Well, Music Zone’s gone, then.
It was hardly the shock of the century to be perfectly honest, but yes, Music Zone has gone. It is no more. It is an ex-shop. As this picture quite clearly shows, the shutters are down…
And, if you look really closely, you can actually read the notice sellotaped to the shutters. Well, OK, you can’t. In fact, from that image, you can’t even work out which shop’s shut down. For the clueless, it’s the one between the two posts.
It’s a shame. I’ve spent loads of money in that store. I don’t think I can think of a reason now why I’d actually visit the town centre for more than 10 minutes.
It was the last of the new record stores, which actually did stock new stuff, as opposed to second hand stuff. Even some of the second had stores have closed down, such as the Rialto Exchange on Raby road. I only really went in there a couple of times, but I did enjoy browsing the CD collection they had, all painstakingly catalogued, and barcoded. Every few months, the owner would print off some catalogues of his stock, and give hem to whoever wanted them. I remember spending almost a full day at JHP, back in 2000, going through it and circling the ones I wanted.
Come to think of it, I can’t think of any good reason why I didn’t go in there more often. It was a little expensive considering the CDs they sold were second hand, and at the time of JHP, etc, I had a girlfriend and was on the dole, so I really couldn’t afford to buy a load.
I did pick up both CD copies I own of Rofo’s theme, from there. In fact if you look really closely, you’ll notice that the first one still has the Rialto sticker on the case.
So, Music Zone has gone. I don’t know whether anything will return in its place. I’m hazarding a guess at “no”. CD sales are plummeting rapidly, and even stores like HMV are struggling for space on a now overcrowded marketplace.
I prefer to buy CD’s than download music. I like to have something I can hold in my hand. I like to be able to feel my purchase, if that doesn’t sound too perverse. Downloadable music stores and stuff like that simply doesn’t do it for me.
Anyway, that’s enough of that. I’m sure that both of my readers will be now nodding off into slumberland, as opposed to plumberland, which I’m prety sure is something quite, quite different. The past three days have been insanely dull, except for the acquisition of the laptop, and the arrival of the 400gb drive
I went to Asda last night again, as usual. You’ll remember in this lunchtime post, that I bought some delicious Asda sausage rolls a week or two ago, and the lass on the checkout commented on how much she loved them. Well, imagine my surprise, when loading my shopping, I realised I’m getting served by the same girl. I was talking to someone I knew while loading up the shopping. She stopped me mid sentence…
“Excuse me…” she said. I looked at her, thinking I’d done something wrong. “… but aren’t these the most gorgeous sausage rolls you’ve ever tasted?”
I nod politely, wondering if I’ve somehow wandered into Groundhog Day somewhere between the bread and the soap powder. It makes me wonder if she said that to everyone who’s ever bought a packet of these. I’m glad that very few other shop assistants comment on what you buy. I don’t think I could bear the embarrasment of thinking of something to say as the girl behind the counter fondles my juicy plums, commenting to the rest of the queue “Oooooh, his are ripe!”
I’ll never forget the time I stared, for about two minutes, at the checkout looking at a box named “Sure”, right next to the mints, thingking “those are expensive for mints! they must be very special”. Indeed, they were very special, as I reached out to grab a packet. They aren’t mints at all, they were condoms. Luckily, I noticed this just in time for me to look rather odd, as I quickly changed my hand position in mid-grab, and picked up a packet of chewing gum instead.
