On being a millionaire

I was watching the end of the news there and it was a feature on some Scots who have won the lottery and become millionaires.  They asked somebody at the end of the feature if money bought you happiness and he smugly declared, "yes it does and if somebody says differently, you aren't speaking to the right people".  I could quite happily have poked this man in the eye where it not for the fact that he was on the tele and was wearing glasses.  Smug sod.

To cheer myself up I have decided to have a think about the things I would buy if I won a million pounds.  This is a theoretical blog so please, if I do end up winning £1 million and I have offered to pay off your mortgage but I decide in the end that you would benefit from working to pay it off yourself, don't sue me and it's likely you may have done something to irk me which justifies my decision.  Just getting my Shaun Ryder's in first.

If I win a £1 million or perhaps maybe £4 million,

My demands are really quite modest.  I shall stop working.  I want a nice house here in Glasgow but would also would like a cottage somewhere in the Highlands or perhaps Fife.  My Glasgow house would be the pad that I visit when I come to see Celtic play or visit friends.  It would most likely be in Albert Drive and would have (if it would fit) a swimming pool, a pool table, a jukebok and one of those arcade games where you pretend you are driving.  It would have a very tidy little garden and I would have a gardener called Esther who would also bake me cakes and pies for me coming to Glasgow to visit.

My cottage shall be ramshackle with a much larger garden where I shall grow all my own produce and perhaps have at least one cow and some hens.  I will be a writer and I shall drink a lot of whisky and smoke a lot whilst looking wistfully at the Scottish countryside.  I shall ride a bicycle (or scooter) into town and be known by the local village folks as "somewhat of a recluse" but every now and again I shall invite some of them to tea, for an hour or so.

I shall holiday in Tenerife and I shall have a small apartment in Manhattan which my friends can use on their trips to New York.

I will pay off the mortgages of my nearest and dearest in so far as I can.

I shall get drunk and go on iTunes and buy music constantly without worrying about if I can afford it.

I shall buy a piano and learn to play the piano.

I shall buy a digital SLR and learn how to use it.  I shall go on rambles and take telephoto snaps of wildlife and landscapes and I shall post them on my blog and flickr and write flaming great romance novels under the pseudonym of Josephine Martina O'Malley.  I shall write on a Mac and I shall drink coffee made from an absurdly frivolous coffee machine which made cappuccino.  I would also purchase a waffle machine, an iPhone, a really good Dyson hoover, a tumble dryer, a reclining chair and an X Box.

I shall have many brief trips under different pseudonyms in order to research my flaming great romance novels and I shall have a whole room in my Glasgow house with disguises in it (figure they won't fit in the cottage).

I will select a small group of organisations that I will give money to but I shall also go on conservation holidays and shall become a world renowned expert in dry stone walling.

I shall dine alone and take friends out for dinner and not worry about the prices and tell them to "order whatever you want!"

I will buy this wonderful morning off Nancy Sinatra or Oliver! or at least get dancing lessons so I can dance like the main guy in white trousers in this video.  I think he looks very cool (he looks a bit like the assassin in Grosse Point Blank?)

I shall have a 'larder' and will fill it with Dandelion and Burdock.  I shall make friends with the local curry house and leave massive tips so they will hike up to my cottage with take away curry at the whim of this drunken millionaires.  I shall have a dog named Barker and a cat named Arnold that I take for walks and they will have their own room as I have allergies.  I will pay for my allergies to be fixed.  I shall have a cellar and be too scared to go down there.

I like the sea so I would like a little cottage or flat near a fishing village too and I would like a boat.  I would like the option to go out on the boat quite a lot so will need somebody to sit the cat and dog. 

Oh and I will have a little bar in each of my properties with scampi fries, optics and draft ale.

Will I be happy?  Oh I really do expect so.