iPanic

Not the nicest thing to discover on the way to the market this afternoon: finding out that your personal technology has done a Hal 9000 on you and erased five years of songs from your iPod.

I don't know what was worse. Losing about 24GB of music in one fell swoop or having to listen to my own thoughts for a mile and a half. I would feel suicidal about the matter, but my Red House Painters albums were part of the music that was lost to the electronic aether, and you can't sit in the bath slitting your wrists if you don't have the appropriate soundtrack coming in through your headphones.

I guess I'll have to start all over again. 27GB of free space on the iPod. I had been thinking about changing up the music on there, but I'd been too bare arsed lazy to shake things up despite my constant cursing at the iPod for its insistence on shuffle presenting me with a Guns and Roses album track every third song.

Turn a negative into a positive. Fresh start. Maybe I can dip my toe into uncharted musical waters and finally find out what 1982 looks like. I've always wondered.

One song at a time. I think the first song to be uploaded to the empty iPod will be 'Benny Hill's Wardrobe' by the Bitter Springs. Start as I mean to go on . . . obscure but tuneful.