I woke up this morning with a brilliant idea.

It was a world beater. It was the best idea I'd ever had. It was probably going to revolutionise the future of home entertainment as we knew it, and it was something that would work. After all those years of wondering how I was going to make my fortune, this big idea had splashed into my dream with all the clarity of a message from the angels...

Well, hallelujah! No more worrying about paying the bills for me. No more concerns about putting the kids through college. I could phone the mortgage company and tell them to take us off their books, because the idea I'd woken with this morning was quite probably the best thing since sliced bread.

Except, that it's not. It's actually quite a poor idea. It's the sort of idea that only really makes sense while you're asleep. As soon as you wake up, all the little flaws in the plan start expanding like holes in pastry, and before you know it you're back to the rolling pin and starting again.

But just for a minute. Just for a wonderful moment, I had the world at my feet.

In this dream, I'd been walking past an ambulance. It wasn't one of those state-of-the-art Holby specials, this was one of those things from the sixties that people tend to use as burger vans these days. This ambulance was also filled with rough looking kids. “Give us something to do!” They all shouted “We're bored!”

So what did I do? I pulled three small New Potatoes out of my pocket and threw them into the back of the ambulance. “Learn to juggle!” I shouted back, while they groaned in disappointment.

Now, even in the dream, I had to admit to myself that this hadn't been the greatest success I'd ever had. Not exactly what you'd call my biggest crowd pleaser.

So, still dreaming, I sat on a bench and gave some thought to what I could do to make a disused ambulance full of kids happy.

And that's when this big idea hit me: It would be a board game. A table top game based on kids riding round in an ambulance, visiting all the countries of the world! The board would show an accurate world map, and there would be lines of exit and entrance that the players would have to follow. The ambulance would start in London and would move according to dice rolls.

Each player (kids in the ambulance) would take it in turns to “drive” (IE -roll the dice) and move the ambulance through however many countries the dice rolls let them visit. In each country there would be a unique challenge that the “driver” would have to pass in order to keep control of the dice.

But each player would also have a secret agenda – a card showing their own special country which they would have to try to get the ambulance into. If your card was Nigeria, for example, and the ambulance stopped there, you would win big points and win the round. Then you would take another card, with yet another country on it.

I went back to these kids and ran the idea past them, magically producing the enormous World Map Game Board in a way that you only get away with in your dreams. “Wow.” said one of the girls in delight, “This makes Monopoly look like as much fun as peeling potatoes.”

And I got so excited about my big idea that I woke up. I couldn't believe it! By Jove, I'd got it.... And then I started thinking with my “woken up” brain.

Yet another board game, huh? One in which only one person at a time gets to play? And one in which people take it in turns to move a derelict ambulance around a board for no apparent reason?

I could imagine the executives at Hasbro falling over themselves for that.

Oh well. The dream might have faded but I can still at least remember the feeling of boundless optimism it gave me How it felt to open my eyes this morning and truly believe that I was about to become the big success I'd always dreamed of.

I have to admit though, even though I'm back in reality once more. The girl in the back of the ambulance was right about Monopoly.