Pity if you will the poor eBay vendor who earlier this week revealed rather more than she'd intended when photographing a highly-reflective stainless steel ashtray.

This was not, it turns out, an attempt to inject a bit of spice into the second-hand ashtray market as we suggested...

Hello Lester

Thank you for the article you submitted in today's register, i have to say i was unaware of how detailed my ashtray pic was, after several emails from your readers i took a look at the pic to see what the interest was.

Oh no !!!! i thought upon looking at it, i simply had no idea that my reflection was present in the pic, i genuinely hadn't, i take numerous pics of stuff to list on Ebay and happened to take a batch in the sweltering heat last week whilst wearing my bikini top, i guess the next time i take pics i will need to be more aware of my dress code when photographing reflective items.

Still i am a good sport and found it most amusing, and above all else i guess i've now had my 5 minutes of fame, and as i'm sat here typing this still have a big grin across my face, and thank you for making me smile.

Kind regards Lesley :o)

Lesley is a good sport, too, because when we emailed her back asking - in the interests of serious journalism, naturally - for a couple of snaps to reveal the face behind the, ahem, camera, she kindly sent us the following, to which we've added the original eBay pic:

Good show. For the record, the offending ashtray eventually sold for £5.10. Lesley does, though, currently have a really nice pair of Toby jugs up for grabs, which you can admire here and here. ®