THIS week, as I do every year, I stuck a lottery ticket in my teenage nephew’s birthday card and trotted out the same old jokey line about splitting the winnings.

I’m pretty sure we won’t need to fret about the logistics of sharing the millions. But, as I told him, you never know...

Except I do know. Because in the 28 years since the National Lottery began - and I remember it well because I wrote a double-page feature at the time explaining how it all worked - I’ve never had more than three numbers, and I can count on one hand the times that’s happened.

Since I only buy a lottery ticket once every few months, usually if there’s a buzz about a massive EuroMillions jackpot, I’m not exactly in it to win it. But even if I bought a ticket, or several, every week, as many folk do, the chances of winning would still be miniscule. I’m more likely to be canonised, struck by lightning, crushed by a meteor, have identical quadruplets or win an Olympic gold medal, according to one online survey.

Despite the unlikelihood of me ever winning the lottery, or landing any kind of windfall, I’ve always thought deep down that one day I might actually be super rich. Because you never know. But now, with the weary resignation of middle-age, I have finally accepted that it will never happen, and that I am just one of the little people, counting down the years in mortgage payments.

So why do I torture myself by watching so much stuff on telly about how the mega-rich live? Billionaire Cruise Ship; Inside Dubai: Playground of the Rich; New York: World’s Richest City; Britain’s Most Expensive Houses; Posh Weekends; Amazing Hotels... TV channels are awash with these programmes, so far removed from real life they might as well be cartoons.

It’s a world of multi-million dollar penthouses, fast cars, bespoke bling and beautiful people who glide through luxury hotel suites, marble infinity pools and designer boutiques with the sense of entitlement that comes with having way more money than self-awareness. In New York: World’s Richest City a young woman with a trust fund of infinity turned her perfectly sculpted nose up as her fawning personal shopper presented a selection of outfits. “You just gotta have this,” she gushed, placing a grotesque gold ring priced at roughly what my house is worth on her client’s expensively manicured finger.

In Britain’s Most Expensive Houses a young broker from a high end estate agents showed off a swanky London apartment, where kitchen units were made from reclaimed wood rescued from a thunderstorm “from, like, years ago...the early 1600s I think”. Her mentor quickly corrected her - it was actually 1987.

Watching this stuff is like a sugar rush that quickly leaves you feeling flat and a little out of sorts. What are we meant to take from these programmes? Jealousy? Aspiration? I just end up feeling annoyed that vacuous people get to live fabulous lives, while the rest of us struggle on.

But is it really so fabulous? It seems a pretty soulless existence to me. If my lottery win finally arrives, I won’t be moving into an eight-bedroom mansion on Millionaires Row. I wouldn’t really fit in. I don’t want to live anywhere hot either. “Everyone wants to be here,” declared a coiffeured chap being chauffeured around Dubai. Not me. Too much sunshine - and far too ostentatious. I know some people who worked in the UAE and while they saved a fortune living tax-free for a while, it wasn’t somewhere they desired to stay longterm.

I’d find it awkward to have a personal shopper. Or a bespoke jeweller. I wouldn’t dare drive a Lamborghini in case I scratched it. And much as I love New York, I don’t think I’d feel at home in a glass-walled Manhattan penthouse.

Of course I’d love to be well off - who wouldn’t? But the super-rich lifestyle, as seen on TV, looks more exhausting than a fulltime job.