After yesterday's rather toxiferous tirade, I am determined that today's offering will be a pleasant, happy entry; or at least one that doesn't paint a picture of me as an axe-wielding, underwear-flashing maniac.  So I've decided to go in a completely different direction and talk about an ambition; a dream of mine, if you will. And one that, as of lunchtime today, is closer to realisation than ever before.

If I succeed, this will result in me being rich beyond my wildest dreams, I'll be the envy of all and the friend of many.  I'll be feted, interviewed and respected - I'll have won the Euromillions.  And the good news - the odds of that are only 1 in 116,531,800.  The bad news is that compared with the odds of being hit by lightning (1 in 10 million) and the odds of being eaten by a shark (1 in 11 million) my winning the estimated £154 million jackpot looks like something of a long shot.  Combine this with the fact that there are thunderstorms forecast for this week and I am an avid scuba diver, perhaps my Disney 'n' ducklings blog might end up....dead.

But at least I can spend the meantime imagining my Euromillioned lifestyle - reading i* today I learned that my £154 million could buy me no less than three Boeing 747s.  But three's quite greedy and anyway, I think I'd prefer to just fly first class with the plebs.  Better still - I'd be able to buy a ticket on the Airbus 380 and reside in its first class suite - where you not only have your own room, with double bed**, but a personal bathroom where you can "freshen up" mid-flight, though quite what you do when the fasten seatbelts sign comes on mid-leg-shave is anyone's guess.  Or maybe turbulence only happens in cattle class.

The twaddle phrase "money can't buy you happiness" is frequently bandied about, and judging by the veritable wealth of angst-ridden celebrity muck-ups, this seems pretty spot on.  We are aware that people who are rich still get sick, but the difference is that they'll have the money to jump the queue to see the specialist if they really need to.  We're not saying life will automatically be better or happier - but there are certainly things that will be easier. Millionaires still get depressed, they still fall in and out of love, (in fact that particular "talent" sometimes seems directly proportionate to bank account healthiness) and still argue with their siblings at family get-togethers.  So we plebs all know that life is still a rollercoaster ride that nobody (no matter how flush they are) gets off at the end, but most people, given the choice, would prefer to ride up front.


* i - it's that new publication from The Independent, which isn't bad, but is difficult to write about without looking like you can't spell
** heinously embarrassing if you're travelling with a colleague / Great Aunt Maud