Radio Australia Today Editorial

How to Lose a Shirt

25 February 2008

On the weekend I hosted a charity auction (we radio people do these things from time to time to help out people doing good works).

This auction was in aid of Animals Asia, the agency set up by our guest from Friday, Jill Robinson, who is rescuing Moon Bears from trappers in China.

The auction hall was full of people willing to part with their money. They bought donated items from Elton John, Maradona, Ringo Starr and Robert De Niro. Everybody had a good time and went home poorer.

Including me.

You see, I was wearing my favourite shirt, a dancing shirt with an image of two cats in wedding dresses getting married (I know. I didn’t realise that this was the image. I thought it was a post-modern smudge, until on Chapel St one evening a kid yells out to her mother: “why is that man wearing a photo of two cats getting married?’)

Anyway back to Saturday night. I was talking to the bidders, who were admiring the shirt. In the spirit of charity, I asked if anyone wanted to bid on my shirt. A bid came right away. In the end it sold for $120.

This meant me driving home wearing just a coat. I’m glad I wasn’t pulled over by the police, looking as I did like a flasher.

At least the other punters just went home without their wallets. I went home having lost my shirt. And it was my favourite shirt.

It was all for the bears, so I can’t feel too bad.