Any Other Business

Martin Vander Weyer

23 February 2008

In the end, they may have to auction what’s left of Northern Rock on eBay

As far as I could understand them, most of the entrepreneurs were trying to develop internet-based networking engines intended to make a fortune for their inventors while also doing something useful for the world. ‘It’s like Monster meets Facebook for Generation Y,’ enthused the founder of something called www.bravenewenterprises.com; ‘We’re, like, using wikinomics to engage with marginalised young people,’ said a woman whose card I failed to collect before the whistle blew; ‘Do come and have lunch at the Willingdon Club in Mumbai,’ said a charming Indian who must have wandered into the wrong event.

I’m sure the wiki enthusiasts are on to something powerful if only they can harness it, but sometimes the best money-making ideas are the simplest, like this one from the delightful Jasmine Birtles of moneymagpie.com. Every Tuesday morning, she explained in our breathless three-minute encounter, unclaimed lost luggage from British Airways is sold off at Greasby’s auction house in Tooting. There, at rock-bottom prices, you can buy jewellery, ski equipment and suitcases full of underwear, sight unseen — and re-sell them, at a handsome profit if you’re lucky, on eBay. Perhaps, in the end, Alistair Darling’s successor will have to do that with the unwanted baggage of Northern Rock.