Safar-e-bay - Same game, New name

The starting point today is this film print which was noted on an archive television message board.

It is a single episode of a BBC soap called "The Newcomers", the seller doesn't know any more about it and simply lists the generic cast for the show's lengthy run. The buyer was obviously a collector of rare TV tat as he thought nothing of paying even more for the following.

The lot is described as "Massive Southern TV ITV Archives" although nowhere in my dictionary are five video cassettes containing seven random Southern TV programmes defined as "massive". They must've been pretty special shows to justify paying that much for them. Let's have a look...

1. Now For Nookie (Nookie Bear with guests Pat Coombs & Anita Harris)

I think I've seen enough.

The seller of the above "massive archive" specialises in selling such material to serious collectors. People for whom it is the ownership of something rare that counts rather than purchasing something that anyone would want to see. That is the only explanation for anyone paying £80 for three episodes of "How" with Fred Dinage and Bunty James.

The episodes come complete with "VT Clocks and idents" which I would mock at length were my shelves not packed with Doctor Who DVDs which include the same things as extra features.

The seller of these archive gems isn't only interested in archive gems. Oh no. They are a refined and cultured individual who seeks to beautify those parts of his home not occupied by rare Fred Dinange footage with objets d'art such as this...

Yes - they paid the devil's own price for "A nice old Souvenir China Bowl with pink lustre band, and transfer print of Swansea Hospital". Nothing says fine art like a dish with a Welsh hospital on it.

Rich from having sold the above, the seller decided to buy the following item.

You have to admire someone willing to risk nearly one and a half pounds on something that the seller describes thusly - "Not too sure what all of these are, 61 items in total, alot are made of brass."

Mr Descriptive Seller continued his vagueness when describing the next lot as "Guinness Stuff". Luckily for him he was about to meet his perfect buyer.

And boy does "i_like_guinness" mean what he says. Browsing his list of purchased items we find the following -

A Guinness biro

A Nokia 3510 Guinness Pint Embossed Facia

Five sets of Guinness darts flights

A Guinness bar runner

A "Guinness widget"

A Guinness Christmas stocking

A Guinness pen ("Please note that although this pen is unused it contains no ink")

Indeed there is only one item on his entire feedback list which isn't Guinness related and it is to that we head.

For those that don't know, Gmail is Google's new email service. It isn't available yet except by receiving an invitation from an existing user. This singularly brilliant marketing stratagem latched on to the idea that people want things that they cannot have. A free launch wouldn't have attracted much attention. Tell people they can have it for nothing and they don't want it. Let black market spivs sell it and people flock to it like lemmings. This honest seller has a feedback tray bursting with people who have bought one, two or even ten Gmail invites from him and, ebay fees aside, it is all pure profit. Sadly, this is where the trail runs dry for this is a seller who specialises in the synergistic relationship between Google's desire to have a worldwide advertising campaign which costs them nothing and his own desire to make lots and lots of money. But he obviously does it well as his feedback is glowing. Except for the following which is so obviously from some one who so desperately wants to sound hard and fails.

“it's all good in my hood. Dis dude's fo real!!! no doubt!! he straight up”

By "hood" I assume he means "bedroom".