There are infinite ways to splash out - even if your millions won't get you as far as they once did. Photo / 123rf
Forget New Zealand's $32 million jackpot this weekend. A Brit has just won $334m in the EuroMillions jackpot in Britain's biggest ever prize. But it turns out even that astronomical amount of money won't get you far these days, writes Stephen Bayley of the Daily Telegraph
This week's "lucky" £170 million ($334m) lottery winners in Britain have a big problem with their small fortune, for it is nowhere near enough to feel, in these inflationary days, rich.
I mean, not seriously rich.
Not when Killik, an investment adviser, warns that putting two 13-year-olds through school in the UK will now cost precisely £905,600 ($1.8m).
And that, according to Coutts' Luxury Price Index, the cost of luxury inflation has risen by 2.9 per cent over the last year, with food and alcohol seeing the sharpest spikes.
That's not to say there aren't infinite ways to splash out - even if your millions won't get you as far as they once did.
Take the Gulfstream G650, a plane that will travel at nearly the speed of sound (at which point you can actually hear your cash burning) and has a range of 13,000km (so you can escape vengeful creditors). It costs $102m.
There are currently 200 customers anxious to save just 30 minutes on, say, a transatlantic journey.
Instead, I would recommend one of the new-generation VLJs (Very Light Jets), including the HondaJet and Cessna Citation M2. Or an Embraer Phenom at a mere $14m.
Many of the best things in life are not free, but very expensive indeed.
As Dorothy Parker said, if you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people he gives it to.
The Very Rich are different to you and me because they have much more money.
Psychologists know that this makes them behave badly; Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball (net worth, by some estimates, $495m) said great wealth "triggers a chemical reaction on the privileged few. It tilts their brains."
Multiple studies show that the very rich fail to read emotions and that, given the chance, they will run you down in traffic.
Yet, doing so in a classic car might be tricky when there's only $334m to play with; a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO was sold for just over $77.8m last year.
And this year, a Bugatti "Voiture Noire" reached a record for a new car of $30.4m - before it had even run.
Of course, lottery winners will need a cellar, but it will not be a very full one if tastes run to the rare Domaine de la Romanee Conti wines, Burgundy's finest. A 1945 bottle recently sold for $833,000.
Or what about a bar stocked with fine single malts? You would have to be careful who exactly you invite for cocktails when a 55-year-old Macallan can fetch $322,225.
And with $334m, you have not got your foot even on the bottom rung of the property ladder.
When people say that the luxury market is softening, they are wrong.
A penthouse at 220 Central Park West was recently sold to an Illinois hedgie for $376m.
Magnificently, he explained that it was just somewhere to stay when he was in town.
In London, Foxton's recently sold an apartment in One Hyde Park for $314m.
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These lottery riches would not, for example, allow you to build much of an art collection.
For instance, a Jeff Koons does not leave much change from $150m: his awful Rabbit was sold in New York last May for $144m.
And $334m does not get you near Leonardo territory.
The equally awful Salvator Mundi was sold for $711m and is, in any case, likely a fake.
If the one real Leonardo still in private hands (in Poland) ever got to market, I reckon it would reach a billion.
Instead, I would advise the lottery winners to start collecting masterpiece photographs.
They could buy a signed Cartier-Bresson print for only several hundred thousand.
Nor will $334m get you into superyacht waters. Mohammad bin Salman spent $790m on his.
Instead, you could afford to charter an Uber and ride to Plymouth to visit Princess, one of the world's big-four manufacturers of mid-size motor-yachts.
To give you a harrowing sense of how poor you are and how many Quite Rich people there are in the world, every single year Princess delivers around 280 vessels costing about $14m.
So, there is some small scope for encouragement for the lottery winners.
But impressive sports sponsorship is, alas, out of the question.
You would need to spend $1.5 billion to replicate Manchester City's current squad.
Forget about motor-racing, too: Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari have annual budgets of about $632m. Still, you could build a very competitive karting team.
By what cruel calculous does $334m not make you feel free? I fear the lottery winners will soon discover.
I'd advise reading Thoreau, the hermit who believed you can count yourself rich by the things you can do without. And a $102m jet is likely one of them.
The ups and downs of previous big lottery winners
• Belfast bus driver Peter Lavery won £10.2m ($20m) in 1996, immediately spending a chunk of his fortune on a fleet of luxury cars, plus a home gym, steam room, and Jacuzzis with built-in televisions.
But he also started a successful business, buying up 33 properties across Northern Ireland and investing in a lucrative whiskey distillery which attracted $69m in investment.
It was "like winning the lottery again," he said.
• Callie Rogers became the UK's youngest-ever winner at just 16 in 2003 when she scooped £1.8m ($3.5m).
She spent hundreds of thousands on clothes, drugs, and breast enhancement surgery, falling out with family and friends who demanded a slice of the pie.
She suffered from depression and tried to take her life, later admitting that she wished she had never bought the ill-fated ticket.
• Upon winning a staggering £115m ($226m) in the EuroMillions earlier this year, Patrick and Frances Connolly announced their plan to give most of their fortune away to 50 mystery recipients.
The couple from Moira, Northern Ireland, said it would be "really tough" to choose between their friends.
• Binman Michael Carroll became Britain's most famous winner after collecting £9.7m ($19m) in 2002.
The 19-year-old was lambasted for his lavish lifestyle in the tabloids, who nicknamed him "Lotto Lout" and "King of Chavs".
He was handed an Asbo three years after winning after he caused thousands of pounds of damage catapulting steel balls from his Mercedes van.
• Upon winning £10m ($20m) in 1997, John McGuinness ploughed £4m into his beloved Livingston Football Club, even agreeing to be liable for some of its debts - but things turned sour when the club went into administration in 2004.
He later said that he sometimes felt embarrassed leaving his house, and worried about having enough money to eat.
A pensioner drove his scooter down the A13 following his satnav.