OK, sweetie, here's the brief. We've got a humble little scratch card and we want to get it splashed across the newspapers. So let's get a celebrity, someone everyone knows from the telly. What about that blonde from The New Avengers? What's her name?
It was difficult to take it seriously. Yesterday's launch in Dublin of the National Lottery's latest scratch card and game show could have been a script for Absolutely Fabulous - the TV show that gave Joanna Lumley the chance to prove she can do comedy.
This episode would have ended with Joanna in a corner, beehive in bits, mascara in ruins, surrounded by empty Bollinger bottles and fag ends, scratching frantically through a pile of lottery tickets. But Joanna Lumley was not going to be Patsy (her Abfab alter ego) however much everyone wanted her to be.
The National Lottery PR organisers have never had such a speedy response to an invitation as they did to the one with Ms Lumley's name on. Men who haven't been to a Lottery lunch in years turned out to rub shoulders with the woman who reaches "the big five oh" this year. They were not disappointed.
She stepped from a stretch Mercedes, smile first, apologising to the gaggle of press photographers for keeping them waiting. Inside the restaurant in Portobello off duty models sipped champagne. Ms Lumley took off a red coat to brave the stiff wind whipping off the canal.
Marty Whelan, who will present the TV show, Fame and Fortune and National Lottery director, Ray Bates, stood with the celebrity. "This is us discussing the fees," Marty chirped. "The one smiling the most is doing the best."
So Joanna, with a glass of champagne in her right hand, a large scratch card in the other, leaned over a 1930s Rolls Royce Sunbeam. She posed and pouted for the cameras, waved and smiled at irate drivers held up by the fuss. All in a day's work for an old pro, whose autobiography is called Stare Back and Smile.
At one point she swapped champagne glass and scratch card from one hand to the other for a bit of variety. "Versatile as well," chortled one of the Lottery lads. Only 20 minutes in her presence had brought out the lad in all the men in suits.
Joanna Lumley typified fame and fortune, Ray Bates said. That was why the National Lottery chose her to do the honours. The cards are already on sale and the TV show hits the screen on June 7th. As for Ms Lumley's fee for the day? Could he give us any clues?
Absolutely not. "Let's just say it was the going market rate."
