It started, like so many things, with a Tweenie: Milo, to be specific. You see, McDonalds, bless 'em, have recently been dishing up a Tweenies figure with each Happy Meal (choose from hamburger, cheeseburger, 3 fish fingers or 4 chicken nuggets). And while the kids had been fortunate enough to get Doodles, Jake, Fizz and Bella, the purple-headed Milo proved elusive. Then a thought struck me: that's just the kind of item sold through ebay, the online auction site.

Sure enough, entering Tweenies into the search box brought up quite a selection, ranging from single characters (around 75p) to a complete unopened set of five (around £3.00). Might be worth a fortune in years to come. Provided you keep them in the wrappers, of course, and above all else don't let the children play with them.

It's a fascinating place to browse, is ebay, like an enormous searchable car boot sale. While I was visiting last week, I typed in the names of a few favourite bands, one of which was Radiohead, probably because they were on the hi-fi at the time. Scanning the list of items for sale, you can quickly see what's attracting any attention from the number of bids. One entry caught my eye, since there were already six bids which had put the price up to £72. This was for a 4-track CD EP called "Drill". Hang on, I thought: I've got that!

Turns out that this CD single I'd bought years ago from the Our Price bargain rack (for a couple of quid) was worth money, since (a) it was Radiohead's first release and (b) only 3000 were produced. I followed the auction, and it closed on Sunday afternoon with three bids in the final ten minutes, giving a final sale price of £133. Bingo!

So, having decided to cash in, I put my own copy up for sale last night on ebay. The auction runs for a week, closing late on Sunday, and to make things more interesting I've not set a reserve price, so it will go to the highest bidder regardless of the amount. Where are we now? Well, bidding opened at £25, and, four bids later, with 5 days 23 hours to go, now stands at £41. I'll be watching with interest and with little dollar signs in my eyes.

Be seeing you!

Ed