OK, we’ve heard a lot and seen even more in our years in the newspaper business, but we’re always amazed at what passes for fashion in the so-called capitals of that field.

In Paris, for example, the major designers presented some runway samples that should make the discerning woman run away rather than make an impractical (and frankly unattractive) purchase.

Christian Dior, for example, calls his latest line “tribal chic” and accessorizes minidresses with puka shells and “models’ hair teased, piled high and molded like African baskets,” according to The Washington Post. The shoes were even better, or worse, depending upon one’s point of view, being “high sandals with animal print platforms and heels carved like totem poles.”

The most amazing part of the whole idea of what passes for fashion (meaning one would pass out before being caught dead in such extremes) is that the Post report waxed rhapsodic over the recent Paris show for around 2,000-plus words.

Way too much ink for way too little useful information.

Auction fever infects us all

Folks who regularly attend auctions won’t be surprised by this item: They know you can buy just about anything. And depending upon your bidding style, you can either spend the grocery money or get the buy of a lifetime. (Sounds a little like the lottery, now that we think about it.)

In Tipton, Ind., Richards’ Auction Gallery had a gory good deal earlier this week: a human skeleton. It wasn’t one of those plastic jobs that are used to decorate around Halloween, but a real person’s real bones.

The skeleton was found when auctioneer Tim Richards was unpacking boxes in preparation for the auction, according to The Associated Press.

The buyer, Jane Harper, paid $500 for the sad remains, said to be that of “a European man who was between 5-foot-3 and 5-foot-5 and died sometime before World War I and was not murdered,” according to the Tipton County Coroner.

Harper won’t be hanging the skeleton at her home on Oct. 31, however.

She’s done the right thing and donated it to the forensics laboratory at the University of Indianapolis for research.

A better solution might have been to simply give those tired old bones a decent burial.

Meanwhile, on eBay, that purveyor of all things weird and wonderful for a price, a Chicago woman bid just $1.75 for an abandoned home in Saginaw, Mich.

The Saginaw News reports that Joanne Smith has no intention of moving to Saginaw; in fact, she’s never even been there.

She’s just one of those auction junkies who can’t help themselves when it comes to clicking on “bid” and following through.

She will try to resell the home, she told reporters, after paying $850 in back taxes and to clean up the property.

Maybe we should try that with some

of the abandoned houses around Anderson.