Publicity kicked off last month for the auction of Freddie Mercury’s possessions: furniture, art and trinkets go under the hammer in September, plus handwritten lyrics, stage props and a waistcoat decorated with portraits of his cats. It might even top last year’s Joan Didion auction, at which literary groupies outbid each other for the cult writer’s stained napkins and novelty aprons: people paid $11,000 a piece for unused blank notebooks.
If your curiosity is piqued, but you don’t have Tiffany moustache comb money (another Mercury lot), can I recommend seeking out a civilian version? I’m an auction addict. It’s my husband’s fault: he discovered our local auction house – a paradise of outdated agricultural machinery, brown furniture and bargain white goods (he equipped our kitchen for next to nothing) – and has infected me. Only yesterday, I spent 40 blissful minutes scrolling through toby jugs, horse brasses, lawnmowers and a puzzling number of signed photos of Rex Harrison.
