Selling tat on eBay vs Babies with jewellery

GOOD THING: SELLING TAT ON EBAY

I love having a clear-out at home, and chucking things out at random, but it's even more satisfying when you can flog these same pieces of tat to strangers. It's amazing how one person's trash can be another one's treasured item - and I should know, because I've bought plenty of crap from eBay too. I was amazed when my CD of TV & film themes became a hotly contested item and eventually sold for £11.50 - it probably cost less than that when I got it for Christmas in my teens. One of the endlessly fascinating things about being part of the Great eBay Community is the far-flung places you end up sending your possessions to - in just a week, I've sent a pencil case to New York and a CD to Florence. And the best thing about it is that you're clearing the space in your house...in order to welcome a whole new selection of rubbish.

BAD THING: BABIES WITH JEWELLERY

Babies are lovely little things with soft heads and squidgy arms - but why does anyone want to make them wear jewellery?! Fair enough, in some cultures it is a tradition that represents something, but in the west - including Britain - that excuse doesn't exist. There's something fundamentally wrong about babies and toddlers decked out in earrings, bracelets and necklaces, particularly as the jewellery is always so tacky-looking. It is almost always gold, and looks as though it was bought from Elizabeth Duke at Argos; its amazing that these poor infants don't find their various body parts turning green. The jewellery usually matches that of the baby's mother who obviously doesn't care that their child might accidentally rip an earring through its tiny, marshmallowy lobes ("Eee, doesn't the bairn look cute?") The whole thing is unspeakably tasteless, and their parents should at least wait until the child is old enough to choose its own cut-price jewellery at Claire's Accessories. ..