MP3

An MP3 player is a brilliant, sensational device. It’s the size of a matchbox, as light as a small apple and contains five CDs of music. That’s brilliant.

When you think that twenty years ago you all you had was a ‘walkman’, a clunky, chunky cassette player that weighed a ton and had batteries that ran out with all the machinery inside, then you know an MP3 player is pure brilliance. It really is the new 'information age', of greater significance than even all of the hype. For once.

For just £35 you can get the Napa player. You can put on all of your favourite stuff, certainly enough for a one hour walk, just listening to Spirit in the Sky by Doctor and the Medics as you pace up that hill getting ever fitter. Just save your CDs on Windows Media Player and then ‘copy to device’ and away you go. 256 MB of music.

There’s no clumsy machinery inside, no jumping in the song and the batteries last much longer. You can also play Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy by The Tams (among Morrissey’s Top Ten songs from his favourite hits appearance on Radio 2 back in 1985). I first came across this great song from one of those free CDs in the Saturday newspapers - probably the Daily Mirror - a few weeks ago and then found out that the great, enigmatic Morrissey had loved the song years ago. How cool is that?

When you walk along - preferably climbing the Duryard Valley Park - you can do some real, powerful, 'blue sky' thinking, the sort that they discussed the other day on the Jeremy Vine show (Radio 2). Many listeners called in and they discussed things like the constant communication - mobile phones, email, etc. - that is the bane of modern life. You just don't get any time to do any genuine thinking. Well, if you just pound the pavement listening to your favourite music, you can do some real thinking. You can contemplate your next business scheme, or maybe World War Three, which is just around the corner.

As they say on howstuffworks.com, the MP3 player is not even new technology; it just adapts existing PC, compression and audio technology for a new, sensational consumer device. Get one.