UPDATE: The auction is now open. You can bid on eBay until 8pm next Sunday. In the meantime you can discuss this auction on the Resonance Forums.

My name is fictional athlete Bobnit Tivol and I’d like to speak to you today on behalf of the Hooting Yard Benevolent Fund For Distressed Out Of Print Pamphleteers.

I don’t know about you, but often, as I go about my day, waiting for a bus, say, or roaming in the hills and getting my socks snagged in a thicket of brambles, or sheltering in a kiosk from a thunderous downpour, I find my thoughts turning to out of print pamphleteers… you know, those poor bewildered wreckages of humanity, snivelling in their rags, covered in pustules and boils and running sores, with whole colonies of flies whirling around their heads, those wretched figures whose pamphlets were once in print.

Now they are reduced to destitution, sprawled hopelessly with their spindly legs dangling in the brackish water of some pond in the middle of a field, watched over by sinister cows, but forgotten by those who once read their printed pamphlets with a mixture of glee, excitement and drooling. They may even have danced to the text of a pamphlet in a seaside disco, out at the end of the pier, before jumping into the sea and flailing around, waterlogged but happy.

Ah… but for the out of print pampleteer such a joyous readership has long since disappeared. And that is where the Hooting Yard Benevolent Fund for Distressed Out Of Print Pamphleteers steps in to help. On this occasion, we are pleased to announce an exciting auction. We have one copy of the exceedingly rare paperback book “Twitching And Shattered”, a 136-page compilation of work by Frank Key originally published as long ago as 1989. Here you will find over a dozen texts, including “By Aerostat To Hooting Yard”, “The Churn In The Muck” and “A Zest For Crumpled Things”, together with many fine illustrations, scribbled drawings, and old photographs, including a big A3 fold out diagram and a piece of real sandpaper.

HOW TO BID: This charity auction will begin at Sunday 21st May, 2006 at 20:00 BST. This will be a 7 day auction. You can place your bid by visiting ebay lot number: 8815045576 .

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