'Coffee with vicar' attracts bids

A Baptist minister has put himself up for auction this Easter weekend to try to reach out to the online generation.

The Reverend Joe Davis has auctioned a "coffee and chat with a vicar" on eBay - money raised will go to charity.

On Sunday, £62 had already been raised by Mr Davis, from church.co.uk, a church website with a "real" base in Waterloo, south London.

He said it was an opportunity for those who find fast-paced city life left little time for spirituality.

I'm going to wait and see who comes along and find out what they want to talk about Joe Davis

Mr Davis, 41, a former Marks and Spencer employee who retrained as a Baptist minister, said the hour-long chat was not about being "preached at".

"I'm going to wait and see who comes along and find out what they want to talk about," he told BBC London.

"We may talk about football, we may talk about cooking, we may talk about running the marathon, which is what I'm doing next Sunday - we may talk about all kinds of things."

The auction, which is raising money for Cancer Research UK, ends on Easter Monday.