January. The long morning-after. A time of mad diets, tentative declarations of sobriety, and a communal wish to be anywhere but here and now. January does something evil to those of us in a cold climate: it’s so bad, so unrelentingly bleak, that it begins to feel like a judgement from on high. A smackdown. […]
Tag: Happiness
Would You Like a Long Life, or a Good Life?
When faced with a choice between two things, I think its’s always sensible to check: can’t I have both? A long life or a good life. Well, one of the reasons I gave up alcohol and cigarettes is because I wanted more of the good stuff and less of the bad (mornings full of nice […]
This is All Good News
Winter is like a Jean-Luc Godard film: it’s painful and it feels like it’ll never end. Everyone is saying significant things in stilted, self-conscious ways and wearing stripy jumpers. There are naked people reading newspapers, and a car crash, and it all feels bit surreal, but also, really boring. Well that metaphor didn’t really hold […]
The Friday Happy List: 30th January 2015
If ever a Friday needed a Happy List, it’s Friday the 30th of January. One day I plan to gather all my mutinous feelings about this time of the year (acht, cursed, wretched January) into the introduction to the astonishingly brilliant, grammatically experimental, culturally significant and ludicrously handsome book that I will write. This will not […]
Review: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
I picked this book up from the library because the title was irresistible, started reading it on the train home, and was smitten, immediately. Often books arrive just when you need them the most, and this one arrived, volatile and funny, full of dark wit and poetry and joyful hope, on a grey Sunday in January. It was meant […]
The Friday Happy List – 10th Oct 2013
Oh hey downpour. Hey October. Glasgow is slick with rain and stoic under siege. But there are reasons to be cheerful. It’s Friday, which means for 9-5ers its time to let your hair down, get absolutely trashed and wake up on Sunday with only a few dim and alarming recollections. Don’t worry, you’re living life excellently! Here are some other happy […]
Misery, Happiness, Caramel, Unicorns
I love all the weird idioms which we all say like they’re totally normal. It’s fine to talk about something happening ‘once in a blue moon’. Also fine: ‘feeling blue’, ‘a prize idiot’ (what prize? The possibilities…), ‘swings and roundabouts’, ‘cutting to the chase’. As much fun as it is that we all talk in […]
Amy Jardine 