We must either love each other, or we must die

The English summer is upon us, which means that it’s cloudy, there are millions of tourists milling about taking pictures of each other, and of course the office air conditioning is broken. The facilities people have instructed us to sit completely still in semi-darkness until things cool off in October.

I know it's boring to bang on about the nanny state, but it's difficult not to get irritated with the powers that be for pronouncing a complete ban on pre-baby boozing, despite there being nothing as inconvenient as "evidence that a couple of units once or twice a week will do any harm” to an unborn baby. Luckily, today’s advice is “not based on new scientific evidence.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as dull, risk averse and sensible as any middle class chartered accountant; it’s just that I would be very surprised indeed if the small minority of mums-to-be who get bladdered when they’re up the duff have even heard of the Department of Health, let alone paid any heed to their guidelines, irrespective of whether these are based on scientific evidence, or simply the insatiable urge to tell people what to do. Here endeth the lesson.

Not entirely unlinked to the above is Boris Johnson’s article about happiness in today’s Spectator (read by home county Nazis in tweed), which is the journalistic equivalent of foie gras en brioche. Quite simply fabulous. Before you dive in, though, you might need to mug up (well I had to, anyway, what with my patchy state education) on the following:

• reductionist
• The emergence of Athenian democracy
• TRUD
• Nicomachean Ethics
• Aristotle
• eudaemonic (a crisp fiver to anyone who can successfully weave that into their next conference call)
• pseudo-utilitarianism
• jacquerie
• NEET
• Hesiod
• asphodel

One small point, though – I’m somewhat sceptical that the study of advanced mathematics constitutes an “activity that is truly happiness-inducing”, but then the plurality of maths teachers at my school were sarcastic alcoholics.

And finally, how on can anyone at the bloody moaning Indie think that anyone at all would possibly find this picture of a house remotely interesting, let alone front-page fodder? Bloody puritans. Time to bunk off and read some Hesiod, people.