You are bidding on this Cold War nuclear bunker, complete with panoramic view over the Derbyshire Dales as well as desk, chair, siren box, enamel bucket, rope for hauling heavy items up the shaft, sump grill and sump pump, cupboard with some domestic items. Access is via a metal hatch and 15ft ladder, which lead to two rooms: one for the chemical toilet. The other is a 15 ft x 7½ ft room formerly intended to be used as a monitoring post in the event of a nuclear attack. Best of all, there is no Council Tax to pay on this property.

In all seriousness, this is a wonderful bit of history. The bunker was opened in 1959, and was fully operational until 1991, run by three personnel working in shifts. It comes with a small piece of land and its own stile for access. I can’t imagine who’ll buy it or what they’ll do with it – the seller suggests “limited living accommodation for short periods or adventure holidays” – but if the eventual winner is reading, please do get in touch!

The BBC estimates it could go for £25,000, but with seven days left, bidding is already up to £17,389, so I’d guess this could go a lot higher.

Titled Zepped, the film shows German airships flying over England and contains outtakes from three movies that Chaplin shot with film company Essanay before 1914. An Egyptian certification dates the film to December 1916. Chaplin biographer David Robinson estimated its value to be anything between £3,000 and £40,000.

Hat-tip to Wikimedia Commons for the pic.

Reuters reports that Palin merchandise is rife on eBay, with sellers offering everything from Palin Barbie dolls and action figures, to Palin thong underwear. Sarah Palin items on eBay.com outnumber those of her Democratic opponent Joe Biden almost six to one. But Barack Obama remains top of the eBay polls, with more than 4000 items listed, to John McCain‘s 1600.

On eBay UK, a “Collectible Cigar Humidor” has bids up to £150, and you can pick up any number of cubes extolling the Lehman Bros. corporate virtues of “demonstrating smart risk management” and “maximizing shareholder value”.

I wonder if anyone would bid on my Halifax cheque book?

Doug’s been researching photography for sale on eBay. He says “the search results returned a variety of items for sale – mostly pictures of celebrities, nature, and vintage images. I was actually surprised at how few dirty pictures showed up in the search results,” and swears he never clicked on anything naughty. But the next time he went back to browse eBay, here’s what greeted him:

As Doug says, what’s his wife to think?

A search for photo prints doesn’t show up any great number of naked lady gallery pictures. Searching for “photograph”, in the other hand, turns up a fair few “fine art nudes” and some frankly pornographic ones (is anyone policing this?!). But there are plenty of other photographs on eBay.com too: why show Doug this particular selection? I can only assume that this is an unintended result of Best Match: eBay are perhaps suggesting the most clicked-on items within the categories you’ve been searching – so now we know what eBayers are looking at

Neither the high bidder nor the four or five highest underbidders have stumped up the cash to buy the life in Perth, Australia, though Mr Usher remains sanguine: “It is a bit of a shame, but never mind.” He is now selling his house through a conventional estate agent.

For the £185,000 price tag, you’ll get a brand new stereo “as the USA Army … stole the stereos from most cars” they found in the basement of Saddam’s former palace. Steven Brown, owner of the car dealership Autocontinental, told reporters that the car was bought at an Iraqi government auction by an Iraqi friend who’s resident in the UK, along with eleven other cars from Saddam’s collection, including “one Maybach new with solid 24 carat gold fittings specially made for him but not delivered … car was only ready for him two days before he left Baghdad in a hurry”.

And apparently, amongst interested buyers is an American colonel who wants to put SADDAM numberplates on the car. Talk about asking for trouble.

The vote was listed with an opening bid of $10, but failed to attract even a single bidder. The listing has subsequently been pulled by eBay.

Truth be told, I’m not really surprised this has ended like this. It seems that someone has got a nice house in Perth for a bargain price, and a few cool toys thrown in for free. Lots on eBay are the lazy seller’s way of getting rid of a bunch of stuff quickly, but you’ll almost always realise more cash if you sell things seperately. Besides, even Ian Usher doesn’t want Ian Usher’s life, so why would any sane buyer want to buy it?

44 year old Ian Usher is selling literally everything after a split with his wife. His house, car, job, motorcycle, jetski and ‘lifestyle’ are all up for sale; he will walk awaywith only the clothes he’s wearing, his wallet and passport, and intends to create a new life with the proceeds of his auction.

Usher’s auction was one of the best pre-publicised I’ve ever seen, so it’s unsurprising that bidding got off to a brisk start. It’s also perhaps inevitable that some less than genuine bidders took an interest in such a high-profile auction. Bids of up to AU$1.85million were cancelled, and the high bid is back down to just AU$390,500, which Usher told reporters is “not even 75% of the value of the house”.

There are three days left to go on the auction which now has pre-approved bidding only.