Here’s a reason to rejoice despite the nation's woes: Britons are the happiest people in Europe.
Research shows that we smile more than our continental cousins, with only the Spanish, known for their sunny outlook, and the Italians, with their love of life, coming close.
The French and Germans, some might say perhaps not surprisingly, fare poorlyin the smile stakes.
Bottom of the pile are the Poles, who it seems are twice as reluctant to crack a smile as Britons.
Piotr Szarota, a psychologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences, analysed 2,000 photos accompanying internet messages sent by men and women from nine European countries.
He found the residents of Eastern bloc nations to smile less often than those in the West, with the Poles the grimmest of the lot.
However, differences in quality of life cannot fully explain the results, with France and Germany both sitting towards the bottom of the league table.
With fewer than half the French and Germans pictured smiling, they were more morose than the Slovenians and the Czechs.
This may be because, like the Poles, the French and Germans place a premium on sincerity, preferring to show their true feelings, rather than mask them with a smile.
In contrast, Dr Szarota said that Britons, who topped the table with more than 70 percent of those pictured smiling, may be too polite to show how they really feel.
尽管英国目前困难重重，但有件事可以让大家高兴一下：英国是欧洲最快乐的国度。
调查显示，与欧洲其他国家人相比，英国人更爱笑，以乐观开朗而著称的西班牙人和热爱生活的意大利人位居其后。
而法国人和德国人都不爱笑——有些人可能并不会对此感到惊奇。
波兰人最不爱笑，他们展颜微笑的几率只有英国人的一半。
波兰科学院的心理学家皮欧特•萨罗塔对欧洲九个国家的男性和女性在发送网络讯息时附带发送的2000张照片进行了分析。
他发现，东欧人不如西欧人爱笑，其中波兰人最不爱笑。
不过，生活质量的差异不能完全解释这一结果，因为法国人和德国人的排名也比较靠后。
在法国人和德国人发送的照片中，只有不到一半是面带笑容的，比斯洛文尼亚人和捷克人还要严肃。
这也许是因为法国人和德国人与波兰人一样，都比较真诚，更愿意表现出自己的真实情感，而不是为了笑而笑。
相比之下，英国人可能是太礼貌而不愿表现出自己的真实情感。在他们发送的照片中，有70%面带笑容，位居各国之首。
in the ... stakes: used to say how much of a particular quality a person has, as if they were in a competition in which some people are more successful than others （评论一个人的某种品质高或低）要是比……的话，论……
crack a smile: 展颜微笑
league table: a list that shows how successful an organization such as a sports team or a business is when it is compared to other similar organizations（排名表）