There was a period of 24 hours between that announcement and the checking of the ticket. Of course, one is going to make a preliminary mental shopping list in that time, surely?
The first purchase was going to be a steak lunch on Saturday, in lieu of the sum appearing in my account. Obviously, it was going to need a little time to clear and that is all my current budget would have been able to cope with. In the end, I had a cheese and ham baguette at a friends house after losing a toe to frostbite whilst watching Spencer slay Tulse Hill in a hockey showdown.
My next purchase was going to be a veritable abode in central London. It was not going to be an outlandish purchase, but I was intending to spend a tidy sum on a property with 3 or 4 bedrooms, a large kitchen, a games room, a roof terrace and a sizeable garden - I am not talking about 'room for a pony' type garden a la Hyacinth Bucket - nothing that extravagant. Obviously the house purchase would take some time to finalise, so I would have some time to kill and money to burn in the time being.
Ideally, I would like to keep a lid on it, but people that know me might twig when I spring up in a property I could never afford or even appear all over the newspapers and a variety of TV stations.
My next transaction would be to give my folks and sister/brother-in-law/niece a tidy sum, on top of a family bash. My parents could certainly do with some money coming back from me as opposed to going the other way. I was toying with the idea of gifting a farm to my sister and family. Organic vegetables or cheese, perhaps, but it would be entirely up to them. I was looking forward to getting invited over for a stroll around the land and some homegrown food.
My next plan of action was to afford some of my royalties to my friends. Now this would definitely be incognito. Various friends would gain different amounts as they would have different needs. Some have houses that need to be paid off, some don't have houses and so on.
The overriding feeling would be one of a capitalist and a materialistic slant on things, but I vowed to give to the greater good. I had been planning to adopt an area of Malawi, to start off with, and build them some form of sustainable infrastructure.
On my one and only visit to Malawi, I was greeted with a country full of potential, but severely lacking in basic services. Something we, the first world, take for granted. Women walked for miles to reach a 'maternity ward'. When I say Maternity ward, I mean a ramshackle hut with no transport links, other than a dusty highway. The shack itself consisted of some earthy floors with a sculpted dip to make the mother-to-be a little bit more comfortable. Our school trip visited a hospital that had not had a single new syringe for five months. They were relying on boiling the old needles and having to reuse them. Very sad. So, I would hope to build some form of infrastructure in various parts of Malawi and aim to attract further attention and investment.
The trouble with that is where do you stop or where do you start? There are millions upon millions upon millions of people in desperate need of help. The top 1% of the world 'own' 40% of the global wealth (I hope the internet has not lied to me with that figure). Where is the justice in that?
Brighton & Hove Albion were going to benefit somewhere along the lines and hopefully Sussex would have been able to afford Sachin Tendulkar for a season or two.
My brain was overloading with ideas and I took the plunge to check the numbers.
As it turned out, I managed to match the 'Star Balls', but none of the other numbers came in, leaving me and the National Lottery on an even keel.
Oh well.
Of course, I didn't put much thought into it. Money is not everything.
Quote of the Day: "If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can't buy" - Anon.
Word of the Day: Quomodocunquize - to make money by any means possible.
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