33 RPM.

When we were young, my brother and I listened to a lot of music. In those days it was either vinyl or badly recorded tapes made at home. It was the golden age of hi-fi when folk would spend hours discussing the various merits of speaker and amp combinations. They would spend their time gazing out of the window listening to every nuance of every instrument on their equipment which was the size of a side-board. Not my brother and I, we would crank it up and party on down. Our records were used and abused and played to death on our cheap system. None of that prog rock hippy shit for us, we were into punk and ska, new wave and the blues. 

Technology moved on and vinyl went the way of the Ford Cortina and the horse drawn plough. I sold some of my old punk records which I still regret and stashed a box of LPs in the loft. Some of these records I seem to have acquired rather than bought. I'm please to say I definitely don't have Andy's supercharger album so my life is safe for the time being as he threatened to kill the bloke who nicked it. I might have an old friends Led Zeppelin IV though and I think I have one of Paul's Small Faces albums. I used to lend them out quite freely in those days so I have probably lost at least as many as I have gained. The last album I bought on vinyl was Kate Bush The Hounds of Love which was released in 1985, that means my records have not seen the light of day for nigh on twenty years.

Just recently my most excellent brother in law from Hemel dug his expensive Hi Fi out of the loft, refurbished it and spent a lot of money on a new stylus and has re-discovered the superior sound of vinyl went played on a quality system. 
He and his lovely wife invited Dearly Beloved and I round for a drink so I took my treasure chest of musical gems round to join the party. I had forgotten what excellent musical taste I have and what an awesome collection of records I had amassed, although I also saved Dearly Beloved's Wham and 80s Tina Turner record but we won't mention those.

Now as I have already mentioned I saved all my favourite ones, those heroes from my youth that had been played to death and it seems death is the correct word. My old troupers have many wounds in the forms of nicks, scratches and dents. I was like a general surveying his troops after their return from a bitter conflict with Dave ( my Brother in Law)examining them and giving his prognosis like a sympathetic doctor giving bad news, he should have been wearing a white coat. We arrived at the conclusion that my battle weary soldiers were only fit for retirement, sad but noble warriors that they are. We tried to play a couple of the better ones but alas, even those jumped.

The question is what to do with them. I can't bear to throw them out so I will respectfully retire them to the loft like a bunch of Chelsea pensioners to moulder away and wait for their final resting place. I was supposed to go back round Dr Dave's to listen to some more vinyl and quaff obscene quantities of red wine but I had to cancel due to having to fix the floor in the kitchen. Dave messaged back with something like' it comes to something when your laying vinyl instead of playing vinyl.' an excellent comeback I thought which sums up the passing of the years and the heavy burden of responsibility that comes with being an old git. It would have been even funnier if the floor had actually been vinyl instead of wood.

Postscript; regarding last week's post, I have checked with another of my colleagues and she confirms the ghost does exist. It also moves furniture around in their lounge area and she once woke up with scratches on her arm which had drawn blood although her finger nails weren't long enough to have done it to herself... Spooky eh.