WE are a mite happier in the village this week - a very tiny mite - because the council has finally agreed to accept a delegation to explain just what plans it has for the old quarry.

This, we suspect, has been earmarked as a rubbish dump for refuse from Leeds, Bradford or, as far as we know, Barcelona - perhaps the Spanish can afford to pay for services which our poor, under-funded, efficiently run and magnificently managed urban centres can't.

In the happiness stakes, however, we could perhaps all be much better off if we became Buddhists - according to the latest survey by "the experts."

Now my trust in, and respect for, experts is well known but the latest survey into human happiness appeals to me, possibly because it makes me just a tad happier. And it says that Buddhism is the happiest religion on earth.

Now there may well be something in this. We Christians seem to thrive on suffering - in Northern Ireland, we kill each other over it. The Jews, admittedly with a great deal of justification, positively wallow in it.

As for Muslims, they seem to live in a permanent state of anger, not only against we Westerners but also amongst themselves: the splits between various sects of Islam make Ulster folk look like something from the Little House on the Prairie.

The Buddhists, says this latest study, are happier than most of us because their religion encourages them to think with a different side of the brain, the peaceful, reposeful side as opposed to the angry bits which drive most of us.

Now this particular revelation has ironically (which is very much the right word) done little to improve the peace process at Curmudgeon Corner, for it affects a situation which can sometimes be a little delicate anyway of a Sunday afternoon.

To explain, I shall quote from a source of great weight, none other than a recent leader in the august Sunday Times. It read:

"Their religion discourages Buddhists from watching EastEnders because it features horrible people being nasty to each other."

Talk about salt in open wounds. Talk about striking a raw nerve. Talk about hitting nails on heads.

For on Sunday afternoons, Curmudgeon Corner divides into two armed camps and, unless there is rugby or a Test match on the telly in the sitting room, I am banished to the potting shed for a whole two and a half hours.

Mrs C, you see, does the ironing on a Sunday afternoons, one of the few household tasks I do not share (honest) for the simply reason I can't do it: any shirt I tackle comes out looking like a Japanese fan.

She does this mind-numbing task whilst watching the even-more mind numbing jumbo edition of EastEnders on the small telly in the kitchen. The ironing, she says, gives her something to think about whilst the programme is on.

In the days when I was allowed to walk through the kitchen whilst this mind-bending drivel was on, all I ever saw and heard was people a) shouting at each other; b) punching each other; c) getting drunk and insulting each other; or d) getting ready fornicate with each other so long as they weren't married to each other.

Is this really how the urban working class live? Or are they so obsessed that life is beginning to imitate soap (I'd rather vomit than use the word 'art')?

"Having a good laugh, then?" I used to ask Mrs C as I passed through the kitchen.

That was before I was banished. If I need to use the loo when I'm out in the potting shed, I now have to walk round the house to the front door.

Anyone care to join the Beggarsdale Brotherhood of Buddhists?

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.