High life | 8 October 2011

New York
An English prof. made an earthshattering discovery about ten years ago — that there is a strong link between having money fall upon you and being happy. No, he didn’t win a Nobel for it, nor for the conclusion to his findings, which was that money buys autonomy and independence. The prof. should have won a Nobel Prize for excessive stupidity instead, especially for his last neologism, that ‘to turn a really unhappy person into a very happy person using money alone would take about £1 million’.

I ain’t so sure about the last one. I gave a member of my family much more than one million quid 20 years ago and the guy is still miserable and angry — mostly at yours truly. That arch-phoney Sigmund Freud was on my side on money matters. He said that happiness is the adult fulfilment of childhood dreams, and children, said Siggy, do not dream of money. Ergo, money does not buy happiness. A far more serious and better person, Gore Vidal, is on record as saying that, if the poor were ever to find out how much fun the rich really have, they would probably rise up and kill them all.

My only contribution to wealth epigrams is the one I borrowed about those who marry for money — they earn every cent and then some. I do not include women in that, only men. Most women I know who married for moolah have led charmingly carefree lives, with lotsa staff to boss around, lotsa houses to receive grand people in, lotsa toys to fly and sail privately in, and lotsa, lotsa walkers to keep them company when the old boy is in a board meeting and they happen to be bored.