Christmas Day In Private Castle? Starts at $30k

Sounds grand.

Sole access to Warwick Castle on the one day it is closed to the public - December 25 - is being auctioned on eBay.

Bids start at the suitably princely sum of £25,000.

The winning bidder will be the first to celebrate Christmas at the castle since the Earl of Warwick sold the property in 1978.

The buyer and up to 30 guests will begin their day with a champagne breakfast in the library, before opening presents around a 25ft tree in the Great Hall.

Later they will sit down to a seven-course meal and enjoy board games in the Music Room – once a favourite haunt of Winston Churchill.

The day will end with a private firework show and a visit from Father Christmas, before guests are chauffeured off to stay at a nearby luxury hotel, also available to them on Christmas Eve.

(snip)

Aside from the attractions of feasting in splendour, the package holds less immediately obvious advantages.

One eBay user asked: "My mother-in-law always spends Christmas with us. We do not particular (sic) get on. Will the dungeon be open so she could have a room to herself for the day?"

The answer came back: "Yes, the dungeon will be available for your mother-in-law. We also have a gaol and bear pit if that is of use."

Talk of Barbour-Daniels for Top Ticket in 2012

Talk about the most untelligenic, white bread BORING ticket imaginable! Hope it happens.

For a second week, a GOP sex scandal has helped an aspiring 2012 presidential candidate. This time, it's Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who takes over the Republican Governors Association from South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who admitted, in detail, his affair with a woman in Argentina.

Barbour is somebody to watch, say his Republican allies. He served as head of the Republican National Committee under Ronald Reagan, was a successful lobbyist, and then won praise for his Hurricane Katrina cleanup despite the Bush administration's bumbling efforts there. He's dismissing the talk, for now, as he focuses on helping Republicans win election to the House and Senate in 2010.

But that hasn't stopped the buzz in Washington, where we're already hearing of a 2012 ticket teaming Barbour with another two-term governor, Indiana's Mitch Daniels. He was a White House political director under Reagan and served as George W. Bush's first budget chief. Like Barbour, he's popular in his state, though quick to reject talk of his political future while still in office.