The survey, which reached the apparently spurious conclusion that the Maltese are the happiest people on earth, was bound to be proved wrong at some point. Anyone who lives here for longer than a year can work out that the Maltese are anything but happy people, still less the happiest in the world. Everyone seems to be seething with frustration and imploding with rage, and grumbling and moaning are the national pastimes. In colonial times, the word for “grumbling” was one of the few Maltese words that the British picked up, and from it they coined a term, “Maltese gemgem”, to describe this notable feature of daily life on the islands.

For we Maltese, in our overwhelming majority, to claim to a pollster that we are exceedingly happy, there would have to be one of two explanations. The first is summed up roughly in the expression ignorance is bliss. The second is that we felt compelled to lie to save face, in the same way that many Labour supporters say that Super One is their favourite radio station, when everywhere I go I hear people listening to Eileen Montesin and to Capital Radio.

Now an infinitely more reliable study based on cast-iron data from good sources has found what I always suspected was the case: that the happiest people in the world are those living in the wealthiest and most highly developed societies, while the unhappiest are those living in the poorest and most undeveloped parts of the world.

An analytical social psychologist at a British university has based this study on data from 178 countries, and on global research conducted by the United Nations

and the World Health Organisation. He has found – oh surprise, surprise – that the main factors affecting happiness are health services provision, wealth and education. The happiest people in the world are those who live in Denmark, closely followed by those who live in Switzerland, Austria and Iceland – and in the Bahamas, a second home for some of the world’s wealthiest people, a financial offshore centre, and a place into which trillions of dollars pours in from tourism. Malta may never have become the Switzerland of the Mediterranean, but the Bahamas have for years been the Switzerland of the Caribbean.

The unhappiest people in the world are those who live in the poorest African States, with Burundi coming bottom of the world happiness list. Burundi is landlocked, and bordered by Rwanda on the north, Tanzania on the south and east, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the west. It is geographically isolated, facing population pressures, and with sparse resources. It is the poorest country in the world, and one of the most conflict-ridden. The GDP per capita is just US$106, and the vast majority of the people live well below the poverty line.

I don’t know where Malta figures on that list, because the news reports don’t say – but I rather suspect that we feature somewhere in the middle, between the soaring happiness of Denmark and the misery of Burundi. This would fit with our average income, the state of our economy, our educational levels, and the provision of health services. It is only when Malta’s health services, education, and national and personal wealth reach the Danish level that Maltese gemgem will stop. As the situation stands, that gemgem is justified. Of course we are not the happiest people in the world. Why would we be?

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It was interesting to see that Adrian White, the analyst who carried out the study, made the distinction between personal health and access to health services. Most people confuse the two, or make the mistake of assuming that it is health, rather than access to healthcare, that makes for happiness (“Oh well, if you’ve got your health…”). My own view has long concurred with that of Adrian White. Indeed, one of the reasons why wealth is such an important contributor to happiness is that it gives peace of mind and access to the best healthcare. Even where that healthcare is not provided by the State, when you have plenty of money you can buy it elsewhere, in another country if necessary, and you and your family can up sticks to wherever the healthcare is without worrying whether you will lose your job or your income. This is apart from the fact that a debilitating disease, which is endured in the comfort bought by wealth, is a great deal more tolerable than the same disease suffered amid the grave discomfort and serious concerns of poverty.

The validity of an argument is tested by taking it to the extreme, or reducing it to its bare bones. Whenever that “health or wealth/poor Africans are happier than rich Europeans” argument erupts around a dinner table, as it does from time to time, I say that I would much prefer to be seriously wealthy and unhealthy than seriously poor and healthy. The choice seems obvious to me, yet it appears not so obvious to others, who get very cross at me for saying it. Perhaps they lack the imagination to understand just how terrible poverty is, let alone serious poverty, and how it can do nothing but blight the lives of those who live within its dreadful grip. It is not a coincidence that the people who say that health is more important than money are usually pretty well off themselves, and usually also healthy to go with it. And that’s another thing, sod’s law dictates that the wealthier you are, the healthier you are too. This is because people with money have access to better healthcare, better food, and – ah yes, of course – far less stroke-inducing worry about money. They also tend to be better educated, and so know more about diet and healthcare, and how to make the best life choices.

When you have no money, it’s the only thing you can think of. Like death and grief, it is with you when you wake up and when you go to sleep, it haunts you in your dreams and dogs your every waking moment. The relentless worry turns life into a nightmare, and the constant awareness that you are at risk and vulnerable is enough to destroy your health. Yes, it is better to be healthy than unhealthy in a situation like this, but if you were to ask a person living in these dire conditions whether he would swap his health for the peace of mind that only a few millions in the bank can bring, then I think I know what the answer would be. It’s one thing being a Western latter-day hippie living at one with nature in a hut in India on a few cents a day. It’s another thing altogether being an Indian woman with five children to feed and nothing to feed them with. The recent newspaper story of the woman trying to sell her eyes to buy food for her children should tell us something about where health and wealth come in the pecking order of importance.

A really good test is to ask people whether they would prefer to be a billionaire cancer patient or a healthy beggar in the filthy, dangerous, disease-ridden slums of Calcutta or Cairo. Let’s leave aside the fact that it is practically impossible to be a healthy beggar in slum conditions, and pretend that it is. They have to think before they answer. It’s a tough one – but not for me. I’ll take the billionaire cancer patient, please. Serious poverty will kill that beggar in the slums before long, and meanwhile his life will be as miserable and frightening – possibly more so – than that of the cancer patient. At least the latter will die in comfort, knowing that his family is more than adequately provided for.

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At least now, whenever I am contradicted by people who claim that Africans are poor but happy and Europeans are rich and unhappy (the opposite of my view), I have a whole world survey to back me up. “No,” I can say. “Actually, poor Africans are the unhappiest people on earth, and the richest Europeans are the happiest.” What fun I shall have.

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Life is not a Hallmark card. The things that count for most truly are the things that money can buy. We are not allowed to say this, because we have been trained to parrot that the best things in life are free (they definitely are not) and we optimistically like to think that it’s not true, but it is. Money can even buy you children when you can’t have your own. It can buy you health in terms of access to the best medical treatment and the best living conditions to keep you healthy. And while it may be true that money can’t buy you love, the brute pragmatism of Maltese idiom acknowledges that minghajr flus, la tghannaq u lanqas tbus. Denmark, here we come.