Perhaps an age old question: Does more wealth bring you happiness? The billions who play the lottery world wide certainly think so. I confess, come a roll over - even though my chances are now more remote than ever - I buy into the fantasy and before I know it I'm handing over real money to that horrid company called Camelot. I fall foul to the little voice in my head whispering "someone has to win it".

Studies have been going on to examine whether or not money can make you happy and if so at what level.

When economists were asked to find an answer they concluded that if you have more money then you will have more choice and more choice should mean greater happiness as you can afford more of the finer things in life.

However, Daniel Gilbert a Harvard University psychologist wrote in his book 'Stumbling on Happiness' that "Psychologists have spent decades studying the relation between wealth and happiness and they have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class but that it does little to increase happiness thereafter."

In a global survey, people were asked to describe their level of happiness on a scale of 1 to 7. 1 was "not at all satisfied with my life" and 7 meant "completely satisfied." The average score for the American multimillionaires who filled in the questionnaire was 5.8. The average for the homeless in Calcutta, India was 2.9. However, those who were just above the 'homeless' band, the slum dwellers in Calcutta scored 4.6. Additionally the Greenland natives, the Inuit and from Kenya the Masai who herd cattle, scored around 5.8.

These results confirmed what the psychologists had thought, that happiness increases significantly only when a person is raised out of abject poverty to a reasonable level but does not increase further from there.

Now, if only someone could explain what "happiness" really means. Right, over to the Dalai Lama ................