Meet The Online Rag-and-Bone Man

"The High Street is dead. long live the worldwide interweb" is a cry frequently heard from the tech-savvy naysayers who clearly don't know a good Salvation Army or Heart Foundation Charity Shop when they see one. But where else, we ask, will one find those unloved, unwanted and out-of-fashion knick-knacks and (slightly if suspiciously stained) paperbacks which for the price of a Mivvy can make a present to a relative or even a loved one look far more thoughtful and generous than it actually is? The answer may surprise you.

A recent survey of West Dorset residents suggests that more than 9 in every 10 of those polled believes that it is possible to source anything and everything via the worldwide interweb auction site known today as thrubay; whilst a further survey conducted by respected researchers Threadbone Attitudinal Research Associates Ltd suggests that more people shop for c**p on thrubay than any other worldwide interweb auction site.

A typical thrubay page. Here someone styling himself Jimmy Fraud Hasselbank is selling a 78 rpm gramophone record containing Part 1 of George Gershowitz's Rhapsody in Puce [featuring Otis "buddy" Wail]. Claiming it to be a rare item - a frequent digital-era euphemism for "useless" - the cheeky prankster is demanding more than $13 dollars for the shellac artefact which would probably struggle to reach 5 bob on a white elephant stall.

The brainchild of Chilfrome e-entrepreneur Letts Avayardsale, thrubay was originally launched as sell_your_unwanted_crap_here.com, but took off properly only after being purchased in 2016 by the Threadbone Corporation's digital arm - Threadbonedigital - and acquiring a new name and a rebrand in the process. Since then, thrubay has become the digital portal / market place of choice de notre jour - particularly for fences, rogue traders and land-full site off-loaders - turning over more than a thousand pounds worth of unwanted goods each month and shifting more c**p than the Morcambe Bay [North West Lancashire] effluent pipeline ["the M25 of effluent pipelines", Effluent Pipeline Monthly].

Obsessive hoarder and completist Mustafa Fullsette surrounded by his purchases. Never before in the field of human recycling has so much been bought from so many by so few.

Obsessive collector and "completist" Mustafa Fullsette says that his life as an obsessive collector and "completist" has been transformed since the arrival of thrubay. "When I was restricted to what I could find in charity shops, market stalls, church bazaars and bring and buy (or in my case buy and buy) sales, I could only fill two or three rooms to the gunwales. Now with the amazing facilities offered by thrubay I can source undreamed of trash from anywhere in the world. Now every single room is full, as is the loft, the garage and the garden I even have stuff lodged in my back passage which, I am told, is a health hazard and hospital visit waiting to happen". "I am hoping to be on telly soon", he continues, "you know that one about people with houses that need fumigating by the council because the giant rats have moved in? Well mine are size of polar bears".

At the time of going to press, no one from thrubay was available for comment.