If you're feeling particularly fed-up today, then you're not alone, as January 22, has been designated the most depressing day of the year.

The nights are cold and wet, the Christmas financial hangover is kicking in and the summer seems like a lifetime away.

According to Dr Cliff Arnall, a specialist in seasonal disorders, January 22 is a day that most of us would rather avoid altogether as we watch all of our good intentions of getting fit and sticking to new diets fall to pieces.

The poll, compiled by Maltesers, looking into how people coped with the relatively bleak outlook, found that 36 per cent chose a cosy night at home, 39 per cent preferred to gossip on the phone with their mates and 16 per cent wanted to share some chocolate (hardly surprising, given the survey's backers) to cheer themselves up.

When asked what guilt-free treat they could have for January, unlimited sales shopping and chocolate were among the favourites.

The survey of more than 1,000 adults also indicated that there is was a backlash against the January diet, New Year's resolutions and extreme exercise.

But is it all really so depressing? We asked Yorkshire funnyman Billy Pearce, who has been making Bradford audiences laugh for years in Alhambra pantomimes.

This year he's starring in Aladdin and he says there's no better sound than the sound of laughter.

"I think as a nation we take life too seriously," said Billy. "We don't tend to laugh enough. When people come to the panto they forget their problems and have a good laugh and it does them the world of good.

"Laughter is the best medicine, it releases endorphins. My advice to get through January 22 is to stay optimistic and keep laughing whenever you can. It gets you through the hard times."

Self-styled "lecturer in laughter" Michael Fielding, of Wyke, who runs laughter workshops with his Brighouse side-kick Dr Peter Good, believes it's all in the mind.

"Really it's how you perceive things," he said. "If you see Monday as being a bad day it will be. Think it's just another day, put a smile on your face and get on with it. I'd just pretend it's Friday!"

Reasons to be cheerful:

  • You are not in the Big Brother house.
  • If you have a wind turbine, it should have generated a lot of cheap power the last few days
  • If you're in Australia and reading this on our website, you're in the middle of summer
  • In six months' time you'll probably be complaining you're too hot and bothered. Enjoy the cool weather!
  • It's another 365 days until the most depressing day of the year!
Grumpy? don't make me laugh!

But what's there actually to be cheerful about? Nothing, says the T&A's resident grump, JIM GREENHALF

"Optimism is the philosophy of despair," someone famous once said. I'll say.

Is there anything as depressing as someone blathering on about turning negatives into positives?

The abiding characteristic of marketing people, for example, is the patronising way they self-righteously cajole people they do not know to be "upbeat" all the time about life, about Bradford.

What the hell do these nitwits know about either? There is nothing as depressing as being subjected to the pre-packaged jargon of people forever claiming that, for them, the glass is always half-full. Half-full of what?

Listen: Yorkshire folk are deeply phlegmatic for good reason.

They instinctively know that life is more like a bowl of porridge than a bowl of cherries - lumpy rather than smooth; something you mostly endure rather than enjoy.

The climate and landscape instil a hardy kind of stoicism, a refusal to get carried away by big ideas and big emotions. They like to keep things close and partitioned; not for nothing is the landscape divided and separated by dour dry-stone walls.

Yorkshire folk in general and Bradfordians in particular know only too well that life is a series of repeats and that the only lesson we learn from our mistakes is how to repeat them with more expertise. Repetition is the basis of all learning - unless you happen to be stuck indoors on a January night of gale-force winds with nothing but the box for company.

One night last week, having watched a repeat of Sherlock Holmes on ITV3, I flicked over to UK Gold for repeats of Only Fools and Horses and The Family.

I decided not to watch the repeat of The Trial of Tony Blair on Channel 4. Before turning in I watched a whole series of comedy repeats hosted by the unfunny Charles Kennedy and Michael Howard reading woodenly from auto-cues.

Anything but Big Brother; the news; Question Time; Bill Oddie ogling wildlife.

As personal rights are displaced by politically correct human rights, let me defiantly declare that the pursuit of unhappiness is the inalienable right of every Englishman, probably the last one.

Have a half-empty day.

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