The Rich lists: Who really cares?

After a full week at work, the average UK citizen can expect to be paid £420 before tax.

That's the average wage, according to an Incomes Data Services estimate for April 2000. By definition it's some way above the £3.60 minimum hourly wage.

When the workers have finished their labours, they can spend the weekend reading lists of names of rich people.

Reading the papers this week, you can't move for such lists. The Observer and Mail on Sunday have already run their own and there is more to come with the publication next week of the Sunday Times's Rich List, which is now in its 12th year.

Many of the new entries are the young entrepreneurs who have made their fortune - at least on paper - from the internet.

The boss of Virtual Internet, a domain name registration company, Jason Drummond is typical of many of the entries. Just 30 years old, he started his company four years ago. One paper estimates his worth at £80m, another at £123m.

But the good times are not restricted to the digerati. Fourteen-year-old singer Charlotte Church is, apparently, worth £10m.

It has been reported that when it publishes its Rich List, the Sunday Times adds 120,000 copies to its circulation - some proof at least that it's not just journalists who are interested in tales of rich folk.

But does this rash of riches reveal anything about the society that has spawned them?

Charlotte Church, reportedly worth £10m

One simple possibility, says psychologist Andrew Evans, author of Fame: The Psychology of Stardom , is it reveals just how many rich people there are nowadays.

"There are several streets in London you could walk down, and everyone who lives there is a millionaire," he says.

But there have been rich people all through history, and rather than revealing a public fascination with richness he thinks it more likely that it shows an appetite for lists.

"I bet if you produced a list of the 50 poorest pop stars it would be very popular. It's the extremes we're interested in."

Perhaps it says something else, though, wonders Dr John Street of the University of East Anglia's school of economic and social studies.

"In a way these lists have replaced the traditional methods of people knowing their place in society. The older expectations and structures created credible hierarchies."

So it could be argued the rich lists create a kind of new aristocracy. Where once loyal subjects would doff their caps and defer to their "betters", there are now a lot of twentysomethings to look up to.

Should anyone get too excited by the idea of riches, the spectre of Viv Nicholson should stand tall.

Viv found fame and fortune when she won the pools in 1961 with the then astronomical figure of £152,000. She was true to her pledge, and managed to "spend, spend, spend", eventually ending up back in poverty. She hit the bottle and was declared bankrupt.

Barbara Dickson plays Viv Nicholson in Spend, Spend Spend

A musical based on her autobiography, Spend, Spend Spend, is currently showing in the West End. Viv has received no fee for the musical but should it be a big success she could get rich again on the royalties.

It was nice to be rich, she told E-cyclopedia, and she hoped the musical brought her wealth once again. No Cadillac for her now - she is still driving round in a 13-year-old Fiesta.

Yet in spite of everything, riches have one flaw.

"The only thing you can do with money is spend it. It can't give you health; it can't give you happiness. If you're not used to it, it leaves a hole," she says.

When she was in her spending days, she dreamt of the time she had been poor. "I'd had lots more happiness then. I had friends, brothers, sisters, a mama and a papa."

And should fortune find its way to Viv again, she knows she wouldn't repeat her former extremes.

But there is one thing she would do. She'd go and buy some shoes.

"I'm a sucker for spending," she said.

The E-cyclopedia can be contacted at [e-mail]