Kiwi opportunist flogs half-finished grub on auction website

Where once fans were satisfied by their favourite star scribbling enigmatically on a scrap of paper, now they want bodily fluids, DNA samples and even pieces of their potatoes.

When a New Zealand girl saw David Beckham leaving his unfinished dinner on the table at a branch of Nandos in Wellington this week, she swooped. And her loot – a half-eaten corn cob and a bottle of Coke with “some Coke left inside” – is now available to buy on Kiwi auction website Trade Me, along with a single chip the great man is alleged to have dropped in the street.

At the time of writing, the top bid for the chip is a meagre US$4.50, but frenzied interest from the international stalking community has taken the corn cob to US$80.00 and the Coke bottle to a not inconsiderable US$159.00.

While the seller fends off accusations of contamination by assuring prospective buyers that the items are meticulously sealed inside plastic bags, Beckham will probably be hoping the news doesn’t find its way to his generous patrons at Pepsi.