A vroom with a Schu

It's that terrible time of year again, when my meanest tendencies are exposed. In the annual frenzy of buying, I walk around with one hand gripped around my loose change, and the other pressed tight against the wallet in my inside breast pocket. If I had a third hand, I would use it shoo away anyone who approached me with tidings of great joy. I growl at the sound of any carol, particularly God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Concealed behind every carol is yet another appeal for money. Christmas is a conspiracy to part me from my cash, and I won't hear a word in its defence.

Which is why I had to watch How To Blow A Billion (Bravo). Although the figure quoted was somewhat extreme, I knew it had to be something to do with Christmas. A man was observed waking up and struggling to the bathroom to perform his morning ablutions. He was shot in a dull shade of grey. He was obviously a man in possession of a long and seasonal shopping list, without either the means or the inclination to do anything about it. I sympathised with him entirely. I knew his state of mind.

It rapidly transpired that I was wrong about the Christmas angle, although right that there was a list involved. How To Blow A Billion was a wish fulfilment fantasy, based around the absurd idea that there is anything desirable about Formula One motor racing and the lifestyle that goes with it.

Although we did not see the grey man again until the closing credits, I assumed that he was the idealised figure being addressed by the urgently aspiring yet undeniably corrupt vowels of the bloke - and I use the word advisedly - doing the voice-over. I assumed this because I hoped he was not going to try and convince me that F1 is anything but an absurd waste of time and money.

Take the actual cars, for example. Apparently, if you know where to go, you can pick up one of these F1 jobs for as little as £40,000, although if you want a specimen that Schumacher - that's "Schu" to you - piloted to a world championship, then we're looking at a cool half-a-mill. Some footage of people going not very fast in these rather impractical one-seaters with no luggage space revealed that if they bump into each other, all the wheels fall off. I'd be wanting my money back in a jiffy.

We were invited to dwell on the character of Schu for a moment, during a brief look around his home town of Kerpen in Germany. In Kerpen, Schu has built a museum dedicated to himself and his brother Ralf, although I'm betting the brother is in an ante room.

More insidiously, Schu has also built a go-kart track. It was explained that if you want to go all the way to F1, you have to start in a cart. In other words, Schu sets up his potential victims in his museum by getting them hooked on a free shot of glamour. Then he callously exploits their addiction on the track. And it takes six years of carts just to get anywhere near a baby version of the real thing.

In many ways, the cars are only the beginning of the story. Take David Coulthard, the Scottish driver with the sort of chin to make a stonemason weep. David has opened a hotel in Monaco called Columbus. It costs a bob or two to stay here, particularly if you take the penthouse-suite option, but be assured that, with special platinum service, you will find candles and a bottle of wine in your room on arrival. Now, that is class. That is real style. That is F1.

The shopping expedition began in earnest. Here a Lear jet, there a Sunseeker power boat. Rather incongruously, it was suggested that our imaginary thrill-addled, pleasuresoaked star in a crash helmet might require a Winnebago, those giant travelling homes that roam America like latter-day buffaloes. The salesman was enthusiastic about the fixtures and fittings, feverishly pointing out that "more than one could be accommodated in the shower cubicle - for those who like that side of life". Don't worry, race fans, I got the Eddie Irvine reference.

By the end of this whirlwind demonstration of how to spend, spend, spend - whisper it, a wicked £17,618,200 - I didn't know if I was in Monte Carlo or Monaco, although I expect that's a common confusion among those who actually live there.