Before I got distracted by the shocking news that a singer in a multi-million selling rock band has taken some drugs, I was intending on posting this…

Yesterday I went into Virgin Megastore Exeter, picked up Idlewild by Outkast, noted its hideous lenticular cover, and decided outright there and then that I wasn�t going to waste �9.99 of my money on this crap.

Does this mean that I�ve failed in my capacity as a reviewer? Three years on I can count on the fingers of both hands the tracks that I�d still be pleased to hear from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. I can�t remember the last time I listened to Aquemini even though, if you asked me, I�d say it was great. Ditto Stankonia. Ditto a dozen� no, a hundred� no, a THOUSAND other records sitting in my stacks.

I�m stockpiling records on the off-chance that I might want to listen to them at some point in the future. If I take out a small moment of my precious, time-is-money time, and actually think about what this means� I�m spending money for pleasure that I�m never being pleased by. On a very basic level, this is insane. Insane like smoking when you know it kills you and makes you stink is insane, like getting the same newspaper every day when all you do is whinge about it is insane, like tailgaiting someone who cut you up is insane.

I�ve gotta start exercising some discretion. Does anybody want to buy a load of secondhand CDs?