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Three days left to bid for unique Christmas treats
Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter12.12.08
With less than three days to go in the Evening Standard Christmas charity auction, there are still many "once in a lifetime" experiences to be bought for bargain prices.
More than £115,470 has already been pledged for this year's chosen charity Greenhouse, a London-based project which helps the most disadvantaged children through performing arts and sports programmes.
The highest bid so far is £11,600, for the chance to shop in New York with supermodel Kate Moss and high street tycoon Sir Philip Green to coincide with the opening of the first branch of Topshop in America.
In second place is a £4,500 bid to play table tennis with Michael Sherwood, co-CEO of Goldman Sachs, and the Standard's business editor Chris Blackhurst. This sum will be increased by £4,000 pledged by an anonymous donor to pay for two schoolchildren involved in Greenhouse projects to take part too.
But if those amounts are out of many readers' price range, there are other fantastic lots to bid for at affordable prices - with all the money going to charity.
There are 220 items on offer with bidding closing at noon on Monday. The auction is conducted through internet auction site eBay and the huge variety of lots can be seen at www.standard.co.uk/auction
Great bargains include a champagne reception and dinner evening with England manager Fabio Capello, with two tickets to Arsenal thrown in. Currently the highest bid for that package is just £255.
A box for four at the Hackney Empire to see Mother Goose, the best panto in town, is currently just £82, while a private, pre-Christmas tour of Hamleys with £500 to spend has attracted £410. Bidding is likely to reach a frenzy in the hours before the auction closes, putting this year's sale on course to eclipse last year's total of £180,000.
Greenhouse's founder and CEO Michael de Giorgio said today: "We're delighted with the amount raised so far but there's so much more we can achieve with the support of Evening Standard readers. If you haven't already, please support us now."
