This is all the more surprising, perhaps, since by most of wellbeing's subjective metrics – "how happy did you feel yesterday?"; "how satisfied are you with your life?" – the contentment of the country has shown small but incremental improvement in those years.
Whatever Mr and Mrs Williams saw in their gifted second daughter when they named her Serena 33 years ago, she has rarely lived up to any perception of tranquillity or contentment.
When a small bell rang and Don joined in the chants of 'om', his wry smile hinted of – to me at least – a sense of contentment that had eluded him since we joined the show in 1960.
Most of us hope to feel our lives have been well lived, but I have seldom met anyone more convinced of it, and his contentment makes him hugely likable.
Add in two meetings ahead of the 2011 Asian Cup then familiarity feeds contentment although that game in Sydney last March when the visitors played the host off the park for much of the match and was disappointed to come away with a 2-2 dremainsains a warning.
But there is a more hopeful model: Switzerland, which for all its linguistic and religious splits, combines prosperity with contentment and a dose of direct democracy.
Not that this implies contentment with the EU.
King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, who succeeded to the throne in 1972, is a moderniser like his father, but this seemed a simple statement of the obvious: that economic growth alone does not bring contentment.
And they have, so the pollsters say, cast some unexpected light on the link between wealth and happiness.Ever since social scientists at the University of Pennsylvania found that mansion-dwelling American millionaires are barely happier than Masai warriors in huts, some economists have been downplaying the link between cash and contentment.
With unemployment heading towards 10%, output collapsing and public debt rocketing, contentment is likely to be scarce at the next election, which must be held by June 2010.
The great collective yawn is also one of contentment.
