Ryde - Isle of Wight - Trinity Street resident Starvin Moondust, a former hippy and hangover from the IOW festival decades ago when Hendrix was still strutting his stuff, has decided to assist the island's ailing economy by opening a museum of technology in his specially extended garden shed.
Moondust - who has claimed incapacity benefit since 1972 on the grounds of misaligned shinbones, Roofarian's Disease, and chronic waffler's block, said that he felt it was high time he started doing his bit to pull the island out of recession by its bootstraps and prove once and for all to the Con-Dem Coalition government that the island is a force to be reckoned with.
To this end, The Ryde Museum Of Technology (admission £1) will open its garden shed doors next Tuesday.
Moondust freely admits that the museum possesses only a limited number of technological artefacts, but explained that he he hopes to add to the museum's collection as it gains in popularity.
So far, the museum boasts a Rolf Harris Stylophone, a Sinclair Spectrum computer, a Commodore 64, a 1970's digital watch, a Casio pocket calculator, a Major Morgan music maker, an interactive Sega Sonic The Hedgehog console (boxed with game cartridge) a Sanyo Betamax video recorder, an original Sky remote control handset, a 1982 model mobile phone with charger - the approximate size and weight of a breeze block, a signed photograph of Wincey Willis and Anne Diamond together, an 8 track cartridge of Demis Roussos Greatest Hits and a Commodore Amiga 500 computer complete with VGA monitor.
"I just wanted to give something back, after living on benefits all these years," Moondust told our man. "Life isn't easy when you've lived with misaligned shinbones, Roofarian's Disease*, and Waffler's Block. So I cleared the loft out. People will want to see this stuff. It's a bargain at a pound a pop for the folks to come and have a look at. I expect it'll bring back happy memories of all the junk the people have binned over the years without ever giving it a second thought."
More as we get it.
*Editor's note - Roofarian's Disease is a condition usually suffered by felons who steal lead off church roofs. It occurs when the lead permeates the footwear and starts to turn the feet black. The first reliably reported incidences of the condition occurred in the North West of England in the 1930's in the Manchester and Liverpool areas. Recent incidences have affected rooftop protesters in Victorian era prisons in the North West and the West Midlands.
