And maybe I'm feeling emotional re-reading David Bermans (RIP) last AMA but there's something so lacking in our society around these positive stories. Maybe Hallmark, or Madea by Tyler Perry comes the closest to cutting it.

Two books come to mind, the first, Hemmingway - in a Farewell To Arms, you'd almost forget the war in the way he describes the snow settling over his apartments in northern italy where he was stationed as an ambulance driver in the first world war, his phrases stick with me but particularly "it was very fine". If you ever hear me say "it was fine" I mean that, it was refined, a very fine thing indeed it was.

The second - The Hedge Knight, has this same similar air and quality, I think George RR Martin shows incredible deftness trying to write what I think is a great fairy tale. knights, tournaments, maidens and young squires cantering about.

A few nights ago my wife was having trouble sleeping and so I told her the story, about our dog. Our dog who we picked up from the pound. Of course I anthropomorphized my pup's life, but from her eyes, if she were human is a great and soaring success. From being abandoned, to finding a home, and making her place in it, being a teenager and then having that rock solid owners who she bonded with so tightly. The story wrapped up well after my wife was asleep, but it was too good to stop talking.

Anyway, maybe life is worth the little lie, or to tell the tall tale, or generally make stories that are better. I'd prefer to hear a story about George Bailey than Heisenberg. Our schadenfreude certainly completes the more vicious and visceral side of humanity but there's a absolute dearth of stories that are full of courage, hope and happy endings.