If travel vouchers were currency, I'd be a frigging billionaire.

"Dear Mr. Osborn,

Congratulations.

The Foundazion Di Vittorio has chosen you by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cash Grant/Donation for your own personal, educational, and business development. To celebrate the 30th anniversary program, we are giving out a yearly donation of US$245,000.00.

I crave your indulgence to please contact me through this my emailaddress."

Phwoar blimey. They sure know how to seduce you with Freudian statements, these Nigerian kids.

Inheritance email scams are a great source of amusement to me. Especially when they're signed off with officialdom emails like foundation_officer103@yahoo.it

What kind of muppet am I taken for? I've had three already this morning!

Surely the alarm bells should be ringing. All these corpses leaving me money? How long until Dumbledore sweeps me away and reveals that I'm actually a wizard? I've got the messy hair and everything.

The sad thing is, behind every scam is a technologically challenged no-hoper, ready and only too willing to scream for the kids and remortgage the house in a moment of blind stupidity.

A bit like how I racked up a few grands worth of holiday vouchers from those insert scratchcards in the Daily Mirror!

In Prize Group A, what do we have? A Mercedes, £10,000, a luxury cruise and some travel vouchers.

Those two words - travel vouchers - slipped so innocuously in to the back of the group. Just as I've blown my load over the thought of a Mercedes or a ten grand Stella spree, the dreaded vouchers bring me down to earth with a thud.

Well, they do now. Back when I was seven or eight, I racked up one hell of a phone bill on discounted coach journeys to sunny Skegness.

Oh yes, Skegness. I am the new Adrian Mole - except sporting slightly less bumfluff (or more depending on your classification of my beard), and I don't have a girlfriend named Pandora.

Although I wish I did. She sounded like a right kinky sort.

I really don't agree with all this early Christmas furore. It's barely October and some tosser's already got a snowman hanging from his porch down The Fairway. As far as I'm concerned, if Halloween is still to come and if the yanks are still waiting on their Thanksgiving turkey, it's still too early for your fancy lights and mistletoe. So put em away before I pull another Middlesex Arms and dismantle your display for you.

Christmas is a bit of a depressing thought this year. It's the first time I've been minus a female playfriend during the festive period for quite some time, even if not always physically.

It's nice to know that somebody's thinking of you, even if they can't be with you. And that's pretty much what I'm trying to get to the bottom of right now. I make things so difficult for myself with the girls that I fall for.

Yet I know that I'm far too stubborn to drop the issue.

And if it all backfires spectacularly, eh, one less wench to shop for on Christmas Eve, I suppose.