You don’t hear people say it much any more, do you? Or, to
be more precise, I don’t hear people say
it much any more. You, on the
other hand might spend your days surrounded by the kind of dreamers who still
have some hope in their lives, or you might very well be the kind of person who
still dreams of a sudden fortune landing in your lap quite out of the blue and
without having to really work for it, and good luck to you if you still are.
There was a time, of course, when I was desperate for a
random chance to drag me out of the crowd and help me to break away from the
humdrum reality of my existence
Now I know that the humdrum reality was my existence.
In the meanwhile, most people, I imagine, have paid far more
into the lottery pot than they’ve ever got out of it, despite the odd tenner
here and there and the occasional slightly bigger prize. In the end you just
have to be philosophical and look upon it as your own voluntary contribution to
the arts, even if it’s not a selfless one because you were really, really
hoping to get something for yourself out of it when you first placed your
betting slip down on the counter.
And, when I think about it now, if it had happened, I suspect it might very well
have ruined my life because I don’t think that I’d be very good at being
wealthy, even though it would be nice to try it for a while I’m sure. Many of
the clichéd trappings of wealth that you see on the telly just look ghastly to
me and wouldn’t interest me at all, I fear.
Instead, I look at my life now and wonder whether the things
I might spend such money on today might not be the same as they might have been
fifteen or twenty years ago. The idea of a collection of fast cars would no longer thrill me like it
once might have done, and the big house in which to have Victorian-style
Christmases only really works if you still have friends that you wish to
interact with in that context and who don’t have other family commitments at
that time of the year.
I’m more interested in travel than I once was, I suppose…
I do have dreamy nuggets of ideas, people I’d like to give a
helping hand to and so forth, but I don’t suppose it’ll ever actually happen.
Then, you see, it’s started to become increasingly obvious
that a “big” lottery win is no longer all that big any more, and to make a
difference, it has to be a huge win, otherwise you’re still left relatively
poor and facing the possibility of, horror of horrors, still having to think
about working for a living...!
Once decent house can chew up a million in the blink of an
eye, and maintaining and furnishing it might chew up another. Add a couple of
cars and a holiday or three into the mix and you’ve blown a couple of million
and you’ve barely even started.
A few weeks ago I was listening to the radio and I heard
about the problems in a refugee camp at the edge of what I think was Malawi,
but if it wasn’t, I’m sure that the people of Malawi will not notice my error.
Basically, the aid worker being interviewed said that there was only one toilet
for every three thousand people currently living in the camp and that it was
getting worse by the day.
A quick calculation in my head worked out that if a rich
philanthropist heard that and decided to do something about it, a thousand
portable toilets would probably come to about a thousand pounds each if you
included the chemicals needed maintain them, and that’s a million pounds gone
before you charter the plane to get them there, and they are also going to get
so ruined under those conditioned that you would be very unlikely to get any
kind of return on your investment.
And that’s just partially addressing one problem in one
camp, and I wouldn’t even be sure that I’d flown them to the correct country.
No wonder charities struggle. There are so many endless
problems in need of so many costly solutions, that you really do begin to
wonder whether any of the likes of me, living as we do surrounded by the
trappings of the modern world, the computers, the televisions, the washing
machines and the flushing toilets and the running water, have the right to
dream of getting our hands on a couple of million and blowing it on the
trappings of a vacuous lifestyle…
A small and warm island, Radio 4, and countless bottles of wine... when I win the lottery.
ReplyDeleteI rather like that air of certainty you have managed to cultivate there... ;-)
DeleteJust the freedom not to work. That would be enough. Though a nice bottle of wine would be good too.
ReplyDeleteSounds about right - We'll meet you on the terrace (if you're still prepared to talk to riff-raff like us, that is...)
DeleteI'll bring cheese.
Delete