What the Fuck Do You Mean, No Songs Found!

For a couple of weeks I had known that last week was going to be a bit full on and had therefore prepared myself for it (I was being handed over a load of work from a colleague who is leaving the company). Not only would I be spending two days away I would also be having some extremely long days.

Monday went ok, a late one and most of it spent in a cupboard with no natural light but not too bad considering.

Tuesday however got off to a bad start. I was travelling to Aberdeen and set off later than I expected which I hate doing and had to make up some time along the way which is not the easiest thing to do when travelling on the A90, 17 speed cameras between Dundee and the Granite City and also unmarked traffic polis. It would have been fine but when Today finished on Radio 4 as usual I hit play on the Touch but nothing happened. WTF? So I found the nearest layby,  stopped and checked the player, touched the music icon to be confronted with nothing,  not a single solitary song.  Immediately I broke into a cold sweat, away from home for two days and absolutely no music, no cds in the car as not needed what with the ipod. A scenario too scary to be able comprehend fully.

The following hour and fifteen minutes was sheer torture as I had to endure the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, something I have managed to avoid since 2004 when , briefly I car shared with someone who actually found Chris (why play music when you can hear me talking pish about me) Moyles, amusing. Those mornings were excruciating. There was some solace in the fact that last Tuesday I didn't have to listen to "The Saviour of Radio One", not much granted but some.

Anyway I survived the journey and spent the next two days somewhat distracted wondering,  firstly why was there no music on my iPod and secondly would it load up when I got home or was it goosed?

I arrived home on Wednesday night and before even greeting L and the boys, who really weren't that interested in my return anyway, I rushed up the stairs got into my office booted up the computer and connected the iPod. After going down and saying hello I went back up and to my relief found the mp3 player successfully syncing with iTunes. Thank god I said to myself.

So, on Thursday I headed off to Glasgow with renewed vigour safe in the knowledge that I had a fully functioning music player, or so I thought.

After arriving at my destination,  getting my laptop connected and in possession of all of the notes needed to do a serious day's monitoring, I selected songs then shuffle,  put on my headphones and settled down to work.

This can't be happening as I fidgeted with the jack plug connected to the top of the player trying to get the sound to come out of both headphones but unfortunately it was true the headphone connection was shagged. But I only got this repaired a couple of months ago!

I was straight on the email to the iPod Surgery, who to be fair couldn't have been more helpful, the repair was still within warranty and they would send out the Special Delivery packaging straight away and so when I got home on Friday I found a package from them which was duly filled with the faulty Touch and dispatched back to them first thing Saturday morning.

And now I come to the point of this ramble.

Over the weekend I was reflecting upon how it has come to this, that I felt that there was an essential part of my being missing,  a feeling which I suspect will not abate until I have my mp3 player back in my possesion. Back in the day I would never have felt like this about my Walkman, in fact frequently I was without it due to the batteries running out and when my red Sony one finally bit the dust I didn't replace it for a good 18 months until I could afford a decent portable cd player which ate batteries and therefore didn't get out much. It is quite scary on how dependent I have become in being able to shut out the the rest of humanity and live in my own wee bubble, scary but not that scary that I am going to give it up any time soon. I have already put contingencies in place, in that as soon as my touch is returned my old 80gb will be dispatched for surgery so that if I ever end up music less in the future I will have a backup.

It is a rather sad and pathetic state of affairs becoming so reliant on a piece of technology. But not something I am willing to contemplate weaning myself of off in the foreseeable future.

The Fall - Lost In Music (sorry Ctel, twice in the space of less than a week)