An Apple a Day............

When I was a kid, there weren't, of course, the amazing toys that children have these days. I had my toy soldiers, my toy guns and a tortoise called Esmerelda. As you can appreciate, I was militarily inclined as a young'un: Esmerelda didn't really come in useful apart from yanking her little tail and lobbing her like a hand grenade but she played her part (albeit briefly). I had a Scalextric and a lovely train set as well but they were occasional fads and these stopped when my Mum informed me that she'd sold them "as I no longer played with them" - bless her!

Maybe because of the dearth of technology (not to mention money) in those days, I am an archetypal "boys toys" candidate and the latest addition to the fold is the new sixth generation 80gb iPod Classic which I bought yesterday. I've never had an iPod so spent a happy time trying to work out exactly what it did and how it did it. This failed miserably so, resisting the urge to read any manuals, I decided to plunge in and import some of my mp3s. It can hold about 20,000 songs or 100 hours of video so I had plenty of scope: the only trouble was, where did I start?

I decided to go for my Terry Pratchett audio books - some 36 of them, and started working my way through them, unRARing and then importing. The problem was that the nice people who allowed me to share these (wink!) weren't exactly tidy in the way they put the files within each audio book. Oh sure, they went in fine and I could play them but the iTunes list was soooooo messy! Different files within a single book titled differently and (horror of horrors!) lots of spelling mistakes. Aesthetically and semantically, my anality genes were up in arms (now, there's a vision to conjure with) so I had no alternative other than to go through and put it all right. By 4am this morning I had those I had "podded" looking all neat and tidy so stumbled off to bed, only to wake again this morning, loins girded, prepared to finish off the rest.

Let me say, at this juncture, I was also indebted to our new Tassimo coffee machine which had provided me with enough caffeine the day before to keep several hundred narcoleptics wide awake (I wonder what's the collective noun for narcoleptics? A kip? A flop?). For those that are looking for a Christmas pressie that makes great coffee and even passable tea, quickly and with the minimum of mess and faffing around, consider a Tassimo. Currently on special in Tesco for under £60 and most worthwhile.

Anyway, where was I before the commercial break? Ah yes........the Pratchetts finished, I played around for a while with video but still can't work out just how to transfer YouTube vids. None of the stuff on Google made a lot of sense so I put it on the back burner and prepared for the main task of music selection.

Oh my gosh, where does one start? I initially thought to put everything on there but then realised I would need several more iPods, given the several hundred CDs we have - not to mention what I have as MP3s. OK, be logical, Graygray: what has priority? I immediately dashed off around the various CD staches in the house and came back precariously balancing 27 Neil Young CDs. I put several on (which is actually dead easy) and then stopped..........will I really listen to them all? The audio books alone will take me some 288 hours to get through therefore should I be selective in the music? I wandered round gazing at the CDs once more. Ooh, that one's got one I really like and this one's got a couple and............aaaaaaargh! Is the rest of my life to be devoted to feeding the insatiable iPod?

I eventually stopped playing and decided to go out and buy some dinner, pleased that I had finally joined the ranks of Podders. Proudly sporting my insignia of the white lead as I wandered the shelves of Scummerfields, and idly noticing that for once, their shelves were actually stocked; albeit with several hundred different makes of Christmas biscuits and several thousand barrels of Twiglets, I stopped every 20 seconds as I changed my mind about the music and chose something else. It was like being in a sweet shop with such a selection to choose from but I finally settled on the latest Kaiser Chiefs album.

Now I don't know about you, but it's very funny watching people listening to personal music. Their mouths occasionally emit a tuneless drone as they subconsciously sing along and, after seeing the feared glances in my direction, I realised I was guilty of the same crime. Strangled groans along the lines of Ruby, Ruby, Rubeeeeeeeeeee were drowning out the musak of the store speakers as I searched desperately for something non-Christmassy to eat. I was also suddenly conscious of bopping around as I stood and gazed catatonically at the mountain of mince pies where real food once existed. I grinned embarrassedly at the onlookers and hid for a while behind some boxes of Easter eggs before finally making my escape.

It's a time-consuming pastime loading an iPod but I'd better stop now - it's time to go explore some more torrents.

Boy's Toys? I love 'em!