Summer seems very different here in Annecy as compared to England.  It's not a great mystery - generally the weather is warmer, but not too much, and even when it rains the higher temperature means that I can remain outside (even if under an umbrella) - I don't have the impression that it's become winter again as in England.  Here, I've been watching the butterflies on the blossoms and the little lizards scuttling into the gaps between the stones - gaps which no doubt seem like caverns to them.  Life outside is lived more easily when the weather is adapted to our needs. I feel free.  And, in consequence, I am happy here.  But normally I am happy in Coleshill as well, regardless of the uncertain summer weather.  Happiness is puzzling.

There is a lot of research at the moment into happiness.  We have comparisons between countries and groups which inform us where and how we can attain most happiness.  A comparison published by UNICEF last year related to the happiness of children in various countries.  It said that the children in Great Britain were bottom of the heap when it came to happiness out of all the industrialised countries.  I found the conclusion surprising. It is not obvious why this should be so. In an article in the Times the other day David Aaronovitch drew attention to the fact that their conclusion is based on certain assumptions - for example that relative poverty indicates a lack of happiness. In this respect we and the USA both have a poor record. But why is it not absolute poverty which is a sign of a lack of happiness? Well, it seems, because the figures don't exist. We do badly on teenage drinking, fighting and bullying and also the lack of breakfast. But as no individual weighting is given to all these various factors, the lack of breakfast means that it is considered as being as much of a pointer to unhappiness as infant mortality. And there were no figures to reflect the level of violence in the home, because the statistics were not available for all the countries in the comparison. We cannot have much confidence, therefore, in the conclusions of this report. Which indicates in turn the difficulty of making comparisons between any groups regarding their happiness, of their well-being.

But what does happiness mean? According to Professor Lord Layard of the LSE, an expert in the field, it means "feeling good — enjoying life and feeling it is wonderful. And by unhappiness I mean feeling bad and wishing things were different". But my feeling of happiness is probably not the same as someone-else's. After all, scientists tell us that feelings of pain are very variable between different people. And it is possible that the feeling of happiness also depends on the upbringing of an individual or of the culture of a country. So then to make a quantitative comparison is fraught with difficulty. But obviously we all know that our own happiness is variable. In particular, research has confirmed what we all knew anyway - that the overwhelming feelings of happiness that we have occasionally do not last, even when the underlying circumstances do not change. If I succeed in becoming very rich, for example, I will become a lot happier, but as time moves on, my happiness will diminish, even if everything-else remains the same. And we know also that love starts on a high of happiness but does not continue at the same level. It seems that we have a time limit to extremes of happiness. Extreme happiness is not normal. Indeed I would think that a continuing state of extreme happiness would be a disadvantage: it would distract me from wanting to attain other goals. Maybe I need to feel somewhat unsatisfied in life.

So does happiness have a purpose or is it just a pleasant feeling? Perhaps we should ask what is the purpose of the changes in our state of happiness. We do, after all, try to become happier. All things being equal, for example, I shall of course be happier if I am rich than if I am poor. However when poor, if we imagine being rich then my impression is that we associate it with more happiness than it actually brings in the end. This seems to me to apply to most situations - we have the maxim "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" which well describes our normal view of life. And I think that this unrealistically anticipated extra happiness may well be a major motivation for trying to attain our objectives whether of becoming rich or anything-else.