What would you do with a lottery win?

Oh, don't pretend you haven't fantasized about it! We've all had the conversation. It runs through the same stages every time. What would your initial reaction be? How long would you wait to start spending: as soon as you knew? As soon as the cheque came through? As soon as it cleared?

Then on to the size of the win. It's funny when some people choose not to be 'greedy', opting for a modest couple of million. As if greed might put a hex on their chances of a real-life future win. Or as if they had any more power to accord themselves a 'moderate' cool two mil, than eighty million.

Next the portioning out starts. How much to charity? (Any?) How much to family members (and which ones?) Where does what's left go? Into a high-interest account? Any riskier investments? (At this point someone points out that the lottery administrators can advise on appropriate investment of winnings).

Then comes the fun part: how much capital can you let go of, and what is it going to go on? How many bedrooms in the house, garden specifications – fruit trees? A brook? A games room? A sauna? A swimming pool? (The swimming pool is key for me: no swimming pool, no deal).

The car discussion is more for the benefit of the man in the house, but join in girls, it's just not the same without some interplay. Lamborghini? (Why not just buy a second house while you're at it?) If it's pretty and sporty it's fine by me and I wouldn't know the difference between that and an elderly Supra. But play along, play along.

Lifestyle gets chewed to pieces: would you give up work altogether? (Then some mockery of those who vow they won't.) Would you close your existing business? (Perhaps not. You never know.) Do a Phd.? Study silversmithing? Lie in a hammock under an apple tree all the livelong day, perhaps, cat on your lap, glass of wine on a little table, book in hand. Now that's the life.

Fancy TVs, immaculate kitchens, luxurious bathrooms: for half an hour's blissful speculation, we're all fantasy millionaires. And very, very picky ones. “Oh, I don't like blue in a bathroom. All white and green tiles. Italian tiles, of course.” Of course!

And what's the harm? When the reverie is over and we come back to harsh reality, we remember. We remember that, no, we haven't really won. Yet. But it was really fun for a while pretending!

Catzzz

Say it out loud, I'm a gay cat and I'm proud. Yes, it IS you I'm staring at.

Creative Swearing

I read a post on The Simple Dollar - http://www.thesimpledollar.com/ - about a book with a guy who was very creative in his swearing. He was one of the first straight make-over volunteers on the US 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy', and he got around socially-inappropriate swearing in his book by such phrases as 'What the Fred Savage were you thinking?' I'm sure you can think of other examples.

My creative cursing is somehow never so innocent. My OH does love the one that sprang to my lips when he was having parking troubles at his father's house last Christmas though - 'Fuckinabucket!'

What does it mean? Nothing! Why does it have to mean anything?

I remember the girl at a bank where I temped, whose response to any customer query I relayed to her was invariably 'Tell them they can just SHIT OFF!'

Trouble is, I don't think she was joking...

And there's my current favourite, 'Shite Almighty!', another that keeps OH innocently sniggering for hours...

Gosh-darned Ellora's Cave

... and their apparent lack of a niche for my latest meisterwerk.

Ho hum. Onto the next one. Or five thousand words in, to be precise. You've got to GRIND 'EM DOWN!

Time for a re-write and re-think on the old forest-killer, too, maybe.

Celebrities without slap, Channel 5

Nothing you can see on this show is as ugly as the souls of the people who made it.

U. G. L. Y. YOU AIN'T GOT NO ALIBI!

Miss Snark is no more. Now that's sad. Maybe she's run off to fulfil her Sapphic passion for Miss Genoese. We weren't fooled by all that Clooney hoo-haa...

Big blooming holes...

In the plot of my Ellora's Cave novel. Of course I only noticed them when it came time to write the synopsis.

ALERT! write your synopsis on an ongoing basis while working on the manuscript: it can flag up problems pretty damn good.