Events | 2009.11.14
Kathryn Flett: What really happens when you win the lottery
Envious friends, grandiose homes, a few cars (obviously)… But how many headache pills does a £45m lottery win buy you?
Hm, by the time this column is published perhaps we will all know the names of the shell-shocked couple from Gwent who won half last week\'s £91m EuroLottery. Maybe, even as I write, they are busy purchasing an island and setting up charitable foundations with which to dispense their cheaply bought largesse to the deserving poor while preparing to live on the (very manageable, frankly) 152K per month interest? But you know what? I bet they\'re not doing any of that. Though I wouldn\'t necessarily rule out signing up for the ultimate (p)lottery-tastic reality TV show – a telly formula even Simon Cowell might envy.
For most people, £45m is too much money, other than (ironically) the super-rich, who – having either already stepped up to the consumerist plate, à la the Beckhams, or having a sideline in charitable spendaholicism (and freshly gilded lilies in their hallway, daily), à la their mate Sir Elton – would at least have some idea what the hell to do with it all. For the rest of us it\'s merely a mind-bendingly, panic-inducingly large amount of cash to be gifted overnight, and arguably much less of a gift than a monumental headache, what with suddenly becoming the CEO of Entirely & Undeserving PLC and then having to learn, just as fast, who your friends really are.
This would make your average cruelly ejected X Factor wannabe\'s emotional journey look like those of Janet and John (and Edward), because even with all the gratifying potential for Secret Millionaire -style cheque-writing, 5m quid, with which you could do nice, kind, generous local things, is probably the perfect lottery win; just enough to take care of business without the spending of it actually becoming the business. Which is why I\'d rather be a member of the eight-strong Liverpool BT call centre syndicate who\'ll be taking home £5.5m each. But with 45m you\'d have to go global, wouldn\'t you?
For example, once I\'ve handed in my notice and handed out £1m with no strings to the 10 loveliest and most deserving souls I know (and another £1m to Thingy-Watserface, as long as Thingy W promised to leave the country immediately and for all-time. Control freak? Control freakery is a major part of the whole devilish pact, goddamit), and after I\'ve bought myself some absurdly grandiose design in the country and filled it with the requisite amount of It-Won\'t-Make-You-Happy-But-Neither-Will-It-Make-You-Sad shiny shit and some proper art (and for a moment it\'s tempting to blow the lot on a Rothko), and then when I\'ve built another house somewhere hot and islandy with an infinity pool on the cliff (just because) and after I\'ve picked up a funky little – OK, make that big – penthousey-type affair in London, what with having also taken a lease on that nice office-suite nearby… And bought a couple of cars, obviously (and a driver, too, because who needs the grief of trying to park near the office?) And after I\'ve invested in some top-class non-snooty education for the spring-offs and (sod it) maybe a really cracking racehorse, or two (National Hunt, not flat), and, er… by then I\'m down to, what, my last £25m? Which is when I set up The Flett Fun Foundation for the execution of many and various good works. Yes, I\'m really pleased I\'ve got it all so impressively sorted.
But after all that\'s been done it\'s mostly gone, isn\'t it? With just enough left to ensure the kids are cushioned through their terribly traumatic and debilitating eventual divorces from that pair of gold-digging minxes, and they\'ve been encouraged to explore in therapy, at length and vocally, what an exceptionally rubbish mother I was to bring them up with the hideous burden of all this bloody money, then what\'s left, frankly?
See what happens? The stress is already getting to me, so I\'m going away for a few days, just to clear my head, and then I\'ll start looking for a great PA I can really trust… Sorry, what do you mean by "But you haven\'t actually won the Lottery, have you?" OMG! Haven\'t I? Thank Christ! Mind you it\'s a shame about the infinity pool/racehorses/Fun Foundation, and the PA. Though I was starting to worry about how £45m doesn\'t really go very far these days.★
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/15/kathryn-flett-win-lottery
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