Tch - I turn my back for a moment and six million of you arrive.

I'm within a few yards of being honest about this. Which, for me, is pretty damn close to honest, let me tell you. I really was wrong-footed when, before I'd even thought about arranging anything, V6M strolled in on the 11th of October. I was alerted to the fact by my sometime codefendant, J Nash, who knew that the tradition is to include one prize per million. (One prize per million might seem laughably parsimonious, but it's much, much, much, less dilute than anything in homeopathy, and is also a system that, unlike homeopathy, actually works. So, what I've constructed here is 'Better Than Homeopathy' - a motto which fits in perfectly with my other motto 'Aim Low'.) I was unbalanced for only a moment, however, before I sprang back and regained my famous capacity to be, whatever life throws at me, indolent and evasive. I replied to J Nash: "I'll award the 6 Miller prize - whatever the hell that might be - to the first person who writes in to say, 'Hey, you dolt, you haven't mentioned a 6 Miller prize.' That puts the ball in a court that isn't mine." And that's what I did, without telling anyone.

Job done.

Sixteen days later, Jim from Northern Ireland (V6M was from the USA, in case you're wondering) emailed me pointing out that he was visitor 6,049,924 and asking for a prize on the basis of this. Thereby winning a competition he didn't even know he was in. I asked for his address, and sent him a gift so fabulous and opulent that, if it ever gets out that its in his possession, he with surely be murdered in his bed by thieves.

The moral of this story is available from all good bookstores.