Take my wife . . . I wish someone would. Not great is it? OK, how about this one. My wife’s gone to the Caribbean. Jamaica? No, it was her own idea. Still no good? Man alive, you guys are a tough crowd.
I have to persist with this comedy malarkey, though, so brace for more low-quality gags. Because word has reached FT Towers that the nation is miserable: we need to be jollied out of our gloom. According to the Global Mind Project, Brits are only slightly less unhappy than the Uzbeks, the world champion glumbuckets. We take silver for misery, and the project’s worldwide survey has sent social scientists, policy wonks and health service planners scuttling away to pore over what to do about it.
At least one person in politics thinks he’s got an answer to the epidemic of unhappiness — more jokes. Hear me out, because the guy’s an actual medic. Dr Simon Opher became an MP in last summer’s general election and still practises as a GP. He believes patients who come to the NHS with mild or moderate depression can be steered away from medication by giving them a bit of a laugh.