For most of us, when we're having a clear out we'll either dump the stuff at the tip, in a lay-by or flog it at a car boot sale. When you're obscenely rich however, having a clear out is a little bit different. Take Eric Clapton for example. This weekend, he decided to offload an old picture he had hanging around the house. But instead of taking it down to the jumble sale at the church hall, he took it to Sotheby's auction house. As a result, he's now £21.3m better off. Not bad for five minute's work.

Yes, five minutes. That's all it took for the abstract painting by German artist Gerhard Richter to sell to an anonymous phone bidder. I hope it was my wife. It's my birthday next week and I'm quite partial to art, particularly pictures of dogs playing poker. I also like pictures of scantily-clad women riding unicorns but my wife doesn't know about that. I hope.

£21.3m in just five minutes. That's £4.2m a minute or £255m an hour. To put that into context, my hourly rate here at The Daily Slap is...nothing. Working here's actually part of my parole. If I didn't turn up my ankle tag would set off an alarm at Slap towers and the powers that be would release the hounds. And believe me, these hounds won't be playing poker.

In case you're wondering, Eric Clapton's painting wasn't a picture of dogs playing poker. Sotheby's described Abstraktes Bild as a "masterpiece of calculated chaos" and a "paradigm of Gerhard Richter's mature artistic and philosophical achievement." We're not sure what that means but what we do know is that £21.3m is a new record for a piece of work by a living artist. Respect, Gerhard, respect.

As for Clapton's plans on what to do with the windfall, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind Eric and all of our readers that it's my birthday next week and I have a particular penchant for pictures of scantily-clad women riding unicorns. Just sayin'.

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