It's a crazy old world, and it's getting dafter.

Some of it is downright laughable, some of it outrageous. I don't know whether to rant, laugh or cry.

Last week we learned that local councils up and down the country were not contributing enough to care for the residents of old people's homes. This vulnerable sector of society often has to part with their own homes or hard-earned savings to pay for their care. Those who have not been so frugal and don't have the money in the bank are well subsidised.

And because the financial pressure is on the nursing homes, it means staff are poorly paid so they either move on quickly - upsetting the comforting routine of elderly residents - or often have not the incentive to devote real care or attention to their charges.

Also last week, Mr Blair's welfare system came under fire for promoting professional spongers. The system, it seems, is loaded towards single parents and the lazy, long-term jobless, while poor, honest families struggling to stay together and scratch a living with whatever job they can get are virtually overlooked.

Which is what this rage is all about, because I read the other week about a lottery-rich slapper who blew £1million pounds in a year and then went back on benefits.

Her taxi-driver dad won the lottery and gave his daughter - and his other children - a £1 million gift, like dads do. This young lady, who lived in a council house, went through it faster than Nick Leeson through a bank vault.

She spent thousands a day on drugs, champagne, fancy clothes and hiring gigolos for sex - sometimes two at a time. We don't know whether her boyfriend, whom she kept in style, was aware of these professional trysts. But after a year - in which the only sensible item she bought was her council house - she was down to her last penny and went back begging for benefits, which she was given.

There's something wrong somewhere. Now I'm having to support her (with a little help from you lot).

Having so much money - and squandering it with such reckless stupidity - should have disqualified her from state aid for life. Then her share could go to the people who really deserve it - those who for whatever genuine reason, have suddenly fallen on hard times and need a hand.

It's a slap in the face to everyone who bothers to get up in the morning and either goes looking for a job or turns out for work day in, day out, for a wage which is barely above her benefits income.

While we are calculating whether we have enough to buy the baby a new frock, she is blowing money like a Hollywood superstar.

So what the hell, I'm going to give up my job and spend, spend, spend.

First off, I'm going to splash out on that Reliant Robin I've always dreamed of. Maybe a convertible. Then I'll drive in style to Grimsby for a crimplene suit and, hang the expense, I'll treat the wife to a fish and chip dinner washed down with brown ale.

If we've enough left we might get a week at Pontin's and clap along with the Bluecoats.

When it's all gone, who cares? I'll join the dole queue, mingle with the regulars and learn how to play the system. I'll attend - and deliberately flunk - enough interviews to keep the Giro cheques coming in.

When we need something extra - like a 45-inch plasma screen TV and state-of-the-art satellite system - I'll just trip over in the street in a drunken haze and sue somebody for personal injury.

It's easy. Why have I bothered to work all these years? Mr Blair's a nice, kind man. He'll keep me and mine in the lap of luxury for the rest of our lives. Won't he?

Updated: 08:36 Tuesday, September 20, 2005