Features

When it first emerged into the world, I was pretty dismissive of the whole concept. "I'm sorry," I'd tell younger people, "but a bit of sand organising a bunch of ones and noughts can in no way be worth £200." Especially as I already own all the songs I like. And I don't have time to read yet another instruction book.

I was told, of course, that an iPod can store half a billion tunes, but again I scoffed. Why in heaven's name would I need a device which has the capacity to store half a billion songs when The Doobie Brothers have produced only 68?

The thing is, though, it's a cool-looking gadget. So now an iPod has come to my world, and eaten into my life like a... actually, I don't have the time to think of a metaphor because I want to get this column finished; then I can get back to my downloading.

It's a time-consuming business because the choice of songs available on the iTunes website is immense. Have you ever heard of a band called 7 Year Bitch? No? Well, what about A Minor Forest or the Pernice Brothers, or Tokyo Sex Destruction?

You have to wade through an electronic swamp of recordings of teenagers banging bits of garden furniture together to get to the jewels. But they're there. The Babys. Steely Dan. And even Wichita Lineman from the very dead Glen Campbell.

There are so many nuggets, in fact, that I'm running amok, which - when you consider that each song costs 79p - is a frighteningly expensive way of passing the time.