On Friday, September 2, some extremely weird items were offered up for auction for charity on eBay. There was a mechanical parrot in a tree, famed for spreading gossip, a malevolent chest of drawers and a terrifying robot which scrawls predictions in bad verse.
The unique memorabilia items were being offered by The Red Cross and were sourced from the UK version of TV series Big Brother. We'd considered the value of its memorabilia on our blog before the latest series started.
| You can watch Bob Righter in this video, eight minutes in |
However, it seemed for most of the auction as though none of them were of must interest to the public, in contrast to the significant sums paid for memorabilia from the early series. It looked unlikely that any of them would reach £500 - but then there was a surprise.
In the final two hours of bidding Bob Righter, the creepy prediction robot, surged from a big of £500 in a frenetic bidding war all the way up to £4,700, presenting the Red Cross with a somewhat sweeter conclusion than they might have been expecting.
Bob Righter (the name being an anagram of 'Big Brother') would spark into life at intervals with its eyes flashing, and scribble prophesies in rhyme, such as:
"Ben's stand up challenge has come to end,
too bad for him he revealed Bob Righter's friend.
For tomorrow Ben will have a revelation
and feel the wrath of the Tree of Temptation..."
 Informative, but not chatty: Bob Righter of Big Brother |
It's been reported that two ex-housemates were involved in this final push: Nick Bateman from the first series and Mario Mugan from the 2010 edition.
The price is more impressive given that the Bob Righter puppet is partly broken, with its moving jaw horribly dislocated.
Barry Armstrong, the British Red Cross Disaster Response Manager, said: "We are very grateful to Channel 4 for donating these unique props to the British Red Cross.
"The money we have raised will help us respond quickly and effectively to disasters like the current famine in East Africa.
"Already this year the Disaster Fund has enabled us to provide millions of pounds of aid in the immediate aftermath of humanitarian crises."
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