A Feast of Unlikely Stories

put him off. He was truly addicted to his own sport.
George’s life wasn’t perfect though; he was lonely,
having never been much of a hit with the ladies. But
his wealth allowed him to overcome this problem,
so he decided to buy himself some affection. Every
Saturday night for six weeks he chose himself an
extremely beautiful and highly expensive escort
from a much respected and discreet agency. Don’t
think for a second though that George was going to
spend such large sums of money without somehow
getting his six random numbers. It was simple. All
he did was at some stage during the evening casually
ask when the girl’s birthday was, normally under
some corny pretence such as finding her star sign.
By adding the two numbers of that date together he
got his number. So Holly whose birthday was the
5th of May gave him a 10, and Layla who was born
on the 20th of November made a 31.
Although all this makes George out to be a rather
horrible character he did have occasional flashes of
generosity. One example was the Easter Egg hunt
he gave in his own resplendent gardens. Forbes
constructed a list of 49 children from the surrounding
areas who were in some way underprivileged or
had unfortunate lives. He then sent them all formal
letters inviting them to his Easter Egg hunt where
each gold-plated egg was worth £1,000. He enjoyed
overseeing the whole process immensely and came
to think of himself as a sort of Willy Wonka figure.
The golden eggs which his groundsmen distributed
around the garden were each numbered, as were
30