Alexandra Shulman’s Notebook: Happiness is… getting off a plane in one piece 

Only 25 per cent of girls and young women consider themselves to be very happy, a recent survey by the Girlguiding Association reveals.

This top quality happiness decreased as they got older, affecting their studies, confidence and relationships.

But since when did happiness become a condition that we should regard as the norm or that we are entitled to? Is happiness really something that children should be asked to measure? 

Is happiness really something that children should be asked to measure, asks Alexandra Shulman

The notion that happiness is something we can box-tick on our list of achievements sets up yet another unattainable ambition to add to the many unattainable ambitions young people already have on their plate.

As we age, our requirements of what make us happy are more complex. A small child is happy if you give them an ice cream. 

They don’t have to pass exams, worry about their love life, or compete over the number of likes on their Instagram feed, which is the stuff of everyday life for most teenagers.

And happiness is not something for every day.

As a fearful flyer, I am almost never happier than when my plane touches down at Gatwick or Heathrow

As a fearful flyer, I am almost never happier than when my plane touches down at Gatwick or Heathrow

The wonderful thing about happiness is that it is as glorious and sporadic as a shooting star. It is unreliable and often unpredictable. It is also very personal.

As a fearful flyer, I am almost never happier than when my plane touches down at Gatwick or Heathrow, having spent most of the journey convinced that I won’t survive the trip. 

Most of the other passengers are no doubt concerned about getting their 4G up and running or making their connecting flight, but I look out of the window and see the grey, grey tarmac of home and I’m really happy.

Of course it doesn’t last. Happiness doesn’t. But that makes the moments we experience it all the more vivid and remarkable

Sobriety can wait

Very few people are as in need of a sober October as I.

Having only recently returned from a late summer holiday, I’ve spent September in full-on indulgence.

Brakes totally off. Pre-lunch Aperol Spritz? Of course! Lunchtime Provençal rosé? Who’s asking?

So, all on my own, I had come up with the idea of taking a break from alcohol when I got home. That was until I read about the new Go Sober For October campaign, which has put me right off the idea.

I don’t want to be the kind of sad person who can only take control of their health by joining a group activity under a snazzy marketing slogan. 

Now my plan is postpone sobriety for a month and then aim for a personal Just Say No-vember. Let’s see…

Right man for the job

Evan Davis, who now presents Radio 4's PM

Evan Davis, who now presents Radio 4’s PM

I’m delighted that the BBC have replaced Eddie Mair on Radio 4’s PM with Evan Davis. 

Simply because he’s a man. 

Nowadays it’s becoming almost impossible to give any high-profile role to a man if there’s a woman on the shortlist, and for the BBC, with its gender pay issues, I can only imagine the soul-searching that would have gone on to make that move. 

They can always redress the balance by replacing Davis on Newsnight with the excellent Emily Maitlis or Kirsty Wark.

All round to Jack’s?

Tesco is making a move on the discount market with the £25 million launch of Jack’s, a new low-cost range of food stocked in dedicated stores, initially in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire.

With a majority of British products, and a utilitarian shop fit, Jack’s (named after Tesco founder Jack ‘Slasher’ Cohen, so called because of his love of cutting prices) has Aldi and Lidl in its sights.

Shopping is massively about environment and there is a fine line between walking the aisles of a cleverly designed no-frills store and feeling that you are one step away from the bleak necessity of a food bank. 

In the current economic climate, all of us are price sensitive but we also want to feel good about where we spend our money. This is particularly true for Jack’s, which doesn’t sell online.

Of course, where Aldi and Lidl triumph is that, alongside competitive prices, they attract affluent customers who can well afford to shop elsewhere, but enjoy nabbing a bargain chunk of manchego cheese or bottle of cabernet sauvignon.

Not only are they happy to shop there, they are proud to display it.

At first glance, Jack’s branding reminds me rather too much of the Beano comic. 

So a lot is hanging on whether they can woo the middle classes with their tempting sounding Eton Mess ice cream and Cornish camembert.

A modest revolution

HAD someone told me three years ago that religious dress codes were going to ride to the rescue of women’s fashion, I would have thought them deluded.

Gripe of the week 

Please can we ban the hackneyed phrase ‘effortless chic’? Chic does require a certain rigour, and that’s a fact. 

But for all those women who say they feel abandoned by fashion’s short hemlines, tight silhouettes and lack of sleeves, I point you in the direction of ‘modest dressing’ – a movement that originated to cater for the Middle-Eastern shopper with massive disposable incomes and which is now entering the mainstream.

The term ‘modest dressing’ doesn’t sound much fun, but leaving that aside it’s worth taking a look at The Modist, a luxury e-commerce website specifically aimed at the woman who, for reasons either of faith or simply preference, doesn’t want to bare too much but who still wants to appear fashionable and attractive.

Much of the stock is too pricey for most of us but there are a few gems (and a good size range) and it’s well worth taking a look at their styling tips – and then rushing off to M&S to get the affordable version.

Where high fashion leads, mass fashion follows, so I reckon this is all good news for the many women who feel comfortable with a bit more coverage but don’t want to look like they’ve cashed in their style chips.

What a ladykiller…

The new director of the next James Bond film has been announced as Cary Joji Fukunaga. 

Having once had dinner with Cary, I can confirm that he is one of the best-looking and charming men in the business and could easily be cast as Bond himself. 

Watch out Daniel Craig.  

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk