So, the £250 PC Challenge. To bring you up to speed, while Tim was stuffing my colleagues’ underwear with £20 notes so they could run out and build their PCs, I was left to go cap-in-hand to see if I could build or acquire one for precisely zero pence. Before I explain my progress thus far, I’ll just recap everybody else’s for those who’ve not been following events:

As we speak motor-mouthed deputy editor David Fearon is bringing his unique bartering style to the shops on Tottenham Court Road in an attempt to wangle a £250 PC out of our tight-fisted neighbours.

The boy/beast that is staff-writer Mike Jennings has already assembled his stunted gaming PC and now spends most of his day making it watch eighties action movies in the hope that all this machismo will shame it into a spontaneous upgrade. The technology equivalent of putting hairs on its chest.

Taking inspiration from Gordon Gecko, David Bayon donned a power suit and simply glowered at the Internet until it offered him a cheap PC in exchange for leaving it alone. He’s currently puffing away on a large cigar and shouting “sell sell” at Darien Graham-Smith,  who hasn’t spoken since escaping the blatant falsehoods dwelling in the eighth level of hell that is Ebay. He now wears the look of a man standing in the ash at the end of the world, and we can only assume he’ll come back to us when he’s ready.

All of which leaves myself and the currently non-existent Goodwill PC. If Darien was forced to confront the Inferno, then I guess I’m headed for Paradiso; a journey which will explore just how generous folks are. My first stop was the wonderfully monickered Freecycle, where anybody with free stuff can advertise it to people in their area for collection.

It’s a remarkably brilliant idea and after signing up to five local groups I was determined to fully explore its potential. What’s truly and utterly superb about Freecycle is that you can advertise anything. So, one minute you’ll be scanning an ad for a free 24in television and the next “pregnancy bits and bobs”. Which bits and which bobs are not expanded on, but I chose not to dwell.

Even if that’s not your thing, surely somebody out there wants a pair of “wooden stilts” or a “Canadian Christmas Pine”. You can even post up adverts for things you want, such as “any items for keeping terrapin turtles”. Now, I admit the sheer madness of this place very quickly went to my head, and though I have no idea where I’ll keep the mini bar, I’m sure it’ll fit somewhere.

Anyway, buried in a stack of older posts I stumbled on somebody offering a HP laptop. No spec listed. No details beyond the fact that it’s two or three years old. It’ll do. Beggars can’t be choosers, and they sure as hell can’t play Far Cry 2, so I hit the reply button and then… ran into my first problem. How do you ask for free stuff? What’s the etiquette here?

“Hi there, I saw your advert for the laptop and I ….” how to phrase this… want it, need it, would like it please?

That can’t be it. Years of being smacked on the ear and being told to be polite sent me hurtling deeper into the message. “I could pick it up immediately.” Good touch, nice that, I patted myself on the back. Will he want to know why I want it? Probably. “I’m intent on throwing off the shackles of our capitalistic society and proving you can get something for free, and that good people like yourself are the reason.”

Erm, no. “I need to build a PC for free.. for work..” nope, too weird. “I can’t say why I need your laptop, I just do.” Well put Bond, you moron.

In the end I settled for “Hi there, I saw your advert for the laptop and it sounds perfect for work. I could pick it up immedaitely.”

And yet, it still sounds … so lacking. Surely, a person decent enough to simply give something away deserves more. Where’s the button on my email account that pats him on the back and offers him a biscuit? Which is not to say he sent it to me. At is turns out the other brilliant thing about Freecycle is that the good stuff is awarded to the worthiest cause, which rather undermines my entire work case. Damn, damn and damn.

So I’m back on the boards, searching for more free stuff and desperately trying to bulk out my case without mentioning the real, rather hollow reasoning behind it. We just want to see if it can be done…