THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

Looking for a gift for that someone special in your life? Difficult isn't it. How can you convey the love, adoration and admiration you have for a friend/partner/spouse with exactly the right present? By getting them a pair of pigeon feet of course! When my friend put this up on FB, I knew (yes, knew –more than I’ve ever known anything in my life) that this is what had been missing from my gift-giving repertoire for years.

If only they'd painted his toenails, I'd have doubled my bid

What says ‘I love you mum’ on Mother’s Day more than a pair of gnarled bird feet? And not just any  old bird’s feet – they’re the tiny toes of what’s generally considered to be flying vermin, making them an extra-special keepsake.

How can you tell your other half that they mean the world to you? You could buy them a gold Rolex and a bottle of Shipwrecked 1907 Heidsieck Champagne (at £165,000 a pop. Quite literally). Or, you could present them with this money-can’t-buy pair of feel-good feet. Actually, money can buy them – the starting bid was 99p. They are described as being ‘New’ which, according to eBay, means they are a ‘brand-new, unused, unopened and undamaged item’. I think the pigeon to which they were formerly attached might have something to say about that. He would probably argue that they’d been well used, gripping many a window ledge whilst he shat profusely on members of the public down below. He’d probably also view them as now being slightly damaged – but I like to think he’d be happy that they’ve been so artfully displayed against the backdrop of beige polypropylene carpet.  

If you’re not someone who likes to buy the first pair of pigeon feet you see though, don’t worry. There’s also a pair of feral pigeon feet for sale (I'm not quite sure what makes one pigeon any more wild than the other. Maybe it’s whether he’s dead or alive when his legs are chopped off). There’s also a pair of magpie phalanges for true connoisseurs (one for sorrow, two for joy – although, in this instance, I doubt the magpie in question was that joyful when he lost his second foot).

So, now you’ve seen them, I bet you can’t wait to put in a bid and present them to someone special next birthday.  After all, nothing quite conveys your love more than two tiny, disembodied bird parts.