I inherited 16 billion pounds today and I’m looking for suggestions on how to spend it. Maybe I’ll invest in a nuclear plant at this place called Hinkley C. Not sure what the C stands for. Cancer? Can anyone out there help me? Here’s what my advisers have come up with so far.

This is a fail-safe design. I’ll buy that, pardon the pun. Some of the best minds in the world have been working on improving design and safety features for decades. Two plants of this design generation are under construction, in Finland and France. They are both currently having problems keeping to budget. They were budgeted at around only 3.5 billion each (and that’s Euros, mind you, while my inheritance is in pounds sterling). Both these plants are expected to be completed between 2014 and 2016.

On second thoughts, I remember what my grandmother told me. Son, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. So maybe I’ll think it over and won’t sign the contract just yet. In the meantime, I’ll go and tilt at a few windmills. I’ve heard they’ve come a long way since Don Quixote’s day!

Spare a thought for the words of renowned Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami after Fukushima. “This time no one dropped a bomb on us … We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives.”