Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

The news today was filled with a number of interesting stories, but there were two that particularly stood out for me. Firstly, in an act of tremendous goodwill, a woman in Nigeria has given her lottery winnings to a beggar. And what a lucky beggar they are. I can just picture the look on their face as they hold out their hand for a bit of spare change, only to be given a cheque for 3 million naira.

Hopefully, too, the winnings will go towards things that matter; things like a home, and good food, and all the things that we take for granted. It will go towards things that help, rather than being blown on fancy cars, or expensive toys.

Quite curiously, the reason she gave for giving the money away was that she was scared she would become broke. She had read reports that a number of lottery winners become “broke in the short run and come across a lot of misfortune.” I must admit the idea of giving your money away because you’re scared of running out of money seems slightly strange. But all the same, it’s a heart-warming story.

And secondly, another thing that caught my attention today was a story regarding houses and property in the Philippines. If prices are going to fall, then I would be very tempted to look into any bargains that might spring up. There are a number of things that appeal to me about it as a place to visit.

But looking into Philippines real estate would, of course, depend on a number of things. Not the least of which is this side job taking off in the manner that I hope it does. Oh well, fingers crossed, and we’ll just have to see how things go. First things first – I need to clean my house a bit, because I’m moving into a new one in a few days time. And I quite fancy getting my deposit back in its entirety!

Anything to do with travel, and my parents have been only to keen to find it, read it, digest it. They showed me this, which is a collection of travel blogs, and blogs on news and anything travel-related.

It seems that, quite recently, there was something on there that mentioned the Philippines, because after reading it, they mentioned looking into property there. I think it was light-hearted; not too seriously considered. However, from the looks of it, there is plenty on offer there. My dad especially likes his birds and wildlife, so the chance to see a Philippine Eagle would be something special; but even so, that’s the sort of thing you can do on holidays. You don’t need to look at property for sale in the Philippines in order to experience some of the magic on offer there.

The thing that worries me about it is the unavoidable danger of living in these places: just recently, there was quite large earthquake, with an aftershock that rumbled throughout the Philippines. I’m sure it would be tempting to use it as a holiday destination, and if they did get a house over there then perhaps they could rent it out through the year, and keep it as an option for themselves when they fancied a trip to warmer climes – but I’m certainly hoping it was proposed more in jest than seriousness, because it is a bit of a different beast to France.

You don’t often hear of earthquakes rattling the vineyards over there.