On the nature of happiness and the problems of finding out.

 

As you know, I am one to allow those keen young chaps onto the Committee so they could go off and form Development Subcommittees. Sort of thing keeps em amused and out of mischief. When popping out to attend necessary functions, burning the 2 AM oil you can still still them hunched around a table chuckling away at the breath-taking modernity of there wheezes, before you nip back for another snifter and a game of ‘Tattershall’s Progress’. That reminds, wonder if we should look for 'Nightcap' Compton. Last saw him trying to prove it was possible to cross the Thames using nothing more than Toby Jugs and a range of aquatic mammals. Where was I?

Point is, give em enough graph paper and a supply of coloured pencils and they will amuse themselves for weeks. The occasional ‘have you thought of all the alternatives' will distract them and keep them from bothering the rest of us. Until yesterday.

'Are you happy' inquired Badesely Minor. I don't tend to go in for that much introspection and said all things considered I was in good health. 'Ah!' cried the bespectacled youth. As part of a modern and dynamic institution - apparently he meant the club, a thing which caused a few minutes of confusion, then we need to measure 'customer satisfaction. I told the chap, I always had a word with the Cellar Steward., If chaps are laying down claret they are happy about the future and if ordering champagne, expect rough times after a fortnight. This, apparently, isn't scientific enough.

Badesely and his chums had taken it upon themselves to devise a small panel, such as may be seen on any high street grocers. It had four faces. A red faced chap who looked like someone had suggested doing something improper with a  something of a different speices, all the way through to a green fellow with the sort of smile Brocton had most of the time when he was post to Eastbourne – with all that entails to a fellow with little self control. What about if you are feeling so-so? I requested. What followed was Badesely maintaining this sort of thing meant you never got a real answer as people could cop out and be no-committal and had to point out slowly, as if talking to a simpleton or Government Minister, that the whole culture of this blessed nation was based on that very state of being.

I took pity. He blubbed so into his hanky. So, I apologise for the panel of buttons next to the Dinning Room. We have agreed five buttons ranging from the one with a slight smile which is labeled 'Top Hole'; through 'In the Pink' 'Mustn't grumble', could be better' and the final one, which can be best described as tight lipped, which bears the label 'Fine.'

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