There is an English saying that a person was such an evil businessman “they would sell their own grandmother” to get cash. (We always use it in Fudzilla vacancy ads. sub.ed.)

Well now a 10 year-old girl appears to be trying to enter Harvard Business School early by flogging her grannie on Ebay. Zoe Pemberton from southern England put her 61-year-old grandmother up for sale on the auction website with no reserve price, describing her as "rare and annoying and moaning a lot".

Realising she might be killing her sale she added that pensioner Marian Goodall was "very cuddly", loved word searches and enjoyed drinking tea. Permberton managed to get 20 bids for Goodall before eBay noticed the auction did not meet its rules on human trafficking and slavery.

An eBay spokesman said that while no doubt Mrs Goodall would have fetched a princely sum, eBay does not allow the listing of any human being on the site. "Mind you, we were impressed to see a total of 27 bids for the lady in question!"