more excited, after all it is little over 100 years ago since the Wright brothers first took to the skies. The wingspan of a 747 aircraft is greater than the distance covered in that first flight. In the intervening years we have seen supersonic flight, put a man on the moon and are on the verge of introducing space tourism. True, the greatest leap forward in rocket science was achieved through the development of weapons technology during the 2^nd world war but where would we be today without the satellites that are so much a part of our lives that we take them for granted.

There have been a great many spin-offs from these flights of fancy in the past and who is to say that future developments may not bring equally important discoveries. 

Having been blessed with the scientific mind of a goldfish I am probably the last person to be passing judgement on what is or isn’t feasible. I do however feel that there is a great deal more that is achievable closer to home without committing such fantastic sums of money to these projects.

Breakthroughs in medicine are still coming through which will hopefully reduce or eradicate some of the major diseases around the world. There are also new products such as graphene that offer great potential in so many different fields.

Personally, I have never understood the purpose of the Hadron Collider; firing a laser beam around a giant tunnel of mirrors under ground, what is that all about? Why did it need to be the ‘Large’ Hadron Collider? Would a smaller one not have been just as effective?

Scientists strike me as a pretty sceptical bunch so I suspect a great number of them will be atheists – why are they looking for ‘The God Particle’ if they are non-believers? What will they do if they do find it? How will they know if they have found it? “Oh, that was nice, now what do we do?” Everyone goes home and CERN is turned into a theme park attraction.

If we have survived all this time without ‘The God Particle’ why do we need it now? What are we looking to learn from it? What are we expected to do with it?

In this topsy-turvy world we live in I doubt that I will be around long enough to see an end to poverty, a cure for dementia and alzheimer’s disease, or self-sufficiency in the global food supply but I might be around long enough to see the maiden flight of ‘Son of Concorde’.

Anyone for tennis?

So once more the annual gruntfest is over and the fair weather amateurs can cast away their tennis rackets for another year. Pleased for Serena Williams and Novak Djokavic and delighted to see Roger Federer playing so well, but on the day you could only say that Novak deserved his win. A victory of efficiency over elegance.

What I find particularly interesting about Federer is the way that his game has evolved as he has aged. The improvements to his serve and his willingness to come to the net more in order to shorten the rallies have not only enhanced his chances of a further major trophy but made the game more watchable. To be landing 80% of your first serves in court, as he did against Andy Murray, is an incredible level of consistency. 

Personally I have found the quality of the tennis in both the women’s and men’s events have been exceptionally high this year. It has surprised me that there have been so many gritty performances, particularly in the women’s game, and not just from ladies with the stature of a Williams or Kvitova. Some of the more petite players thumping down serves at 100 mph plus, making returns and actually placing the ball is a welcome sign of progress.

Maria Sharapova remains an enigma to me, in comparison to others her game is a powder puff yet her mental strength is phenomenal. Her serve has never been great, even before the shoulder surgery, and she lacks the power of some of the up and coming players but her resolve to fight for every point continues to get her out of the bleakest of scenarios. 

Once again the question of ‘the grunt’ has been raised again. Much has been made of the noise level and frequency of the Sharapova / Azarenka / Nadal grunting and there would appear to be a split in the camp as to its acceptability.

I did read somewhere that young players are taught to grunt in their early years as it helps them to exhale when they make a shot. I can understand why that may be the case but is it strictly necessary in later years.

In martial arts students are taught to yell as they strike a blow because it forces you to breathe, meaning you take in more oxygen to give you energy. Effectively control of your breathing helps to focus on delivering the blow.

When I played cricket taking a breath and raising the bat were part of my backlift routine for the same reason but I never felt the need or urge to shriek as I played the shot, it simply helped to focus the mind for that split second before deciding how to play the ball.

I have also played a fair amount of squash over the years and never once have I heard anyone grunt while making their shots. Grunts of dismay (or worse) following a bad shot there have been plenty but grunting has never routinely been part of any opponent’s game.

Martina Navratilova says that she finds grunting a distraction since she prefers to listen to the ball off the racket in order to determine the quality and direction of the shot.

To my mind the answer is simple, if you start to penalise players for persistent offending it will not be long before the practice stops. The number of 2-footed tackles dropped dramatically in football when it was decided to make this a red card offence and players now think twice about removing their shirt in celebration of a goal. Similarly rules have been introduced in rugby and cricket to curb the more unwelcome elements of the game so I believe a change in the rules on grunting will greatly reduce the noise level on the tennis court.

The ultimate catch

Fortunately throughout my life I have never been someone who has given much thought to their age. Why should I? There is nothing I can do about it. There may have been times when I had wished I had been a little bit older, so that I may have enjoyed more of the 60s music scene or younger so that I could still be playing as much sport as I used to do, but overall I am pretty satisfied with the hand that I have been dealt.

That said, a friend and I were recently debating the favourite county cricket matches which we had seen in our teens. I casually mentioned how I was looking forward to spending the odd day or two reliving those times slumped in a deckchair, with thermos and sarnies watching the county games in my retirement. Not only did it dawn on me that retirement is now considerably closer than I had realised but the way the game is going there may very well be no proper county cricket played by the time I do pack up the day job. From delight to despair in a matter of seconds.

It is understandable that the bean counters should want to maximise the revenue from the 20-20 game but the 5 day test match is to my mind the blue riband of cricket and the only way players can learn how to play that type of game is through playing the 3 day game.

I still enjoy the one day game and I can appreciate the 20-20 version as a spectacle but I don't like the pyjamas and razzamattaz that goes with it. Each of the versions of the game has their own set of technical demands and strategies and not every player is capable of adapting their game to suit each discipline. It is a bit like expecting a derby runner to win the Grand National or Usain Bolt to be equally as adept at running the marathon.

In my club cricketing days we used to put a team into the evening knockout tournament which was a 20 over cup competition for clubs in the area. As both player and spectator it was always enjoyable to be play on a beautiful ground on a warm July evening while watching the sunset. Availability apart no club could ever play their full 1^st XI and in our case there were at least 2 players who were deemed ineligible for selection on grounds that the game would be over before they had finished kitting themselves up with their usual array of liniments, bandages and additional padding.

This conversation has played on my mind for several days now and though it has been great to rekindle the memories of watching my boyhood heroes there is a nagging doubt in my mind that there will be a yawning gap in my retirement if I can't perambulate the boundary and sit in the sun listening to the thud of ball on willow. 

 

Where is the love?

May has been a strange month with quite a few stories catching my eye for all sorts of reasons – apart from scratching the head and blinking a couple of times to confirm what I have read the thought has crossed my mind most frequently in the past few weeks has been ‘Where is the love?’.

After one of the most lack-lustre, over-hyped and elongated elections ever the UK now has the government that it deserves. Not that I think that any particular party deserved to win on merit, but someone had to and there is a lot to be said for better the devil you know. The faces may have changed but the key issues are the same as they have always been, no one has come up with any radical solution to tackle any of the problems because any proposal for radical change is tantamount to political suicide.

At least we no longer have the ‘love-in’ between David Cameron and Nick Clegg but doubtless we will witness the tories going out of their way to embrace the SNP following their overwhelming success north of the border. Yes, there are probably a number of things that they could control better in Scotland but  I sense an element of ‘having one’s cake and eating it’. The tail seemingly wants to wag the dog from Scotland in the same way that Cameron wants to wag the European dog from Westminster – neither work for me.

The tories may have scraped in with a small majority but I do not get that cosy feeling of welcoming back an old friend, more a distant relative who has shown up on the doorstep unannounced.

Fall out from the election means that both the Liberal Democrats and Labour will be seeking to appoint new leaders. If you  are not already turned off by politics then you have a Summer of electioneering ahead that will last up to the start of the party conferences in September.

A story that has attracted much press attention is the arrival, and departure, of Kevin Pietersen. The England Cricket team’s dismal performance in the World Cup was followed by a similarly woeful performance in the recent test series in the West Indies. Paul Downton and Peter Moores being the sacrificial scapegoats for underachievement, with Andrew Strauss taking over the mantle of Director of Cricket at the ECB.

Having made clear his desire to return to the England fold Kevin Pietersen was advised by the ECB to get back to playing for a county side and start scoring runs again.  He duly rejoined Surrey instead of going to the lucrative Indian Premier League and announced his return with a career-best unbeaten 335 in a championship game against Leicestershire. Andrew Strauss, who famously fell out with KP then announced that there would be no place for him in the test setup because of ‘Trust issues’. Not surprisingly KP booked the next flight to India only to be ruled out through injury.

In the next few months England have 2 test matches against an in form New Zealand side followed by the Ashes series against Australia. None of the present England team have demonstrated any real consistency this season and devoid of confidence the side will do well to make any headway in either series.

I am not the greatest KP fan but on his day he can be one of the most destructive batsmen around and no opposing team would relish seeing his name on the team sheet.  He also draws the crowds in a way that few others can, at a time when interest in the game is on the wane.

There have always been mavericks in cricket, sometimes it has been difficult to accommodate them within a team but in this instance the situation should be fairly clear cut – in a stuttering side that has woefully under-performed you need to pick the best players available and for that reason I feel that he should have been given his recall.

Maybe he was misled by the cricketing authorities, maybe he wasn’t, the fact remains that the handling of the whole issue has brought further shame on the ECB when they are already under pressure to turn around performances.

Joking, Pietersen himself suggested he should apply for the vacant position of England coach – now there is a thought.

Elsewhere in sport, Chelsea cruised to the Premiership title, much to the disgust of many football purists while the relegation of Burnley from the league elicited a great deal of sympathy given the high standard of entertainment they brought to the league this season. Statistics would suggest that Chelsea were as productive and entertaining as any of the other clubs in the league, just goes to show that success doesn’t guarantee you popularity.

Possibly feeling the love – 3 of the most respected role models in English football bid their farewells to the Premiership at the end of the season - Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard depart these shores for America’s MSL while Brad Friedel hangs up his gloves at the age of 43. 

Not feeling the love?   Preston North End fans must be delighted to reach the League One Play-off Final at Wembley against Swindon. 30,000 fans are likely to make the trip to Wembley on 24^th May but unfortunately none of them will be able to travel by train due to scheduled engineering work by Virgin Trains – who by coincidence happen to be the official shirt sponsor of the Lancashire club. 

The emergency aid teams around the world seem to be have had even more responsibility than usual placed upon them. Apart from the ongoing demands for their services in areas of conflict and famine they have struggled to come to terms with the devastating effect of the recent earthquakes in Nepal that has killed more than 9,000 people, injured more than 19,000 and left  millions without shelter.

The month has also seen a horrendous loss of life among refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean  Sea in overcrowded boats, trying to take advantage of the calmer waters at this time of year. The EU is being stretched to breaking point trying to accommodate the influx of people prepared to risk their lives in the hope of finding a better life in an EU country that is ill equipped to care for such numbers or prevent the illegal transportation by people traffickers. Not wanted in their own country, not welcome in a new country – definitely not feeling the love.

Another story that caught my eye was the fact that while the development of cars that drive themselves is progressing at pace it is not permitted to produce records that show the number of incidents involving driverless cars or the extent to which these vehicles have been damaged or caused damage to others. All things considered I should still be around to enjoy being chauffeured around the country in my dotage by a robot. I still believe there is a fair way to go before this can become reality and it doesn’t fill me with confidence when companies are reticent about how efficient or reliable the cars have been. Imagine what the world would be like if humans were not required to report or record their driving indiscretions.

A party political broadcast on behalf of The Unelectables – or Who cares who wins?

So game is on and the election battle is off to a rip roaring yawn. The most closely fought contest since the … the last one.

The fact is that the major issues remain the same, as do the stock answers. The health service, the economy, immigration, education, housing, transport and pensions have always been the key concerns, always have been, always will be. The bottom line is that we all want utopia, there is only so much money in the pot and it all comes down to how the spoils from the pot is divided. Fundamentally there are more problems than there are solutions and it comes down to politicians to put whatever spin and window dressing on the situation they can to make their party look different from the rest. The election run in is not the for radical thinking so my guess is that we are in for another mud-slinging contest.

I would no more wish to be a politician than stick my head in a kitchen blender, far too much finger wringing, back stabbing and baby kissing for my likes, however in the spirit of contention I would like to put forward my own thoughts of what I would like to see in a manifesto. Not that I expect that my proposal would be adopted because it wouldn’t work, proposals seldom do, but at least it would be a more entertaining debate than the usual fodder.

My proposal would be to extend the day from 24 hours to 26 hours which would not only produce a variety of benefits, which I shall outline, but also go a long way to solving some of the unanswered questions to the key concerns listed above.

This may seem like a ludicrous idea though I do believe it does have a number of merits.

It would need to be a 2 hour increase so that you could spilt am and pm into whole numbers.

An additional 10 hours to the working week would bring a boost to the economy through productivity and taxes. Those in employment could see a rise in their income of up to 30%, while this will also be an opportunity to create thousands of new jobs. More money in our pockets with more time to spend it.

Those who like to party will have more time to do so, while those who claim they do not get enough sleep will get longer in bed.

There would be the equivalent of an additional 28 shopping days till Christmas, giving us more time to ponder what to buy our loved ones. If like me you struggle with this task the good news is that we will have fewer Christmases and birthdays in the future.

The extra 2 hours will give the government an opportunity to cram ever more ridiculous demands into an already overcrowded school curriculum and more time for students to complete their homework.

Students staying on longer at school should see an improvement in grades and there should be a welcome decrease in youth unemployment.

With the extra 2 hours even the most inept transport provider should be able to ensure that their buses or trains run to schedule. The potential for staggering journey times should lead to a drop in road congestion. It should also free up slots in the air reducing the need for a new runway at Heathrow Airport.

It will mean that patients will spend fewer days in hospital, freeing up much needed beds. The average pregnancy will be 3 weeks shorter than at present. The number of work days lost due to sickness will drop. Hospital waiting times will be shorter and those on daily tablets will not have to take their medication for so long, reducing the NHS drugs bill.

Those who believe that the legal system is too lenient on criminals can take heart from the fact that sentences will now be longer.

One of the biggest problems that this country faces is that there are more of us living longer lives. Increasing the length of the day addresses this problem by ensuring that life expectancy, which also helps reduce the pensions bill and the demand for home care for the elderly.

Some may view a shorter life expectancy as a negative factor but on the positive side we will not age as quickly, so no one will be worse off.

Assuming that most people will continue to eat 3 meals a day, increasing the length of the day by 2 hours should see no, or minimal, increase in our food bill which would effectively mean that the cost of our weekly shop would go down and this would reduce the effects of obesity in society.

As I see it, there are 2 downsides to this proposal, for the situation to work it would require the rest of the world to adopt the same option and extend their day. This may not be beyond the realm of possibility given that most of the other countries are in a similar financial mess and have just as few ideas of how to get out of a crisis.

The other concern is the impact it would have on nature. This again is possibly not so problematic. Climate changes would be largely unaffected but items such as bird migratory patterns and crop growth may. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your view, modern techniques have already dealt with timing issues for milk, seed and egg production. As for the birds and the flowers, well they are probably already confused by our fickle weather conditions but nature is very dynamic and adaptable so maybe the impact of any change would be minimal.

In the longer term there would be a changing of the seasons which could bring further challenges that may work in our favour. Heatwaves in November might expand the tourism market, removing the bottleneck for July and August breaks. It may also mean that our highly paid golf professionals who seem to play a disproportionate number of tournaments in exotic places where the sun always shine may find themselves on waterlogged or windswept greens in the middle of July. It would be nice to see how they get on in conditions more suited to the enthusiastic amateur.

There might be problems with future Winter Olympics being held in Summer conditions, but if they can hold the Soccer World Cup in Qatar in December then perhaps this will not be an issue. Personally I would look forward to seeing the ski jump turned into a water slide though I suspect that will never happen.

Doubtless there will be detractors who will be argue that it will mean the demise of the traditional clock. We are living in a digital age, changing the watch face should not be too difficult. There will be campaigns to keep the grand time pieces such as ‘Big Ben’ – you mean the ‘Big Ben’ at the crumbling halls of Westminster, the one that would probably disappear if parliament was ever relocated? Decimalisation saw us change from the old £-s-d to new pence yet the value of the pound did not change overnight, why should changing from 24 to 26 hour days be any more difficult?

That just leaves the housing shortage and immigration issues to be tackled, both far too complex for me to contemplate in my lifetime no matter how long the day is.

Cockup on the catering front

The papers over the past week have been dominated by the latest exploits to besmirch the BBC's flagship motoring programme 'Top Gear'. A programme in which 3 middle-aged petrolheads get to play with insanely expensive, fast cars and live out their teenage fantasies by undertaking puerile stunts in exotic locations.

In the latest escapade to hit the headlines Jeremy Clarkson was involved in 'a fracas with a producer' at a North Yorkshire hotel, where the crew had been filming for the latest series.

This may be seen as another welcome opportunity for the BBC bashers to mount an assault on the corporation though I would prefer to view it as a welcome distraction of budget leaks and the preliminary jousting in the run up to the election.

According to witnesses at the North Yorkshire hotel Jeremy Clarkson launched into an expletive-ridden tirade against programme assistant-producer, Oisin Tymon, in which punches were thrown. It would seem that the trigger for the dust-up came when it was learned that there was no hot food prepared for the team upon their returned from a day's filming in Newcastle. To Jeremy's credit he did take the initiative and inform his bosses of the incident but given his previous history of bad behaviour the BBC found they had little option but to suspend him pending an inquiry.

Not only has his suspension been raised in the House of Commons but there is a 900,000+ names petition calling from the BBC to re-instate the 54 year-old.

The Top Gear programme is worth an estimated £50m thanks to the show and DVD rights which presents the BBC, who own the rights to the programme, with something of a dilemma. Rumour is that he set to walk away from the BBC, to set up a similar programme with a rival broadcaster.

In most walks of life throwing a punch at a fellow worker is a disciplinary offence, if not grounds for instant dismissal for gross misconduct.

Equally, you don't need to be boardroom material to know that it is wrong to reprimand a colleague in public.

Maybe there had been a 'cockup on the catering front' but publicly lambasting the person delegated responsibility for such arrangements will not get you a hearty meal any quicker. Perhaps if he had channeled his frustration into finding an alternative eaterie then all this stupidity could have been avoided.

In the words of the Chinese proverb 'Hungry man who stands in field with mouth open must wait many moons for Peking duck to fly in'.

In one aspect I do have a certain sympathy for Jeremy Clarkson; whatever medication the observer who compared this latest indiscretion to the Jimmy Savile scandal is on should have it removed post haste as it is clearly is not working. About the only thing that these 2 stories have in common is that they are both embarrassing to the BBC.

For all the corporations faults it remains one of the greatest shop windows for creative talent. To be part of a successful show opens the doors to so many other opportunities – book deals, merchandising, repeat fees, guest appearances and future projects, to name but a few. There are few companies or other professions that offer such rewards or allow their employees to pursue their own career path with such diversity.

To work for any broadcaster is a privilege that should be treated with respect. History is littered with 'stars' who considered their individual contribution to be greater than the needs of their employer and have paid the price for their behaviour.

There is talk that there could be no Top Gear without Jeremy Clarkson – You mean, just as there could be no 'Strictly' or 'Generation Game' without Bruce Forsyth or no 'Have I got news for you' without Angus Deayton – rest assured, no star is bigger than the show, in the same way that no footballer is bigger than the club they play for. Performers may have a valid reason for leaving a successful show but to have to leave a show because of unsavoury behaviour, having worked so hard to achieve that success is sheer lunacy.

Jeremy Clarkson is no fool and should be well aware that he has crossed the line on this occasion. Would he have become the multimillionaire he is without the exposure presented to him by the BBC, I very much doubt it. Will other stations welcome him? Almost certainly, he is still a big draw, some may even see his 'edginess' as a benefit to a programme. 

 

He may have wanted some humble pie on the night, he may not get a chance to eat it at this stage. If it all does go wrong for him he could always go and work for Dave, they may well have big gaps in their schedules to fill, then they may just as easily fill them with repeats of their repeats.

Bemused, bewildered and befuddled.

Having reached a stage in life where I have had to come to terms with hair growing in places that have hitherto served no other purpose than lend a certain symmetry to my face. It would seem that the growth of hair from ears and nostrils is inversely proportional to the recession on my scalp. This in itself has come as no great shock though I am more perplexed by the transformation on my legs. In my youth I fear I could have been mistaken for a hobbit, such was the abundance of hair on my feet and shins but just as the years have crept up on me so has the hair on my lower extremities. I guess it is one more of life's great imponderables of which there seems to be an abundance at the moment.

Britain has announced this week that it is at the forefront of technology in trialling driverless cars which probably signifies that we will be at the bottom of the league within 15 years having sold off the rights to any breakthroughs we may make to foreign competitors. This caught my eye because I am toying with the idea of replacing my car. It may be many years away but the thought of being able to drive from London to Edinburgh and sleep most of the way is quite appealing though I am not sure that I would be too confident relying on computer technology alone to control the vehicle. Perhaps it is not such a bad idea given that 70% of all road accidents are attributed at least partially to human error. To all intents and purposes there is no real need for a pilot to fly a plane, then there is not so much traffic in the air and it will be a brave airline that would wish to be the first to dispense with their flight crew.

Quite apart from the technology is the way in which this form of transport may be used. In this age of litigation the ramifications for the insurance industry would be huge. Who would be to blame? Who would you sue? By the time you have finished reading this article I would imagine that there is some embryonic business ready to target those who have been injured by these vehicles or mis-sold such insurance. It would be nice to see this technology used for public transport but considering that the technology would be designed to avoid pedestrians how would a vehicle know whether a pedestrian was an obstacle or waiting for a 'bus'?

Another story in the public eye that has perplexed me is the trial of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former chief of the International Monetary Fund and one-time potential candidate for the French Presidency who is on trial in Lille accused of helping to procure sex workers for a hotel prostitution ring. He told the court 'I am one of the world's most powerful men. Many people wanted to please me. Women have offered themselves to me ten times. It is nothing unusual to me'. What I can't understand is how he can claim that he was unaware that these girls were being paid to provide services at these parties. What did he think they were doing, tagging along for the champagne and Ferrero Rocher? They may have been there to bonk a banker but it would seem from the trial that the bankers were too busy doing what they normally do, shaft everyone else.

Someone else paying the price for abusing their power this week is Heather Cho, the daughter of Korean Air boss, Cho Yang-ho, who has been jailed for a year having forced one of the South Korean national airline jets to return to the gate at New York last December and offloaded a steward because she was unhappy with the way he served her nuts in the first class section of the plane.

She was prosecuted on charges of breaking aviation law, assault and interfering in an investigation.

There is a great deal of unease in South Korea about the power wielded by a number of family-owned and run conglomerates. It may be that the humiliation is a bigger penalty than the prison sentence.

Sadly all too often power, money and corruption seem to go hand in hand. No chance for me then, money and me are no more than passing acquaintances and even the cat ignores what little authority I claim to have.

Sorry to read that the Fire Service are bracing themselves for an epidemic of 999 calls following the release of the '50 shades of Grey', the film version of the erotic best seller. Funny that, one minute they are wanting to strike over changes to their pension package then suddenly they have no problem filling shifts when it comes to freeing couples who have had unfortunate accidents with handcuffs or vacuum cleaners.

2 other wonderful pieces of disjointed government thinking – the tories want reduce benefit payments to those who claim they are too overweight or dependent on drink/drugs to leave the house. Trying to force them into work through poverty isn't going to work, especially for those who are so overweight that the only way that they can physically get out of the house is with emergency services assistance. And in another piece of inspired thinking it has been suggested that schools should be including 'happiness classes' in their overstretched curriculum. Maybe if they put more emphasis on teaching pupils their multiplication tables in year 1 instead of by year 6 then they wouldn't be so stressed out and in need of 'happiness classes'.

While I continue to ponder the perplexities and injustices that punctuate our strange existence it is worth remembering that not every cloud has a silver lining and there will always be someone worse off than you – somebody out there is going to have to live with the knowledge that the first record they ever bought was 'Mr. Blobby'. Now that was a crime against humanity.