News from England!

[Cole Parker]

Why haven't I seen this on the News and Views here?

Sunday, May 30 2010

UK - He became the self-proclaimed king of the chavs after turning up to collect his 9.7 million pound lottery win. But eight years on, having blown all that money, Michael Carroll is practising for a return to his old job as a binman. The 26-year-old, who squandered his multi-million fortune on drugs, gambling and thousands of prostitutes, is keen to get back to earning 200 pounds a week collecting rubbish.

It boggles the mind how he could run through 10 million pounds in 8 years, no matter how many prosies he paid or how many lines he sucked into his nose.

He must have been trying really hard to blow all that in 8 years. I'd say he was a young man of determination and staying power.

One question: just how great shape does one have to be to meet the strict qualifications of 'binman'?

C

[Mark Singer]

My, My, 'we're' certainly setting the bar awful high there brit18uk. I gather that charity doesn't begin at home?

[Trab]

Well, obviously charity didn't begin at home, or poor Rick wouldn't be poor Rick now, now would he, and one has to recognize that he also isn't a drug dealer or a prostitute, much less a car salesman.

[JamesSavik]

The United States has a few lottery winning douche-bag stories of its own.

You see them in the papers from time to time but they are immanently forgettable.

[The Pecman]

The American show 60 Minutes did a story a few years back showing four Lottery winners, all of whom won more than $30 million, and how they'd lost it all. Bad investments, bad loans, drugs, leeching friends and relatives... you name it. Every reason you can imagine.

The one guy who still had some of the money left sadly commented that, after a couple of years of being a millionaire, his family would no longer speak to him. His wife and children had left him, he had to end several friendships, and he was essentially alone (but had about $5 million left). A couple of the other winners were in jail, one for fraud, and one for murder -- having allegedly killed his wife in a squabble over money.

As Cindi Lauper once sang, "Money Changes Everything."

[DesDownunder]

Now I know why poverty is so attractive. Lucky me, I am almost there.

Enough is enough.

[Cole Parker]

I would guess the successful winners are those who don't let the money change who they are. They remain the same people, and are merely richer. Their core values aren't disturbed.

For some it seems to be 'easy come, easy go'. At least these people shouldn't be that unhappy when the 'go' has become 'went'.

Perhaps the saddest is Pec's murder allusion, killing someone to maintain what came to you out of the blue. That does have a wry edge to it, doesn't it.?

C

[JamesSavik]

Perhaps the saddest is Pec's murder allusion, killing someone to maintain what came to you out of the blue. That does have a wry edge to it, doesn't it.?

C

That's why I can't imagine why anyone would want to be married: it gives a person a claim to half of everything you own whether or not they deserve or earned it.

Once the gay community figures out THAT part of marriage, perhaps we will discover that we're better off without it.

[DesDownunder]

That's why I can't imagine why anyone would want to be married: it gives a person a claim to half of everything you own whether or not they deserve or earned it.

Once the gay community figures out THAT part of marriage, perhaps we will discover that we're better off without it.

I'm not the marrying kind either, James. I am often asked if my bf of over 37years, and I will get married if it is legalised for gays, and I always respond that we would, but only for political reasons. At our age it makes little difference to us whether we are married or not. Anyway we consider that we deserve half of everything we have for putting up with each other for so long.

But back to the politics, we also think that if it helps sustain the legitimacy of same sex relationships and protects homosexuality from being re-criminalised then the ability to marry, must be viewed as an equal opportunity, available to everyone.