IT'S not often that we feel sorry for Mean Mike, husband of Cousin Kate the postmistress, but just recently he has been in such a pickle with himself that we have decided we mustn't rag him any more about the (whisper, whisper) National Lunacy.

Now Mike did not get his nickname by accident. He has worked for it for many years. He didn't so much pinch pennies as torture them mercilessly.

It is said that, when they had their living quarters renovated some years back, it had been forced upon them: Mike had so many old white fivers tucked under the mattress that they were sleeping with their noses pressed against the ceiling.

Any road, Mike's dealings with the National Lunacy have always been, to say the least, fraught. When it first started, their managers refused to allow a sales point in Beggarsdale because, they said, the population in the area was too low to justify the capital outlay.

That was back in the dim, distant past, readers might remember, when the jackpot prize ran to £10 million and, every few weeks, most punters would win a tenner for getting three numbers.

It never covered your stake money over a year, of course, but there was always a chance of the big one - and anyway, most of the profits, it was claimed, went to the so-called "good causes."

Sadly, those good causes always seemed to be in London: opera houses, domes, theatres, bridges and giant wheels (and often failed) while we Up North got next to nowt. What was left went to Camelot directors in huge bonus payments.

Then that nice Mr Branson offered to run the Lunacy for free but the Government, for reasons most people never understood, turned him down. They gave it back to Camelot, who promised to raise £15 billion over seven years for those good causes. Now, it is estimated that they will undershoot that figure by more than £6 billion - almost half - and no one seems to care.

Why? Because no-one buys the tickets any more, either in disgust over the way it is spent - most recently to support illegal immigrants - or because the prizes don't seem to be there any more.

The Curmudgeoness and I gave up months ago, having not won a solitary tenner for more than a year. Then the Camelot boss admitted in a public speech that anyone who did win even that measly amount was very lucky indeed.

Now there is something here that I find strange. If a plumber promises to mend your leaking tap but accidentally floods your kitchen, you don't pay him. If an electrician comes to repair your washing machine, and it catches fire and burns your laundry to a cinder, you don't pay him - and probably sue him too.

For when someone agrees to do something for a certain fee, that is what is known as a c-o-n-t-r-a-c-t, a legally enforceable agreement that they presumably have never heard of in Whitehall.

Camelot have woefully failed to honour their contract - so why haven't been sacked and sued as well? After all, we are talking here of literally billions of pounds of the British people's hard earned cash.

And that is what is worrying Mean Mike. He has been tipped off that, should he apply, he might now get himself a Lunacy outlet. But, having asked around, he is yet to find anyone in Beggarsdale who might play.

In other words, it seems he missed the boat, which is sad for him. For me, there's a bigger question: is the entire ship about sink forever under the waves of public discontent?

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.