Words About Things

The National Lottery is launching a new game called Lotto Plus 5 which gives lottery players more chances to win big. As the name suggests Plus 5 gives you 5 extra chances to win by being included in 5 draws which take places in the days following the main draw. This means that you will be able to have the possibility of winning the lottery on 6 days of the week.

The new game will be available for a small additional fee to all those who enter the Wednesday or Saturday Lotto draws. The 5 extra draws take place on the following days and have a maximum prize of £250,000. There will also be prizes for matching 3 or more numbers as there are for the main Lotto draw. By adding extra draws it is thought that an additional 500,000 people will win per week. It will also generate more money for good causes, apparently £25 Billion has been raised since 1994.

Photo by cinnamon_girl

When the National Lottery was first launched in 1994 my Granddad began writing down the winning numbers in order to see which appeared most often. Of course, in theory, no ball is more likely to appear than any other but that didn’t stop him. Unfortunately my Granddad passed on before he won big but I still have his notebook somewhere.

According to the statistics on Lottery.co.uk the numbers which have appeared the most are 38, 43, 23, 11, 33 and 44. I’m not sure if that means they are more likely to come up next week or if they are due to appear less now in order to balance out the stats!

Unlike a lot of other people in my generation I never really got into computer games. I was never coordinated or patient enough to get good enough to enjoy them. I had no idea that you could ‘complete’ video games – surely it wasn’t possible to defeat a computer? I used to have a Playstation and a few driving games but anything that required complex controls was beyond my limited skills.

These days computer games seem to have branched off in two distinct directions: complex and immersive with epic back stories (Halo etc) or simple and fun (anything on the Wii, internet Flash games). I played Halo once, it was an unpleasant and confusing experience which I don’t intend to repeat.  As you could probably guess I prefer the simpler end of the gaming spectrum which is why I enjoyed the new Flash Game the insurance company LV= have just launched called Heartsville.

The game has a similar theme to LV=’s recent car insurance adverts featuring the big green hearts floating around. It even features the same song which is going to be in my head for the rest of the day now! The aim of the game is to pilot a hot air balloon through the skies capturing green hearts as you go and avoiding obstacle such as wind turbines and flocks of  killer seagulls. As with real hot air balloons the controls are simple, there is no steering involved, the only way is up (and across).

LV= are also running a prize draw where you can win a real life hot air balloon ride for two which is a great prize unless you happen to be scared of heights.  This obsession with hot air balloons makes me wonder if LV= offers hot air balloon insurance as well as car insurance?

You can even start a league to challenge your friends to beat your highest score, just don’t invite me because beating my highest score wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

In the ongoing negations/ discussion about what to do for our summer holiday another idea has surfaced: scooting round Italy on a vintage Vespa. I have never actually ridden on a scooter but it seems simple enough and I’m willing to give it a try – as long as you remember to put your feet down when you stop at traffic lights it should be okay right? I like the idea of being able to travel between towns without losing the feeling of being outside (although I might change my mind if it started raining).

A scooter isn’t the most practical mode of transport in the UK – you really need a dryer, warmer climate to make driving a scooter enjoyable. We think of Italian scooter owners as suave and stylish but some scooter owners in the UK can have a touch of the Mr Bean about them.

I’ve been reading about renting scooters online and it seems to be a fairly simple process, dropping off the scooter in a different location might be a challenge but there are bound to be companies who offer this. You can even get electric scooters now so they are more eco friendly than they used to be. Whilst looking for information I came across this video which gives the impression that Italians have a rather relaxed attitude to the rules of the road and personal safety.

My girlfriend’s suggestion is that we just rent a convertible hire car rather than scooters for safety reasons. Perhaps I have watched too many old Italian and French films but riding on a Vespa just seems much more interesting.  I suggested that we could just take the contact details of some Italian car hire companies and ditch the scooters if we need to but she didn’t look too keen!

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• Scooters Trying Really Hard (neatorama.com)
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• Scooter Safety and You (motorcycleinsurance.org)