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Thursday 29 December 2011

If I was rich...

You know that game you play when you're a kid? The one that goes "IfIWasReallyRichLikeREALLYRichIWouldBuy....." presuming that money is infinite and of the scale that could easily purchase everything from a magic pony castle populated by talking monkeys to a live-in French patissier/sex wizard, depending on the player's age. Some sad cases continue to play this game until way past the age where it might do them any good whatsoever.
I am 29, and I am still playing it.
Moreover, I am proud to advise that I have now come up with the definitive list of what I would buy if I were magnificently, massively, amazingly, pant-wettingly rich. And here it is.

1. A Rembrandt. A really massive one. I've spent years of game-playing time hesitating between a Rembrandt or a Vermeer. So I've decided that I would have a huge Rembrandt on one wall of the enormous castle I would build to contain it, and a Vermeer facing it on the opposite one. That way, I have all eternity to sit and contemplate which one's prettier.

2. A Peter Scott painting. After careful deliberation I can now advise that this would be the remote and unlikely one entitled one entitled When The Tide Turned The Brent Geese Came In Against A Background of Showers

3. An Indonesian island one which gibbons and orang-utans could live undisturbed by humans.

4. A lake with reeds and ducks by it. I could pick it up by the corners and move it to just outside the massive castle I would build to contain my Rembrandt (see no. 1)

5. A holiday to go whale-watching in the Arctic. The elder small person and I would love to do this. Even Mon Geek has expressed halting enthusiasm. And the unborn will go where I take him, at least for now.

6. A bookshop. No one would be allowed to buy anything from it, though. It would be for housing my huge collection of first editions, and other stuff. And I would sit in it working my way through a case of Pol Roger.

7. A library with a wing back chair and a walnut desk where I could look at the lake (see no. 4) whenever I wasn't feeling sociable enough to be in the bookshop.

8. A harpsichord with a goat grazing nearby. No explanation is required for this.

9. A diamond-encrusted mechanised root vegetable dissecter, to stop chopping swede being such a frigging workout.

10. A skywriter to slag off all the people who irk me daily. "WANKER ON THE BUS - STOP SHOVING PAST PEOPLE" "VICTORIA CENTRE SHOPPERS - MILLING RANDOMLY WILL EARN YOU A KICK UP THE BUM" and so on.

There, that's my top ten. Of course, there are loads more, like the employment of a tutor to teach Mon Geek to be a top patissier and Escoffier-ranked chef, a permanent rotisserie in the kitchen, and an elephant to ride through the forests picking peachy fruits from the back of, but it's a start. Now, when my lottery numbers come up, I'll know where to start. It's a strategy I tells you.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like a very sensible plan indeed. :) I keep trying to think of what I would buy if I had all the money in the world, but I keep limiting myself to a modest herd of llamas, a slightly larger telly (ie above 14 inches) and the little gift shop of dreams. Oh and employ someone to change my duvet cover every day for a nice fresh clean one and put hot water bottles under it a bit before bedtime in winter. Nice big hot water bottles. Is there a reason why they only ever make them a certain size? True, you can get smaller ones now, but not larger, properly huggable sized ones. Why is this? Hm?

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  2. My dear, your ideas are ace! The duvet cover one and the llamas are definitely on my list :D Because then I would have yarn for ever...ok, maybe they'd better be alpacas :D I did buy a reasonably sized hot water bottle from Boots the other day, it was in a white furry cover and cost like £12 though, which seemed slightly overpriced :(

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