Peculiar passions

'The fridge has become one of the great centres of human existence. Where do people leave messages for each other? On the fridge door!'

Continuing our occasional series 'People with very unusual jobs indeed'. No 71: The Man Who Runs the World's First Fridge Magnet Museum

"As soon as fridge magnets came on the market, I knew that this was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life," says Philip Rasmussen simply. He is a simple man. He must be, to devote his life to fridge magnets. Or must he?

"Let me rephrase that. It makes me sound too simple. Let me just say that as soon as fridge magnets came on the market, I knew I had found an opening. You are always told that anyone who spots a new trend early enough can make a fortune, and if he can't make a fortune, he can make a collection, and then make a fortune, and it's true. Phone cards passed me by. Then I heard of people making a fortune out of phone-card collections. Ring pulls passed me by. Things stuck to the front of magazines passed me by. Mobile phones passed me by. But I had the wit to step out into the street just as fridge magnets were going to pass me by, and say: 'Wait! I'm coming with you! You are not going without me!' "

So perhaps Philip Rasmussen is not just a simple man. Perhaps he spotted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Perhaps, even, fridge magnets are much more important than we thought they were.

"Oh, God, yes, they're vital!" says Rasmussen. "The fridge has become one of the great centres of human existence. Where do people leave messages for each other? Stuck on the fridge door. Where do students and teenagers have running battles about their share of food and drink? Inside fridges! And which was the first item of kitchen furniture to become an ad hoc art-gallery site? The fridge!"

Art-gallery site?

"Sure. That's where we stick up children's drawings from school. That's where we put up postcards we like. And that is where some genius decided we should stick up magnetised souvenirs. Well, they started as souvenirs. And pretty soon they became craft objects, works of art, games, jigsaw puzzles, music boxes, do-it-yourself poetry – everything!"

But what is the point of opening a museum called Fridge Magnet World?

"It houses the best of the world's fridge magnets, and the best is quite wonderful," says Philip Rasmussen, showing me round his display at his HQ less than 100 miles from London. "Look at this TV-set fridge magnet! It actually works! A tiny TV on a magnet! And this camera here is not just a model! It's a tiny CCTV camera which sits on the fridge door and films what's happening in the kitchen. And this – guess what this is?"

He points to a small white cube that is fixed to the front of a fridge. A large dice?

"No. It is a fridge! A tiny, miniature working fridge on a magnet!"

He opens the front of the white cube. There is a doll's bottle of champagne inside. It is cold. He shuts it again.

"It works on a battery, so I have to change it every day, but that's the price you pay for miniaturisation. And this one I have to change even more often..."

"This one" is a small TV monitor, which is actually showing a flickering picture, though it is hard to make out what it's a picture of. It looks like a film of a tiny puppet.

"It's a fragment of one of Osama bin Laden's little videos. I wonder if he would be flattered to know he is on a fridge magnet? Perhaps not."

All of Philip Rasmussen's captive fridge magnets, large or small, old or new, are on fridges. Where on earth did he get all these fridges from? Wasn't it very expensive?

"Not in the least! Haven't you read all those scare stories about fridge mountains? Piles of unwanted fridges that EU regulations won't let you dispose of? Who could possibly want an old fridge that doesn't work? Me, that's who! I can get as many as I want for free!"

Just then a phone rings. I check to see if it is my mobile. It isn't. It is a tiny nearby red phone box fridge magnet. Rasmussen inserts a finger and thumb and answers it.

"OK, I'm coming," he says, and put it back. "Do you know what our biggest risk is?" he continues. "It's fridge magnets being eaten by children. They put them in their mouth and – boom! They're gone. I've lost three phone boxes like that already. Mark you, I am seriously thinking of writing to Guinness World Records and claiming the record for getting the most telephone boxes inside one person!"

Something tells me this is a joke he has made before. But then, if you could, wouldn't you?