People would get just as excited if interesting prizes were given instead. Like taking tea with the Queen Mum or having their crummy holiday video shown on prime TV. I have no wish to win the Lottery (and have never bought a ticket) but I often dream of winning one of those fabled competitions where you have two minutes to fill your shopping trolley with anything you fancy. The starting pistol sounds and I'm off like a whippet up and down the aisles, grabbing this, seizing that.

Then I skid on a broken bottle of sauce - I should have known it was a dream, I never wear high heels. I crash down, upturning my trolley and all the booty rolls everywhere A bell sounds, my two minutes is up. The assistants crowd about, picking up the goodies and returning them to the shelves. My alarm is going off and it's time to get up.Ah well, at least "what I would do if I won the Lottery" has now ousted "what house prices are doing" as the national topic of conversation What a boring people we have become. As for the Anglo-Saxons from whom we inherited greed - I find it tragic that plans to celebrate this coming millennium all seem to revolve around an orgy of spending - throwing vast sums of money at vast unimaginative projects where the main beneficiaries will be the consultant and others with their snouten in ye trof. Surely it doesn't have to be this way.In an attempt to do something to counter the tide of greed that threatens to swamp us, I have my own pet project for the millennium, the Ubiquitous Monkey Puzzle Tree Ynitiative (UMPTY for short) Monkey puzzle trees are wonderful and always make me grin. There aren't nearly enough of them about.To celebrate my 40th birthday in two weeks' time, I am sending all my friends a monkey puzzle seed together with planting instructions I obtained from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.