MAYBE MY HOROSCOPE'S RIGHT ...

Fortune rains down upon me like the sweet urine of angels.

According to this week’s horoscope, I’ve become “a magnet for love and money”. How did they know? In the last twelve months, simply by virtue of owning a mobile phone, I’ve won more than four million dollars in lotteries and competitions I hadn’t even entered.

First, it was the “two-hundred-and-fifty thousand pounds” from “Nokia customer promo”.

Next, it was “THE SUM OF $2,000,000 USD ON BlackBerry PROMO”.

All I had to do to claim either of these prizes was e-mail my bank details to addresses in Thailand or the former Soviet Union. Easy.

And then, just a fortnight ago, I was informed that my “mobile number has won 720,000.00 pounds in the ongoing freelotto bonanza”. This one even had a transaction number and a claims department; there had to be a claims department, because that’s where you send the “transaction fee”.

Apparently the ongoing freelotto bonanza really is ongoing, because I won it again on Sunday morning. This time it was “£1,000,000.00”, and they even told me what my draw numbers were. Lovely, kind, generous folk. I won’t hear a word against them.

I’ll buy that chateau in the Loire Valley yet.

As to being a magnet for love: my five-year-old niece still thinks I’m the greatest man walking the Earth. I should be able to sustain that delusion for a few years yet.

And of course, there’s always Mum.