I’ve got pretty good feedback

Today I handed over my latest batch of parcels – mismatched shapes and sizes, patched together with brown paper and sellotape. Hand written addresses of strangers around the globe. 

The post office-man handed me my receipt and said ‘Latest eBay sales huh?’ I asked how he knew. ‘Oh you can usually tell,’ he casually remarked.

He could tell what? That I was a cheapskate flogging my old Topshop dresses for a few quid That I was stony broke? That I was not a professional parcel-wrapper?

I decided not to take offence. But for this guy to be so astute, he must have witnessed a whole lot of EBay sellers posting their items. People just like me, turning up with piles of packages. People who were once oblivious to the complex world of customs forms, shipping costs, the 

differences between a parcel and a package, and the veritable merits of proof of postage.

If Ebay has taught me anything, it is that anything can sell. Whereas our incomplete box sets, tatty furniture and old clothes would once have been boxed up in the attic, given away to charity shops or sold for a couple of quid at a boot sale, now we know better. We sell on eBay.

This virtual auction house is a phenomenon. Every day, 10m people in Britain surf more than 3m live listings, hoping to fall in love with treasures that others have outgrown.

3 million live listings. I need to up my game.

So I should get back to it. It’s time to wave goodbye to the Wii fit. What an utter waste of money that was.

I must say, as I photograph my possessions and load them onto the internet superhighway, I am reminded of the Weird Al Ebay song. For anyone who doesn’t know it, you can watch it on Youtube here

I'll buy your nick-nack, Just check my feedback, 'A++' they all say. They love me on eBay.

Soul for sale: Oxfam, Edinburgh

I have been reflecting on my clutter issue. This weekend, as promised, I have begun the clearing out. The black bags are piling up, and my digital camera and I have been busy snapping my unwanted (although mostly wanted) clothes to flog on eBay.

But I feel I am alone in my mess.

My flatmates’ idea of a home is somewhere you live without leaving the slightest impression of human habitation. That's why, before they go to bed every night, they move the scatter cushions half an inch from where they’ve been all day, so that the sofa looks like a derriere has never darkened its door.

My mother is also a tidy woman. You could literally eat off the floor of her kitchen, and if you leave an item of clothing even momentarily unattended it will be washed, ironed and ready to wear afresh before you even have time to ask ‘where did I put my cardigan?’ There are clean surfaces, a place for everything and everything in its place.

As discussed in my last post, Stuff it,I am not like this. Every surface is littered with books, paperwork that needs attending to, junk mail that needs the bin, and dare I confess it, half drunk mugs of tea.

Nothing is in its place because nothing has a place. How do you give something a place? Surely this is a question that should tax the minds of the world's finest philosophers, and yet most people seem to manage it quite naturally. So instead I pick my way through piles of clutter and weave the hoover in and out of the patches of visible floor. Whilst I have always maintained that life is too short, I am beginning to worry that I am leading a perilously inefficient and disorganised life.

From a practical, moral and I suspect bacterial perspective, it is basically wrong to live like this. And so I have begun the Great De-cluttering of 2011.

It is at times like these that I wish I lived in America. Oh to just have a yard sale. Dump all my stuff on the front lawn and sell my wares to the nosy neighbours. A car boot sale is not the same. And besides, I don’t own a car.

So instead the charity shop is benefiting from my great purge. But where does it end? Do I have to give away my bed?

My books will be safe. The dvds may not be so lucky. I’m sure my soul will be shattered as I sell all my dresses to ‘hot-shopper-666’ on eBay. Ah well I'll just tidy that up and put it in a binbag. Coming soon to an Oxfam near you.

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