wasted

Nowadays, I very rarely pay for the films I like to watch, the telly programmes that make me laugh and, most importantly, the music I groove along to.

I appreciate that the artists involved in all of our entertainment have a living to make, and some need it more than others. But I'm sorry, I've spent thousands of pounds of the last thirty odd years buying records, tapes, CDs, videos, DVDs, etc and I simply refuse to offer the industry any more of my hard earned cash.

For instance, and this is the obvious one, I bought Beatles albums when I was ten. They were perfectly playable, serviceable and the music they provided made me very happy, inspired and fulfilled. In 1987, the Beatles catalogue went onto the digital format for the first time in the form of CDs. Again, I bought most of them because I now had a CD player and I was under the impression that the sound quality - coupled with my improved sound system - surpassed crackly, jumpy, old analogue vinyl. And, I guess, in a lot of ways they did.

In 2009, the Beatles did it again - this time remastering all their old albums for a second time claiming a better audio experience than before. I thought, "haha, you can sod off!" and downloaded them illegally to listen to what all the fuss was about. And the truth, for an audiophile like me, was nothing seemed any different. In fact, there were still the same sequencing mistakes on some tracks from the 1987 reissues.

Like some people, I've come full-circle and gone back to the original vinyl, and I beat myself with an imaginary large bat for the money I've wasted. Some lessons take longer to learn than others.