Harry's Blog

You see them everywhere you go in London, especially on the Tube. I've not been here long enough to do the usual London thing of staring at a fixed point on the floor of the train, I actually look around - often to be met with the aggressive stares of people who clearly think I should know better than to look anywhere other than the floor.

But I'm digressing (nothing new there).

You see the tell-tale white headphones everywhere, the iPod has become the must-have gadget of the noughties. But I don't want one.

Well I do, a bit. But that's because I like fiddling with gadgets, not using them particularly, just fiddling with them. If I was going to get an MP3 player I'd probably go for a Creative one instead of an iPod anyway, because every bugger has an iPod, every Nathan Barley type you see.

I do have a Sharp Zaurus PDA that can hold plenty of MP3 files on it should I wish to listen to music on the move. But for me, taking my entire CD collection and putting into a little box seems really soulless. I love each individual CD as an individual, choosing what to play, putting it into the CD player. And those 12cm disks really are a handy way of keeping music, especially as the sound quality is vastly superior to MP3.

However the real reason I don't want an iPod is that it would probably kill me. Yes kill me. When I listen to music on headphones I get a little paranoid. Firstly that I'm missing out on hearing something and secondly that my breathing is ultra-loud.

Breathing is something you do automatically, but we can control manually. When I get paranoid about my noisy hearing I take control, conscious that I'm making a right racket. So I tend to breath more shallow or even, without realising, hold my breath. And then I feel all out of breath and even more edgy.

So no thanks Apple, no iPod for me.