We were looking for a place to eat dinner and walked into a nice looking Spanish tapas restaurant.

“What’s with the Britney Spears outfits?” Jon exclaimed. All the waitresses were wearing white shirts, short skirts and pigtails.

“It’s for the BBC Save the Children fundraiser tonight,” our waitress explained. “We’re dressed for a ‘school’ theme.”

“I guess Britney was going for the schoolgirl theme too,” I said.

While we were looking at the menu, our waitress came around with a book of raffle tickets.

“Can I interest you in the raffle? The proceeds go to the fundraiser and the prizes are all from local businesses. It’s £2 per strip and will be drawn at 9 PM.”

“Sure,” I said.

“I never win anything in raffles,” Jon commented.

“Well, I don’t expect to win. I think of it as a donation, you know, a sunk cost,” I replied. Britney gave me a strip of six orange tickets, numbers 171 to 176.

Dinner was nice. A celebrity chef cooked a giant seafood paella in a pan of about one metre diameter. We donated £5 each to eat half-servings of it.

Just as we were paying the bill, they announced the raffle draw. We stuck around as the emcee call out number after number. We didn’t really listen, although every now and then, I would be distracted from our conversation enough to comment, “Oh, I need a haircut!” when a hairdressing package was raffled off, or “I don’t need that,” when the carwash was awarded.

And suddenly, I heard, “Joan? Is Joan here?”

I stood up slowly. “Yes,” I called uncertainly. Britney, who was standing next to the emcee, pointed up to where our table was. I wondered what I had won.

I walked down the steps and emcee handed me a large bottle of golden liquid. “Congratulations! You’ve won a bottle of whisky from CamTax.”

“That’s amazing!” Jon marvelled when I showed him my prize.

“I don’t really know what to do with it,” I admitted. I am definitely the person least likely to want a bottle of hard spirits.

Suffice to say, I was very popular with my housemates when I got home that night.