Letters to my sons.

Dear Sons,

I have spent most of the day thinking about the meaning of my dream from two days ago. Like I said yesterday I don’t believe in messages from beyond the grave but what if?

It is impossible to prove a negative but I’m going to have a go. In my dream my mother specifically mentioned Lewis and asked me if Lewis was with me. But what could that mean? Well taking on the role of a Spiritualist I have decided to interpret this dream. Unlike a spiritualist I can’t ask leading and vague questions to a large audience until I can home in on someone – I can only ask myself questions and that wouldn’t achieve much as I already know the answers.So the only thing I can think of that relates to Lewis is his birthday date. He was born on the 12th of the month. This fits nicely into my lottery numbers. I have the number 13 because it is supposed to be unlucky. In reality the numbers that are spewed out from the Nation Lottery machine are random. Also the machine itself is not a conscience being so doesn’t hold any superstitions about certain numbers. It doesn’t have a memory either so it doesn’t think “Ohh I not choosing number 5 this week because I pulled that out last week.”

There are people who keep a note of the lottery numbers drawn in the hope of finding patterns in the numbers but the machines and set of balls are changed so often that it is not possible to have a large enough data set to draw any conclusions to the question: is the draw biased to certain numbers?

Playing the lottery is mugs game in any case. There are basically three jackpot’s a week; two domestic Lottery draws and the Euro Millions. That’s about 150 winners year of the jackpot – I’m assuming that the number of multiple winners is evened out by the weeks when nobody wins. Many people spend a great deal of their time day dreaming about what they would do if they won the jackpot. I find myself doing this from time to time but to drag myself to reality by thinking about the following:

• in 2007 2,943 people died on the roads.
• the number of people murdered in 2007 was 757

If you look at the raw figures then I am 20 times more likely to be killed when driving then I am to win the lottery. Also I am 5 times more likely to be murdered than win a jackpot.

The numbers above aren’t correct of course as being murdered or killed on the roads is not a random event. Most people who end up being murdered are up to no good or hanging around with dangerous people in the first place. Road deaths aren’t random either. Even so my rough figures help me bring my mind back in to focus on the reality of life.

I still think that playing the lottery is a mugs game. I accept that I am going to loose the pound or the pound fifty that I have just spent every time I hand over my money. I would be better off putting the money in a savings account or donating it to charity. I could also just flush the money down the toilet as for all the good it would do me. Although I do win the odd tenner every now and then but I’m not wining nearly as much as I am loosing. Having said all of that I get my moneys worth from playing. It gives me a few minutes excitement as I check my numbers the day after the draw and the joy I get when I win a few pounds. Plus I never spend more money than I can afford to loose, the same with my gambling on football and the horses. With my football gambling I never bet more than 50 pence on a certain outcome and then only rarely when I remember. The ten pounds I put in my online betting account lasts a good six months.

So for tonight’s Euro Millions Draw I bought another ticket with 13 changed to 12 – “Is Lewis with you?” Well he is now. If having the 12 makes me a winner then, unless it’s the smallest amount, I will also win with 13.

So if I don’t win the Euro Millions tonight then I haven’t proved or disproved the voice from beyond the grave. It could refer to the Lotto Draw on Saturday or Wednesday or the Euro Millions on Friday or any other draw, horse race or other event. “Is Lewis with you?” could mean millions of things and if I really had a future career as a spiritualist I would have been able to sell this to myself as well as an audience of a few hundred people.

Is any body there??