The Lottery Winning Idea

Ever played The National Lottery? Ever bought a scratch card? Even if the answer is no to these questions, you can still answer this question – If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would buy? I mean the first thing after you’ve bought a bottle of reasonably priced Champagne and waited for the giant novelty cheque to clear (does anyone know where they get the giant novelty pens to write those things?). Think about it, think long and hard and I can guarantee I have thought of a more perfect answer.

Ok, so you’ve always lusted after a car, a really fast, death inducing, knicker-wettingly fast and sexy car. You can afford to get one now, but hang on, exactly which car should you spend a small fortune on and how exactly would you go about getting one that matches your eyes? What about all the paperwork and insurance and the boring tax disc? Suddenly that’s not so fun, is it?

I know! How about a huge mansion? The sort of mansion that could house all the Playboy bunnies and all the Premier League football players and still have room for Mariah Carey‘s entourage? It could have a swimming pool in the shape of your right elbow and a bowling alley painted the same colour as your manicure every day. You could even have a cinema at the rear, playing Stephen Spielberg films back-to-back, with Stephen Spielberg  doing live commentary. But hang on, where would you even begin finding a pied-á-terre such as that? It would probably have to be built from scratch and where would you even start on attaining planning permission for an elbow shaped swimming pool, let alone a hutch for all those Playboy bunnies? That sounds like a pile of headaches wrapped up in a bundle of paperwork, tied up with a ribbon of surly builders.

A pony. You’ve aaaalways wanted a nice pretty pony to love and to groom and to take on long rides across the fields. Only, they don’t exactly sell these things at the local pet shop and where do you find one that can moonwalk like the little cheeky Shetland in that advert? Where would you even find fields that don’t contain angry farmers with frisky bulls?

Granny could do with some TLC. How about getting her hips replaced and a couple of live-in topless flunkies to serve her Horlicks and to clean the Werthers out of her dentures once in a while? Sounds like a noble way to spend your big win, but hang on, do all flunkies come properly trained in stair lift maintenance, and can you really be sure that hip doctor didn’t go to college with old Harry Shipman? You’ve got your research cut out for you and that’s going to eat into valuable Champagne quaffing time.

What you need is a nice holiday and you should take all of your friends with you. You could buy a yacht and cruise around some really beautiful places, drinking Anythingtinis and practicing your best Wham! impressions round the pool you had installed on the poop deck. Hang on, you know your friends, can they be trusted to all bring their passports and to have got the relevant visas? Just what are the most beautiful places that all the nouveau millionaires are frequenting these days, how did Andrew Ridgeley get his hair like that and just what the hell is a poop deck anyway?! Someone please get Club Tropicana off that damn stereo and how do you steer a boat?!

Are you having fun with all that money yet? Are you lapping up all the luxuries that Lotto wins can afford? No? Well, that’s because you were foolish enough not to make the first thing you’d procure the first thing I would. I know what you’re thinking, that I would use the money to have habitual sniffing outlawed. You’re thinking that I would have a cellar full of the finest breakfast wines that ever were squeezed between a Frenchman’s bunions and you’re thinking that I would use the money to have children banished from all drinking establishments or that I’d realise my dream of becoming a Bond Girl. Well, yes to all the above but not so hasty.

Contrary to popular belief, there is actually very little that is fun about spending huge sums of money, when you take into account the small print, the research and the sheer tedium of actually speaking to “the poor” (that’s right, as soon as I win the lottery that’s what everyone else shall be called). Even if finding a new location for PFPT Towers were simple, do you think I’d want to have to pack my treasures and trinkets prior to the move? The answer, for those of you who have never witnessed me weep and wail while trying to stuff 60 pairs of shoes into one cardboard box, is a resounding no.

So, what is it? What thing would I rush out to secure the very second my giant novelty cheque clears in my giant novelty bank account? What can possibly make spending my vast fortune the mindlessly frivolous affair that my inner spoilt brat so rightly deserves? A personal assistant. Think about it, I wouldn’t have to know where dancing ponies come from, only that there was one waiting for me on my Andrew Ridgeley shaped yacht, which would just have magically appeared before me as I got out my chauffeur driven, gusset-moistening car (don’t ask me what marina, I don’t need to know), and on my return, my shoes would all be sat waiting for me in the shoe lounge of PFPT-ham Palace.

Why would you do any of the hiring, firing and pony wrangling when a PA can do all that for you?! Now, there’s just one small problem I haven’t been able to iron out. Who is going to find the PA?