I was walking through the park the other day, the one where the homeless people like to hang out. The non-aggressive, pre-buzz homeless. The homeless people who are drinking Special Bru at 9.30am, happy and merry...still drinking Special at 9.30pm they are aggressive and argumentative, punchy and rapey. At 9.30am they tip their hat and bid you good day, at 9.30pm they tip their sh*t-filled Tesco bags into bushes. At this particular 9.30am park, the Don of the homeless, one with a possession, was sunning himself on the park bench, tipping his hat to anyone who has the time of day to spare. This particular possession was what (when we were kids) was called a "tape deck". It's a three foot long, foot deep plastic enclosure that swallows C90s and spits out music from built-in speakers via the magic of magnetic tape. So proud was this man of his possession. His tape deck.

Meanwhile in town, navigating between the Primarks, the TK-Maxs, the Boots, the HMVs, kids are holding inch long devices that rape music and mangle beats...they spray overly-compacted detritus through tinny, 3mm speakers that remove as much from the music as possible before spraying the useless remains in your face. Kids, is this what you think music is? What it sounds like? Please...go to the park at 9.30am, listen to the bum, listen to his tapes. Listen to his boom box.