The Happiest Place on Earth

There is a common misconception, brought about by a large number of dollars spent on branding, advertising and marketing, that Disney Land and all its spawn are the 'Happiest Place on Earth'. In fact, the happiest spot on the planet is about 10 meters from my front door, and I'll challenge any of those mouse-lovers to prove me wrong.

Allow me to explain.

London is a miserable place. Well, actually, the people are miserable. Not the ones I know, of course, but the vast majority of the population. It's not their fault. Misery is an institution here. Ever since the year God-knows-when, when Romans had their slaves row up the Thames for the first time, debarked their vessels and said, "Veni specto pluvia!", which roughly translated, means, "Sweet Mother of God, this rain sucks!", successive generations of Britons have had to go about their daily business in cold, wet clothes. Eventually, the damp seeped into the pores and became encoded in the DNA. So people here can't help being miserable; they're genetically predisposed to be so.

Close your eyes. Wait, keep them open, or you won't be able to read the rest of this. Imagine a sidewalk in London. The sidewalk is empty. Now imagine a man appears, striding in your direction. You can predict two things about the immediate future. 1) the man heading in your direction will change course for no discernible reason other than to place himself directly in your path. 2) he will ram his shoulder into yours as you pass.

This sort of aggressive apathy is pervasive throughout the city. Everywhere, that is, except for a footpath about 10 meters from my front door. This footpath, no more than 30 meters long, passing narrowly between the bland faces of the two least remarkable houses in a street full of unremarkable houses, is truly the happiest place on earth. It is here that the small courtesy is still observed of waiting for an oncoming pedestrian to pass through a narrow space. And it is here that the rarest of flowers can be found - the smile of another human.

I've been smiled at, said "Good morning" to, waited for, on that short stretch of pavement connecting my street with the next one over. I cannot fathom why this should be. There is nothing special about this path. It is not pretty; in fact, it is fairly ugly. I know women who won't walk alone through it at night. There are weeds and high walls and the odd steaming mound of freshly laid poo. And yet, people smile at me and say good morning. It's almost as if I'm not in London at all, but in some Utopian dream, where people are actually nice to each other.

Or maybe I'm in Denver.

Take that, you Mouseketeers.