Could it really be you?

Every Saturday and Wednesday, in true Del-boy fashion, my dad'll sit by the telly rubbing his hands together and start spouting cliches about "this time in ten minutes...".

Sadly, "this time in ten minutes" he is cursing our "lucky" numbers for letting him down again and vowing not to play that stupid game any more.

We're not really a gambling family (apart from the lottery and the odd charity raffle ticket), not because we're too sensible to take part in a few bets, but because we are incredibly unlucky as far as gambling goes.

I went to the amusements at the beach the other week, and to play it safe went on the "Win every time" big claw thing - you know, the one that grabs the ugliest cuddly toy in the box that really isn't worth the £2 coin it cost, but you're elated to win it anyway.

Well I went on that - "play 'til you win" it told me. So I played... and played... and finally the attendant got so anxious about the size of the queue growing behind me, that he opened the machine, gave me a toy and told me that playing other games would probably be better - I could just lose straight away without all that hanging about.

I like a good game of cards though, but I never play with anything as valuable as money or food - else I'd possibly starve.

Now I'm just very short of hair grips - perhaps I should start gambling with even less important things than that, else pretty soon my sister's hair is going to look a right mess.

There's nothing wrong with a bit of superstition, though. I'll quite gladly pull a wishbone in the vain hope that my wish of winning the lotto - or even five and the bonus ball - may come true.

But I think it's about time my dad stopped deluding himself. We need to face up to the fact that smiley Dale Winton on the lottery show just isn't willing us to win.

Try telling dad that, though - he's got a good feeling this week so a Lucky Dip ticket was in order. This time in ten minutes...

Updated: 15:05 Wednesday, June 04, 2003