What would you do with a million pounds?

We used to have a game at junior school called “What would you do if you had a million pounds?” Since one answer was always “buy a house” and for that sum you could have bought about eighty (!) of my parent’s houses, at today’s prices, make that “What would you do if you had eighty millions pounds”.

I’d buy my sister a house, and I’d give my nephew some money so he didn’t have to take the first job that came along just to pay the rent, but could go find a step on a career ladder. My mother already has a nice house.

That’s what everyone says, as well they should. I suppose I’d buy myself something in central London, maybe in Bloomsbury or Marylebone. Or maybe not. Maybe I would travel round the world, concentrating on large cities and villages by the sea, to find somewhere I really wanted to live. If there was such a place. Or maybe I’d find a university which would let me use their library and let me do a PhD. Or not, these days, given the state of the modern university.

Perhaps I’d back some start-ups, but I know that a lot of those are basically CV-enhancement schemes for BCBG Ph.D’s: the idea is that the start-up is flipped to a large firm who really wants the top talent. Anyone outside the in-crowd is a sucker who is not going to get an even break.

Establish a scholarship for a British philosopher of mathematics to study for a year abroad, to be awarded annually. Maybe.

I could buy art. That would give me a faux social-life.

What I would not do is buy a £15,000 watch. Or a £250,000 sports car. I might buy a few days at Silverstone driving fancy sports cars though.

I could become an eccentric recluse in my Amsterdam house by a canal, watching movies in a special screeening-room and having meals brought in from the nearby one-star restaurant. On the days I was not watching films, I would go to Zandvoort by limousine and walk along the beach. It’s a large beach. I’ve just spent a few minutes fantasising about a year spent working my way round the beaches from Italy, south of France, Spain-Portugal-Spain, France again, Cornwall and ending in Wales. Or something like that.

Maybe I’d get some sessions with a celebrity therapist just for fun and the possibility they say something that changes me. Jordan Peterson could tell me I deserve all the problems I’m having because I don’t have family.

We used to have fun with this game. It was exciting to think of what we might do. Not so much now. I have a feeling that I would do a number of worthy things with it, and get a decent flat in the upmarket section of a serious town. The catch with growing-up is learning all the downsides and costs: the young only see upsides and benefits.