'Don't forget about what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted. He lived happily ever after.'

Roald Dahl

I am busy looking for people who are 74 years old.

It is they who hold the secret of happiness according to a Happiness Graph published last week.

It seems we decline in happiness from the age of 15, to the depths of misery at 24, have a little peak at 50 and then soar to sheer bliss at 74, only to decline again after that. I haven't examined the sample but suspect, since it conflicts with my own experience, it includes a lot of footballers and their girlfriends who seem set on self-destruction at 24.

This very precise mathematical analysis led me to on-line happiness surveys.

No-one has quite explained to me what 'happiness' means though Jane Austen, showing that she is a Wag at heart, says that a large income is the best recipe for happiness. Alan Bennett says that he is not happy but that he is not unhappy about it.

I am drawn to, but discard, a book called 'Eat Yourself to Happiness'. Whatever, the general consensus is that happiness can only be achieved through successful social relationships, good performance in a role that is important to us, and personal growth.

A BBC 'happiness test' concludes that I am 'satisfied but not complacent' which made me feel smug.

But there were only five questions and I felt that I might feel more challenged by a longer, in-depth questionnaire. Pages later, having anguished over a very long American analysis of every aspect of my life, I am declared to have 'a very high level of personal prosperity'.

But, and there is a very big but, I am strongly advised to move to the coast. Or, if I do not swim, to the mountains.

I think I shall stay put and wait to be 74 when, with fewer financial worries and more time to myself, the report predicts that I shall be more appreciative and, like all old people, remember and value the emotional content of my experiences, unlike the young who suffer from high levels of dissatisfaction with themselves and their lives. A final word of warning, though. The Chinese man who held the record for the world's longest hair had died at 79 so regular haircuts might help to truly appreciate those blissful years.