A Feast of Unlikely Stories

he considered to be the finest bottle of red in the
building and the vintage of the wine provided him
with his second set of numbers. For example, a 1945
Bordeaux would simply be 45 but for anything from
the second half of the century he would subtract 50,
so a ’78 would give him number 28.
Still, none of these ridiculous methods provided
George with another win. Deep down he didn’t
really expect them to. He just loved the sport of
it: the alligator racing, the pheasant shooting, the
emu breeding, the chilli eating contests, the ale
drinking tournaments, the destruction derbies, the
human bingo, the naked mud wrestling, the poker
tournaments, not to mention the endless horse races
and camel relays. It was all a lot of good fun. But
his money was starting to run out. Forbes’ wage
along with the ground staff’s came to hundreds of
thousands a year. And a normal day out for George
picking his numbers normally reached tens of
thousands of pounds. So by the time George’s 40th
birthday came around he had not only spent all his
fortune, but had in fact accrued quite a significant
debt. He decided enough was enough. He must stop
playing the lottery and go back to a normal, everyday
life with a normal boring job.
The day after George had made his big decision
he was crossing the road when he looked down to
see a lottery slip. Instinctively he picked it up and
checked its date. He would never know that this
in fact was another jackpot winning ticket because
as he straightened up to step onto the pavement,
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