FIVE GO BONKERS

Recently, I received an e-mail of final notification from Skylow Lottery International, of 225-227 Waastink-Straat, Amsterdam, which sounds as if it’s next to a particularly smelly canal. The writer’s name was Dr Molly Van Brain, which seems the type of Dutch name that Enid Blyton might have picked for one of her stories. Anyhow, the good doctor is promotions director for Skylow, and she is pleased to inform me of the release of the ‘long awaited results of the El Gordo Spanish Sweepstake lottery’, though not, I confess, by me, as I’d never heard of it. I was apparently entered as ‘a dependent client’ and drew a lucky winning number in the second category of the sweepstake. The sum involved is a tidy million and a half Euros, which equates to over a million pounds, so the winning prize from the first category must be something to behold. Dr Molly goes on to say that I was selected through a computer ballot system drawn from 91,000 names around the world, which was ‘conducted in the early of this month calendar,’ a somewhat mystical piece of English. Due to a ‘mix-up of some names and addresses’, I was advised to keep the award ‘personal,’ until my claim had been processed and my funds remitted. Dr Molly said that this was ‘part of our security measures to avoid double claiming or unwarranted taking advantage of the situation by other participants or impersonators.’ As I didn’t want an impersonator such as John Culshaw or Alistair McGowan to take advantage of my situation, I have kept shtum until now. The sting in the tail is that I had to make my claim to a Mr Coman Myers by 30 August or the prize automatically reverted to the ministerio de Economia y Hacienda, which sounds like the type of Spanish place Enid Blyton might have picked for one of her stories. Due to pressure of work, I didn’t manage to stake my claim with Mr Conman Myers, so now the facts of the case can be made public. I regret to say that I have spurned yet another golden opportunity to join the serried ranks of the glitterati. I don’t suppose that Dr Molly is much bothered about that.