A cultural gem

norman dennis, 1 January 2005

If you are interested in changes in English culture from, say 1956, when there were still quite large pockets of disquiet at the introduction of government-sponsored gambling in the form of Premium Bonds, and still for the Labour Party the redistribution of income by gambling was morally only marginally superior to its redistribution by theft, I hope you did not miss the gem on the BBC Today programme this morning.
One in six of us, it was reported, have adopted as our New Year Resolution … “winning the Lottery”.
While I was picking up the morning paper I mentioned this in the shop. “What clown came up with that figure?”, a man growled. “It’ll be more like nine out of ten.”